This paper discusses a phenomenon called Bounded Awareness, which is often seen among people. The article focuses on the problem regarding this and the techniques to increase awareness among people.
Introduction
The meaning of the word blinders means unable to becoming be aware or recognize what is happening around us. There are plenty of problems cropping up around us due to the phenomenon called bounded awareness. Bounded awareness can be defined as a “well-documented observation that people routinely overlook important information during the decision-making process.” (Bounded awareness and decision-making heuristics, 2009, Bounded awareness, para.1). The main problem that causes this is the tendency to over-focus. Over focusing on one point, results in missing the important information happening outside the focus point.
Instance for bounded awareness
In the book named “Decision Without Blinders,” written by Max H. Bezerman and Dolly Chugh, they mention the recent issues regarding making the decision. The example shows an instance of bounded decision about the Vioxx medicine. The medicine creates lots of problems among patients, and an article appears in the newspaper about this. Even after the report, doctors prescribe this medicine to patients. This shows the bounded awareness of doctors and the manufactures. These doctors or manufacturers didn’t care or show any kind of awareness about the report. Surprisingly, it takes a long span of three years before the medicine is withdrawn from the market. (Slides from customer). The main problems that cause bounded awareness are failure to see information, seek information, use the information, and share information.
Failure to see information
Failure to see the information often puts people in trouble. This can happen due to the over-focus on one thing and ruling out all the other things happening around. This may often create problems by missing important information.
Failure to seek information
This means putting limits for searching or analyzing the information. This can also entail trouble. People need to take a decision only after a good searching of the information, and its assimilation.
Failure to use information
Again, this is another factor that creates problems in life. For example, failure to use information from the competitors will often put a person or business entity in a trailing position and it will prove to be difficult to stay in the competitive world.
Failure to share information
Sharing information is important among the team members. Sharing unique information is one of the major things one needs to focus on while working in a team. Failing to do so will change the motto of the team, and become a reason for a shortfall in achieving the objectives.
How one can increase awareness?
The increase in awareness is one of the primary needs for humans to avoid errors in their work and judgment. People should have proper awareness of the work they do. They should know their needs and work accordingly. Several methods help to increase awareness. It can be increased by the information they see, seek, use and share. Training the people is another way to increase awareness. Several secret agents help to increase awareness among people. They make the people identify the risks in their work, some agents like business executives make people aware of the fields which they are aware of. They provide awareness by asking several questions. The person should have proper information about the work he or she wants to do and can consult other people in the group to provide any information. People should think about the possibilities of errors and find appropriate ways to remove them. There should be a team leader in a group. Everyone in the group should follow the ideas suggested by the team leader so that all the members are aware of the decisions of the group. Focusing more on one event will cause less concentration in other more important events. People can enquire in the organization itself to get the required information. The organization will usually contain most of the essential information. All the members of an organization will have acquired some knowledge about the work. Sharing the knowledge will help everyone to increase the knowledge they have, and it enhances the awareness among members. Meetings should be conducted so that the members can share information. An organization can also appoint one person to collect the information from the members and share it among everyone.
Conclusion
Bounded awareness is the observable fact where individuals do not see the information at the time of making a decision. In other words, the individual overrules or keeps the information out of focus while taking a decision.
Reference List
Bounded awareness and decision- making heuristics: Bounded awareness. (2009). Lee Merkhofer Consulting: Priority Systems.