Decision making
This morning, May 5, 2016, on page B4 of the Wall Street Journal the mention of Wharton School in an article entitled Wharton School Pushes Analytics by Lindsay Gellman caught my attention. The author reports:
“Wharton is expanding its offerings in business analytics, the application of data science to business problems, as more firms seek to make sense of the large troves of data they collect.”
When I subsequently googled business analytics I got a number of hits telling me that this is a subject which is of interest to the esteemed and respected graduates of Wharton, many of whom will undoubtedly become the business leaders of tomorrow.
No matter how old I get or how much I read, I am daily confronted with terms or phrases whose meaning is confusing to me despite my understanding of the individual words. Business analytics is such a term. I think I know what the word business means. I have been a small business owner for many years. I also know many others who have created and run very successful businesses. I also understand the term analytic or at least I think that I do. Just to be sure I asked oxford dictionary to remind me of the definition of this adjective. It tells me: “relating to or using analysis or logical reasoning.”
As a business person and a person who makes an attempt to have some rudimentary understanding of the national and international economic issues, I am well aware that there are many factors which determine the success or failure of a business. I am aware of the fact that the current stock market is very erratic indicating that the success or failure of investors and the business enterprises themselves face an uncertain future.
Even though the mission of my business did not mention profit per se, if my small business did not make enough money to allow myself and the people I hired enough to eat and pay other bills, I could not have afforded to keep it open. Making money was not, however, the only or even the primary purpose of the business. The purpose of the business was to create a space in which the staff could continue their healing journey while inviting others we called clients to continue their healing journey. Our commitment as a business was to both run the business as efficiency as possible so as to ensure that we could work for/with individuals regardless of what individuals and families could pay or what their insurance coverage, if they had any, would pay. Since 1900 we, as a business, were able to stay open, pay bills and live decently. No one got wealthy and no one starved.
Since we were a small business the amount of data we had to analyze was limited. Still, we needed to be smart about purchasing business supplies, tracking what factors seem to affect referrals, and what practices seemed to be most helpful to clients.
In reading the Wall Street Journal, The Tampa Times or other news of what is happening in the corporate business world, it would be easy to become overwhelmed with data. Business enterprises who sell automobiles, farm equipment, oil or many other products or services have much more data to analyze than a small psychotherapy practice.
When I was obtaining a degree in philosophy at the University of Maryland the goal was to learn to sharpen my critical thinking skills. To that end one had to enroll in and pass several courses in logic, the primary premise of which was that D had to follow C which had to follow B which had to follow A. First and foremost, one had to have a clear goal. In business this goal is often termed a mission. If the mission of a company is to make as much money as possible and then sell or close down the business, then one may not care about repeat customers. It may make “logical” sense to manufacture the product as cheaply as possible with little concern about the quality of the product or whether it performed well long term. If the goal however, is to provide a product which enhances the life experience of an individual, family, community or larger group for the lowest price which allows everyone in the company to live within X income range, then the data one examines and uses to make decision will be much different.
In other words, business analytics has to be considered within the context of a value system. Microsoft and Apple produced products which were and are often unaffordable to many individuals and countries. Clearly, the mission was not only to be innovative in putting amazing tools in the hands of a significant number of people but to do so in a way which greatly enhanced the personal wealth of a relatively few number of people. There are those who will, of course, argue that without the high profit motive, creativity would have been reduced as well as the overall benefit to the world in tools which would be used in health care and all aspects of the human’s undertakings. I do not personally believe that.
The Wall Street Journal article goes on to state:
“Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett describes analytics as a discipline that “helps leaders make better decisions,” and even a manager without a technical background must be “able to talk to the geeks,” he said.
What he fails to mention is that tools are only useful in service of goals. I would like to suggest that it is important for educational institutions to invite students to explore the long-term goals which are based on a solid value system. I am not suggesting that it is the business of educational institutions to teach a particular value system but I do think that if we want to have a viable world economic system we need to insure that students are required to articulate answers to the following questions:
· How does a product enhance the life experience for the individuals or individuals who use this product?
· How does the experience of this person or small group affect the world at large long term (the next 100 or 200 years)?
· What determines the value of an individual or group of people?
· What are one’s core values?
· How did one arrive at those core values?
· How does one use new knowledge in evaluating the basic premises underlying the formulation of the original spiritual value, role, or law?
· Who is deserving of sharing in the resources of the planet and how is that determined?
· Do individuals choose mental illness or other conditions which affect the operation of the electrical system in the brain which allows or disallows logical thinking?
One could list many other questions which we humans must learn to address before we decide what data to analyze and how to then use the results of that analysis.
I have previously mentioned that if we, as a culture, want to affect the thinking which leads to behavior which is harmful or destructive then we have to invite ourselves and others on a journey of exploring the thinking process itself. When a course in philosophy was offered to some homeless people they begin to explore how they made decisions and eventually began to make different decisions.
I am suggesting that it is imperative that schools such as Wharton invite and even require students to examine the goals and underlying values systems which will utilize the tool of data analysis.
