Dealing with Dilemmas: Where Business Analytics Fall Short

Chapter 8. You and Me

I think intellect is a good thing unless it paralyzes your ability to make decisions because you see too much complexity. Presidents need to have what I would call a synthesizing intelligence.

—Bill Clinton

People have different requirements. We sometimes forget that; we simply presume there is "us." We do not even acknowledge the diversity of what people expect from an organization in the way we define the term organization itself. Most people define an organization as a group of people sharing the same objectives. Seldom is this the case. Employees are looking for career opportunities, a stable income, and a chance to develop their skills. Shareholders look for a financial return. Customers look for a good deal, while suppliers see your organization as a source of profit themselves. Not only do people have different requirements—often they are flat-out conflicting ones.

Organizational theorists will be quick to point out that having different requirements actually is the whole point of paying out a salary to employees, instead of seeing them as individual entrepreneurs. A salary can be defined as the compensation for giving up your time and personal objectives and contributing to the organization's objectives. However true this may have been in the industrial age, and for the larger part of the twentieth century, a salary is not what motivates employees today. Today's generation is motivated by meaning and purpose, and creating a healthy work/life balance,