Library

Welcome to the Decision Dynamics Library. Below are several documents, presentations, and videos you may find of interest:

Applications

Selling to Different Styles
This article addresses ways in which the StyleView decision style model can be utilized to boost sales success. Sales involves decision-making. Sales reps who understand how their prospective customers think and process information will be better able to present information in ways that fit the styles of those prospects and, thereby, achieve greater sales success. Methods for estimating styles in others are presented along with tips for adjusting sales presentations and strategies according to prospects styles of decision-making.
Executive Success and the Information Management Imperative
Research conducted by Decision Dynamics on thousands of C-suite executives shows clearly that the most success executives have styles that emphasize engaging and interactive modes of dealing with others in the process of making decisions. Further, the research shows that the most successful executives also think analytically and strategically. A framework for understanding these findings in terms of the Information Management Imperative is presented. This Imperative posits that the complex and strategic decisions that senior executives must make require abundant and accurate information. The most successful executives realize this and engage with others in ways that keeps them well-supplied with the high quality information they need to make good strategic decisions.
Improving Operational Integrity at Sea through Teamwork
The maritime industry has a record of serious accidents happening in broad daylight in full view of ships’ crews. To reduce the likelihood of accidents and injuries a shipping company conducted a seven-year effort to develop high involvement, sea-going teams. This paper describes the culture change project and focuses on the ways in which the StyleView decision style assessment, combined with 360-ratings among crews at sea contributed to the success of this unique project.
Career Pandemonium - Realigning Individuals and Organizations
Restructuring of organizations during the past several decades has greatly altered the career landscape and has disrupted traditional career paths. This article shows how the Decision Dynamics CareerView model and assessment can be utilized to reveal new alternatives to traditional career management practices. Career pluralism is suggested as a means of better utilizing workforce motivations while creating more rewarding opportunities for people pursuing careers in an otherwise chaotic world of careers and work.

Research

Crisis Management: The New Global Constant
Managing crises is becoming a modern day constant, a continuous fact of life in multinational enterprises. Floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, plus wars both large and small take their tolls in lives and in business disruptions. Rare is the day when a crisis of some sort is not underway somewhere on this planet.
Yet, crises catch many businesses unaware and unprepared. Frequently, those charged with the responsibility of cleaning up and mopping up lack knowledge about the dynamics that determine how quickly and successfully operations can be returned to normalcy. Experience and research tells us that, in any crisis, the central element affecting success, revolves around the belief of those on the scene that they can and will overcome the crisis and go on to thrive in the future. Even in the same crisis situation, those who believe in their own, personal efficacy recover quickly and go on to do well; those who believe that their lives are determined by forces beyond their control tend to falter or fail altogether.
This quality of belief can be viewed as a character trait. Yet, here again, research and experience show us that this belief is quite plastic. The implication is that an enterprise can raise or lower this belief by the actions that the enterprise takes to shore up the persons on whose energy, ingenuity and persistence recovery from a crisis depends. To gain further insight into the dynamics of this central belief in one’s personal efficacy.
Measuring Career Concepts
A synopsis of a doctoral dissertation authored by Michael W. Coombs in which the psychometric properties of the Career Concepts and Motives instrumentation, which later became known as the CareeView assessment, was examined.
Profiling Sales Success - The EIS Case
This paper reports a case study involving a predictive validation study to validate empirically a success profile for sales representatives selling a big ticket software system. The profile initially was developed using behavior observation scaling to analyze the sales representative position. Then, a concurrent validation project was conducted to validate a set of assessment measures, including the StyleView decision styles instruments. Finally, assessment data were collected on new hires whose performance was tracked for one year as a predictive validation of the profile and assessment battery. Results showed strong predictive validity.