Written May 5, 2016
This morning, May 5, 2016, on page B4 of the Wall Street Journal the mention of Wharton School in an article entitled Wharton School Pushes Analytics by Lindsay Gellman caught my attention. The author reports:
“Wharton is expanding its offerings in business analytics, the application of data science to business problems, as more firms seek to make sense of the large troves of data they collect.”
When I subsequently googled business analytics I got a number of hits telling me that this is a subject which is of interest to the esteemed and respected graduates of Wharton, many of whom will undoubtedly become the business leaders of tomorrow.
No matter how old I get or how much I read, I am daily confronted with terms or phrases whose meaning is confusing to me despite my understanding of the individual words. Business analytics is such a term. I think I know what the word business means. I have been a small business owner for many years. I also know many others who have created and run very successful businesses. I also understand the term analytic or at least I think that I do. Just to be sure I asked oxford dictionary to remind me of the definition of this adjective. It tells me: “relating to or using analysis or logical reasoning.”
As a business person and a person who makes an attempt to have some rudimentary understanding of the national and international economic issues, I am well aware that there are many factors which determine the success or failure of a business. I am aware of the fact that the current stock market is very erratic indicating that the success or failure of investors and the business enterprises themselves face an uncertain future.
Even though the mission of my business did not mention profit per se, if my small business did not make enough money to allow myself and the people I hired enough to eat and pay other bills, I could not have afforded to keep it open. Making money was not, however, the only or even the primary purpose of the business. The purpose of the business was to create a space in which the staff could continue their healing journey while inviting others we called clients to continue their healing journey. Our commitment as a business was to both run the business as efficiency as possible so as to ensure that we could work for/with individuals regardless of what individuals and families could pay or what their insurance coverage, if they had any, would pay. Since 1900 we, as a business, were able to stay open, pay bills and live decently. No one got wealthy and no one starved.
Since we were a small business the amount of data we had to analyze was limited. Still, we needed to be smart about purchasing business supplies, tracking what factors seem to affect referrals, and what practices seemed to be most helpful to clients.
In reading the Wall Street Journal, The Tampa Times or other news of what is happening in the corporate business world, it would be easy to become overwhelmed with data. Business enterprises who sell automobiles, farm equipment, oil or many other products or services have much more data to analyze than a small psychotherapy practice.
When I was obtaining a degree in philosophy at the University of Maryland the goal was to learn to sharpen my critical thinking skills. To that end one had to enroll in and pass several courses in logic, the primary premise of which was that D had to follow C which had to follow B which had to follow A. First and foremost, one had to have a clear goal. In business this goal is often termed a mission. If the mission of a company is to make as much money as possible and then sell or close down the business, then one may not care about repeat customers. It may make “logical” sense to manufacture the product as cheaply as possible with little concern about the quality of the product or whether it performed well long term. If the goal however, is to provide a product which enhances the life experience of an individual, family, community or larger group for the lowest price which allows everyone in the company to live within X income range, then the data one examines and uses to make decision will be much different.
In other words, business analytics has to be considered within the context of a value system. Microsoft and Apple produced products which were and are often unaffordable to many individuals and countries. Clearly, the mission was not only to be innovative in putting amazing tools in the hands of a significant number of people but to do so in a way which greatly enhanced the personal wealth of a relatively few number of people. There are those who will, of course, argue that without the high profit motive, creativity would have been reduced as well as the overall benefit to the world in tools which would be used in health care and all aspects of the human’s undertakings. I do not personally believe that.
The Wall Street Journal article goes on to state:
“Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett describes analytics as a discipline that “helps leaders make better decisions,” and even a manager without a technical background must be “able to talk to the geeks,” he said.
What he fails to mention is that tools are only useful in service of goals. I would like to suggest that it is important for educational institutions to invite students to explore the long-term goals which are based on a solid value system. I am not suggesting that it is the business of educational institutions to teach a particular value system but I do think that if we want to have a viable world economic system we need to insure that students are required to articulate answers to the following questions:
· How does a product enhance the life experience for the individuals or individuals who use this product?
· How does the experience of this person or small group affect the world at large long term (the next 100 or 200 years)?
· What determines the value of an individual or group of people?
· What are one’s core values?
· How did one arrive at those core values?
· How does one use new knowledge in evaluating the basic premises underlying the formulation of the original spiritual value, role, or law?
· Who is deserving of sharing in the resources of the planet and how is that determined?
· Do individuals choose mental illness or other conditions which affect the operation of the electrical system in the brain which allows or disallows logical thinking?
One could list many other questions which we humans must learn to address before we decide what data to analyze and how to then use the results of that analysis.
I have previously mentioned that if we, as a culture, want to affect the thinking which leads to behavior which is harmful or destructive then we have to invite ourselves and others on a journey of exploring the thinking process itself. When a course in philosophy was offered to some homeless people they begin to explore how they made decisions and eventually began to make different decisions.
I am suggesting that it is imperative that schools such as Wharton invite and even require students to examine the goals and underlying values systems which will utilize the tool of data analysis.
Written May 5, 2016
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