During the research for my thesis I found this very interesting article concerning “behavioral strategy”. It addresses the impact of the subconscious mind on strategic management. Left unchecked, subconscious biases have the ability to undermine strategic decision making.

This does not mean that top managers assume their strategic decisions are perfect. In a 2009 study concerning strategic decision making (“Flaws in strategic decision making: McKinsey Global Survey Results, January 2009) the following observations have been made:

 

In the last part of their article the LOVALLO and SIBONY present 4 steps to adopting behavioral strategy:

1. Decide which decisions warrant the effort
2. Identify the biases most likely to affect critical decisions
3. Select practices and tools to counter the most relevant biases
4. Embed practices in formal processes

The full article “The case of behavioral strategy” is available on this McKinsey-website and on this site as pdf-file, too.