DECISIONMAKING IN THE DIGITAL AGE.

• Author: MIDDLEBROOK, JOHN
• Position: Statistical Data Included

"Technology is a double-edged sword. While it can overwhelm an information-seeker with volumes of relevant, and not-so-relevant, information, it can also help a user cut a problem down to size."

THE ADVENT of the Digital Age has introduced a radical new element into the decisionmaking equation. For the first time, it has become possible to access a seemingly limitless amount of data, almost instantaneously. Thus, again for the first time, humanity has at its disposal more than brains and instinct to sort and analyze that data, make judgments about it, test those judgments across geographic boundaries, then communicate the final decision with the click of a mouse.

This is a tall order for mere mortals who, just a couple of decades ago, had only pink message slips to worry about, and who now have voice mail, e-mail, news services, overnight deliveries, and same-day shipping to assimilate. Along with having to wade through the daily media blitz, there is the need to convert information into decisions and then into action at the "speed of thought." In today's high-speed unforgiving environment, decision success or failure often falls straight to the bottom line.

Over the past several years, businesses have felt a strong push to increase the speed of decisionmaking. How are managers and workers coping with the need for greater speed, and how are companies balancing the requirement for speed with the concomitant need for quality?

To answer these questions, Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., a management consulting firm, worked with pollsters Yankelovich Partners to complete a study surveying 479 managers and 339 workers nationwide. It is clear from their responses that, on all levels and across all industries, U.S. decisionmakers are under pressure to keep up, but are, too often, sacrificing quality in the process.

Manager: "Clients are requiring immediate response. The window of expected response has shifted from two weeks to three days."

Worker: "Difficult customers, [and] ... insufficient time to think about the details of their request or [their] ramifications [are the key challenges]. Also [there is] increasing pressure from outside for instant results, rather than good ones."

Whether they typically make decisions alone, or as part of the group, 66% of the workers and 77% of the managers said that they were making an increasing number of decisions in the same, or less, time. Yet, the majority of managers and workers say that they--and their organizations--miss opportunities because decisions aren't made quickly enough or because they are not implemented on a...