Course Overview

Making decisions is integral to every manager’s job. Making Difficult Decisions: The General Manager’s Role (MDD) explores the kinds of decisions made by general managers (GMs) and how context influences the generation of options, and the effectiveness of the decisions made.

The course views management as an activity that enables coordinated action in pursuit of organizational performance. Our emphasis is on how GMs get things done through making and guiding decisions—both larger and smaller. We show how to use decision-making processes to achieve produce results and to move an organization forward.

The course defines context broadly, with a particular emphasis on contexts characterized by high uncertainty and high stakes. We examine cognitive, interpersonal, and organizational factors that undermine effective decision making and introduce techniques for diagnosing and overcoming predictable pitfalls. Decisions are particularly challenging for general managers because they must rely on others – principally subordinates – to provide important critical input and data that inform decisions, as well as to implement the choices made. The major constraint facing most managers is not a lack of vision but rather the resources available to them. Therefore, the essence of general management lies in fully understanding and harnessing the capabilities of the human resources around them. Effective decision making goes far beyond merely knowing what one wants to accomplish. It requires developing a vision based on a clear-eyed evaluation of others’ capability, communicating that vision, gathering and considering feedback, overseeing implementation, and responding to the unexpected.

Making Difficult Decisions places particular emphasis on frameworks that help managers make, communicate, and implement decisions effectively. These practical management skills include how to craft and interpret dialogue, how to diagnose one's own biases to reduce the likelihood of error, and how to diagnose group dynamics. We treat decision making as a process and explore the major considerations involved in designing effective decision processes. The course does not address decision making tools such as data analytics, game theory, and simulations.

Developing aptitude in and understanding of these issues helps managers influence the design, direction, and functioning of organizational processes. The aim of MDD is to develop students' understanding and use of highly relevant, practical skills, and how to use them in day-to-day activities that enhance their ability to make better decisions and to improve their own and their team's performance in decision making generally. Throughout, our focus is on high-level processes that are of interest to general managers; for this reason, case protagonists are typically division presidents or higher.

Course Content

A distinctive feature of the course is its variety of teaching materials, including experiential exercises, role-plays, multimedia cases, and visits from case protagonists, in addition to the usual HBS written case studies. Settings are varied as well. They include a wide variety of businesses and industries, ranging from startups to multinationals, across industries. MDD also features many non-business protagonists and situations, including presidential taskforces, mountaineering expeditions, hospital administrators, and executives and engineers in the space program.

MDD uses three types of sessions, interspersed throughout the semester, to teach a set of related ideas and frameworks.

Session Type I: HBS Case Study classes – spanning sectors, industries, and organization size. In each, GMs face one or more important decisions, and wrestle with multiple challenges. These cases include traditional paper and multimedia formats. As in any HBS classroom, students are expected to participate regularly and actively in these discussions. Good contributions offer clear, rigorous argument, present detailed substantive recommendations, describe a coherent, internally consistent perspective or point of view, move the discussion forward by posing questions or drawing links between others’ comments, present relevant examples from personal experience or constructively critique positions, sharpen the class’s understanding of issues, or deepen an ongoing debate.

Session Type II: MDD includes 6-8 “lab sessions” that allow students to practice management skills in realistic simulated conversations. These sessions present a single situation in an organizational context, with a protagonist who must determine what to do. Students will experiment, receive real-time feedback, and observe others, an effort to develop practical management skills. Practice and repetition are used to help students understand how to put into action concepts introduced in case discussions and lectures.

Session Type III: The course also includes dialogues with successful GMs, who share their experiences and engage in conversations driven by student questions. We anticipate welcoming 6 guests to class, including 4 case protagonists and 2 full session guest dialogues.

The principal purpose of the course is to improve students’ ability to make and implement better decisions in complex, interdependent the contexts involving of often complex interdependencies with others (subordinates, superiors, and even members of other groups or organizations). The course design reflects the following assumptions:

• This ability is relevant to all students and is not strictly the province of general managers.

• Everyone has distinct behavioral ‘footprints’ that shape how we make decisions.

• Being aware of one’s footprint and developing self-awareness is a valuable skill for any manager/leader.

Assignments & Grading

The work for MDD includes case preparation, participation in case discussions, and participation in lab sessions; 40% of a student’s grade will be allocated based on participation in class discussions (including dialogue sessions with guests); 20% based on participation in lab sessions, and 40% based on a final written submission. In lieu of a final exam or paper, students are asked to prepare a written self-diagnosis reflecting on – and applying – the frameworks and competencies that they are developing throughout the semester. These submissions reflect work done throughout the semester and are not expected to require extensive time after classes end.

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