DECISION THEORY!

One of the major differences between a strong manager and a weak manager is the ability to make decisions. No one is perfect and anyone who has been responsible for making big decisions has and will make mistakes. But, the most dangerous type of manager is one who cannot bring themselves to make a decision. Failure to make a decision is a decision, and almost always the worst decision.

None of us know the full impact of the decision by Trump to take out Soleimani. Right now a lot of people are lecturing Trump about the need to get advice from congress to avoid making a mistake. However, only a fool would ask a President of the United States to trust someone like Adam Schiff. The real tragedy is that Democrats put someone like Adam Schiff as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

In addition, history teaches us the painful lesson from failing to make decisions on a timely basis. If the allies in Europe had taken on Adolph Hitler a couple of years earlier, he would have been easy to defeat. Even after Hitler invaded Poland, and the Allies declared war on Germany, he was still vulnerable. France, at that time, had the largest Army in the world. But, the leaders of France and England could not decide what to do, so they did nothing. The result was that Hitler built up his military during the “phony war” and when he did strike, he quickly overwhelmed that enormous French army.

We will never know what would have happened if the allies had attacked Hitler at the start of World War II. We definitely know the horrific cost paid by everyone when that decision was made for them.

Similar things are easy to see in retrospect with regard to the attack on Pearl Harbor. U.S. Intelligence knew that Japanese spies were producing reports that basically mapped the ships in the harbor. That should have been a red flag warning, but it was ignored.

On the morning of December 7th, 1941, a U.S. radar station picked up the Japanese attack force at 7:02 a.m. The radar operators reported this to Lt. Kermit Tyler who was in charge of the Aircraft Warning Information Center. He told them to now worry about it. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., about one hour later, the Japanese air raid struck, catching the U.S. totally unprepared. We do not know how much could have been done within that one hour window, but it could hardly have been worse. What we do know is that the second wave, which began about 8:50 a.m. was far less successful than the first wave and the Japanese lost a lot more planes. The second wave was definitely met with a lot of Anti-aircraft fire and that was AFTER several major battleships had been destroyed. In addition, the smoke from the first attack made it much harder to see. We will never know how much difference it would have made if an air raid warning had been issued when those planes were first spotted. We do know the horrible price paid because that decision was not made.

At a time like this, we all need to unite behind our President and be grateful that he had the courage to make the decision. That does not mean there will be no further pain, in fact this decision will almost certainly result in significant cost. But the highest cost usually comes from people in a position to make critical decisions who are too paralyzed by fear to take decisive action.

I have personal experience with this. When the Rodney King verdict was announced in Los Angeles, the company I worked for had a major headquarters located in Watts. I immediately called that company President and strongly advised him to evacuate. Fortunately he quickly realized the threat and he took decisive action. Our people did manage to evacuate, but in some cases they were literally seconds from disaster. After I made that call, I called my own boss and told him what I had done. He became angry and said I should have asked for permission before making that call. I told him I would rather have him angry at me for what I did than for what I did not do. An hour later, after he had learned more about what happened, he called me and apologized.

We are due to pick the next person to be President of the United States in about 11 months. The most important qualification for a President is the ability to make difficult, if not impossible decisions during a time of crisis. President Trump passed that test, those seeking to replace him, not so much. The Democratic screech owls in congress are merely proving why we would be insane to trust any of them.

TDM