Limits to Reason

Today, I had lunch with my finance professor in my Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at my Rotary club weekly meeting.  He and three other of my professors belong to the club.  I told him about the article that I published after completing his course on how we make decisions.  I wrote it was a tension between economic and political approaches.  He smiled. 

Then, I added a new insight that has emerged since study with him and my article for the Foundation for Economic Education’s (FEE) Freeman journal  (“ Freedom Footnote,” 4-1-88).   “Since I wrote the article after taking your course, I have come to realize decision making on the whole is not rational.” 

I share this because there is a danger in letting textbook theories blind us to the very real nature of project planning and management.  It is, to use course language, stakeholder analysis, complex design, doing our political arithmetic about who is for or against us and how to neutralize or win over the enemies.

  As you reflect on my feedback to you during our course, you will realize that I have been alerting you to this “irrational” dimension of OD because of my own “lessons learned” as a project manager. 

I am not preaching pessimism here.  I am advocating realism.  Keep up your good work!  The end is coming fast!

Dr. Rux