Predictable surprises : the disasters you should have seen coming, and how to prevent them by Bazerman Max H;Watkins Michael 1956- & Watkins Michael 1956-

Author:Bazerman, Max H;Watkins, Michael, 1956- & Watkins, Michael, 1956-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Management decision making, Forecasting, Business/Economics, Business & Economics, Business / Economics / Finance, Strategic Planning, Management - General, Decision Making & Problem Solving, Disasters, Emergency management, Prevention
Publisher: Boston : Harvard Business School Press
Published: 2004-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

duct random audits of political campaigns (a responsibility revoked by Congress in 1979), increase the FEC's ability to seek out and eliminate loopholes (rather than promulgating them), change the number of commissioners from an even to an odd number to eliminate deadlock, and improve the selection process to ensure the appointment of qualified and experienced candidates. 93

Fourth, like Russ Feingold, Green supports one of the reforms that fell by the wayside during McCain-Feingold's long journey: giving candidates free or reduced-cost television advertising time as a means of reducing campaign fundraising. 94 Under the provisions of the Federal Communication Act of 1934, broadcasters are obligated to serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity" in exchange for their free federal licenses. 95 Television and radio networks have never met this responsibility. Green puts forth Walter Cronkites 1982 market-based proposal of free broadcast vouchers that could be granted to all qualifying candidates and traded like commodities to ensure efficient distribution. The vouchers should be limited to candidates who accept spending limits, Green says. He also believes that those candidates who accept public funds should be required to debate their opponents.

While Green offers a number of concrete strategies to reduce the political barriers to surprise prevention, these ideas more broadly serve as a call for executives to ask themselves, 'What are the political barriers to surprise prevention in our organization?" In most organizations, one reason that executives fail to respond to predictable surprises is that some group of individuals will thwart an effective response in order to protect their self-interest. For example, we view the failure of many corporations to expense employees' stock options on their balance sheets as a predictable surprise.

A core problem is that the decision-makers who must to act to prevent the surprise are benefited, at least in the short-term, by the failure to expense stock options. Preventing predictable surprises requires changing traditional approaches to problems, and change inevitably creates winners and losers. Yet when the gains far exceed the losses, change should occur. The challenge to leaders is to block the destructive political behavior of those who will be negatively affected by the change—even if these people are the leaders themselves. In

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