Sources of Power

The commanders’ secret was that their experience let them see a situation, even a nonroutine one, as an example of a prototype, so they knew the typical course of action right away. Their experience let them identify a reasonable reaction as the first one they considered, so they did not bother thinking of others. They were not being perverse. They were being skillful. We now call this strategy recognition-primed decision making.

Second, the decision maker looked at several options yet never compared any two of them,3 He thought of the options one at a time, evaluated in each turn, rejected it, and turned to the next most typical rescue technique. We can call this strategy a singular evaluation approach,

Distinguishing between comparative and singular evaluation strategies is not difficult.

Simon (1957) identified a decision strategy he calls satisficing: selecting the first option that works. Satisficing is different from optimizing, which means trying to come up with the best strategy. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time.

The singular evaluation strategy is based on satisficing.

To evaluate a single course of action, the lieutenant imagined himself carrying it out. Fireground commanders use the power of mental simulation, running the action through in their minds.

Another complication is that the decision maker may have misinterpreted the situation but does not realize it until some expectancies have been violated. At these times, decision makers will respond to the anomaly or ambiguity by checking which interpretation best matches the features of the situation.6 They may try to build a story to account for some of the inconsistencies.

One way to think about these three variations is that variation 1 is basically an “if … then” reaction, an antecedent followed by the rule-based response. The expertise is in being able to recognize when the antecedent condition has been met. Variation 2 takes the form “if (???) … then,” with the decision maker deliberating about the nature of the situation. Variation 3 takes the form “if … then (???)” as the decision maker ponders the outcome of a reaction.

We can summarize the key features of the RPD model in comparison to the standard advice given to decision makers. The RPD model claims that with experienced decision makers: The focus is on the way they assess the situation and judge it familiar, not on comparing options. Courses of action can be quickly evaluated by imagining how they will be carried out, not by formal analysis and comparison. Decision makers usually look for the first workable option they can find, not the best option. Since the first option they consider is usually workable, they do not have to generate a large set of options to be sure they get a good one. They generate and evaluate options one at a time and do not bother comparing the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives. By imagining the option being carried out, they can spot weaknesses and find ways to avoid these, thereby making the option stronger. Conventional models just select the best, without seeing how it can be improved. The emphasis is on being poised to act rather than being paralyzed until all the evaluations have been completed.

The commander’s experience had provided him with a firm set of patterns. He was accustomed to sizing up a situation by having it match one of these patterns.

Intuition is not infallible. Our experience will sometimes mislead us, and we will make mistakes that add to our experience base.

We noticed something else: the mental simulations were not very elaborate.