Decision and Decision-maker in an Industrial Environment

PrefaceSome Reflections on Decision-making

“Once I’ve made a decision, I hesitate for a long time”. If we choose to introduce this book with the quotation from Renard, it is because it surreptitiously sketches the outlines of the notion of decisions, which is the subject under discussion, while still nevertheless starting to suggest a number of contrasts that could accompany its use: speed and slowness, certainty and doubt, responsibility and misgiving, etc. Thus, this quotation, amusing at first, allows us to touch on an implicit complexity mixed with a sort of apparent simplicity – of this concept of decisions.

Indeed there are “things” that only meet with accurate explanation among the philosophers. Concepts such as beauty, love, freedom and happiness allow each one of us to adopt our own vision, perception or feeling, in the process leaving inaccuracy, ambiguity or indeed error in our speech. On the contrary, the same will not be true of the notion of decisions. The notion of decisions resonates clearly, independently of the level of awareness of those who make them. It is clearly understood. It nevertheless takes on a form of complexity and indeterminism. Also, although the concept of deciding is unanimously understood in the same way and presents a simple and direct definition, the same will not be true of the way in which the decision will be made, a way that is sometimes unpredictable, unsystematic, potentially subjective, unjust or risky, etc. The same will not be ...