Judgement vs Process
19/04/2018

Listening to the Today programme I was interested to hear a former employee of the Border Agency talking about the way in which immigration officers exercised judgement in dealing with people whose right to stay in this country was in doubt. He explained that it was not just a case of looking at documents, some of which were inaccurate anyway, it was a matter of talking to people and making an informed judgement based on several pieces of evidence. He talked about having the responsibility to do that himself.
Some years ago, while running a training business, a member of my admin team noticed that course notes for “managing teams” were in the “leadership” course folders. When the new recruit tasked with putting notes in folders was questioned about this she explained she had only followed instructions written on her briefing notes. She hadn’t thought to question something that was clearly wrong. I was concerned that she may have felt too intimidated to ask someone. That wasn’t the case. She thought because the instructions were written down they must be right.
In recent years I have become increasingly concerned that strict adherence to process is driving out the use of common sense. People either don’t want to exercise judgement or can’t. We’re not encouraging them to think for themselves – even at senior levels. Process is very important but judgement is essential, even if all the person does is refer it to higher authority.
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
How do I reference… a newspaper article in the APA7 style?
If you're using newspaper content in your work, you may be wondering how to reference it. Is it exactly the same as a journal article reference? Well, it's pretty similar. Here's a short guide. To ...
Resource trial: Writefull
Throughout June, Library Services are running a trial for Writefull which provides tools to help with academic writing. Writefull's support includes proofreading, spelling and grammar checking your work. It can also help you craft your ...
Working smarter, cleaner and greener: The future of manufacturing and materials
Everything we own, use or interact with in life starts with a material or materials. But even we in the industry admit that materials are a huge part of what has led us to where ...
Hubert Ovie Madise: My group design project
'Hubert Ovie Madise, what have you been up to the past ten weeks?' The Cranfield School of Water, Energy and Environment (SWEE) Group Design Project (GDP) module - that's what! The SWEE GDP module ...
The importance of big ideas: How small businesses can maximise their impact
Every year the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship hosts our annual entrepreneurship conference VentureDay. We are proud to have some small and medium enterprise (SME) owners on staff, including Heni Cloake and Gabriela Pearson, who share ...
How do I access the full-text of Harvard Business Review (HBR)?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions in the School of Management Library, presumably because HBR is such a key management journal and is renowned worldwide. The short answer is via EBSCO Business ...