Test Your Feel For...

The corporate planner is oriented towards defining the future for operations in a reflective, even idealistic way.

The planner likes to know, either with certainty or by confident estimation:

● what actions are possible
● effects of relevant contexts
● outcomes of any given action
● value placed on any particular outcome

He sees his task as integrating individual objectives within the broader organizational goals, drawing on his intellectual and analytic abilities. He is usually in a staff position and works best using participative and persuasive means.

Consequently, he is not expected to produce the drive and results of a line manager; nor to handle the numerous practical side issues and obstacles that bedevil all efforts to achieve.

Government: No.1 Offender

Most major social issues tend to be ill-structured: yet rationalist approaches are constantly used (or are said to be used) by governments.

Government Departments in democracies handle exceedingly complex issues, in an exposed social environment, without general agreement on many objectives, and with a need to shift priorities rapidly.

Where politicians identify objectives and targets and generate plans to reach them, the plan typically worsens the situation at great expense to the taxpayer.

Systemicist methods are far more appropriate for interventions in society: but such methods would not provide the same bold headline-catching statement of intent and certainty.

Civil servants who claim to use a rationalist approach to support the policies of the politicians in power have usually been found not to do so in practice on closer investigation.

Misguided Efforts are Common

In organizations of all sorts, attempts are frequently made to apply the approach to issues that are complicated, poorly structured and not understood. In such situations, planning often develops independently of implementation, leading to the production of elegant blueprints that gather dust but no commitment.

Business consultants are often wedded to rationalist approaches e.g John Kay In "Obliquity: Why our Goals are Best Achieved Indirectly" 2010, Profile:London noticed that his elegant rationalist models were not used either by his clients (who paid him for them) or by his own firm. He advised that "we should think differently about how we really make decisions" (p.xiv). That is what we are doing here: but we are not going to throw rationalist decision-making out the window: it is far too important and valid despite its limitations.