Real-Life Decision Making
You're a business developer in a company that researches agricultural chemicals. And because of your ability to drum up business, you've been promoted to vice-president. Just last week you gave another successful presentation to a company that accepted an offer to fund another project at your research center. Things couldn't be better.
A package arrives on your desk. It's marked with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sticker. This is the moment you've been waiting for. Last week, you briefly talked to an EPA official who wanted to set up a task force in your laboratory to research an agricultural chemical. At the time, you didn't expect anything to come of the talk. You tear open the envelope. It's an invitation to set up the task force.
This is fantastic news. The immense, complicated task is a multimillion-dollar deal. The study would take a number of years and you'd have to hire another person to head the project. You sit down in your chair to think things over. When you talked with the EPA, you never expected this deal would actually materialize.
"Are we prepared?" you ask yourself. You'd like to think you are. The problem is, you know you aren't. Your lab doesn't have the structure or the organization needed for such a huge project. It certainly doesn't have the facility to continue this experiment over a number of years.
If you sign the deal, your company stands to make a great deal of money, and have the prestige of getting such a huge, important task. But if you mess up with this assignment, your company's name may be in jeopardy, and you wouldn't get any more offers from the EPA. If you found out halfway through the contract that your lab wasn't capable of completing the project, you'll ruin the research and lose precious time for the EPA.
But the deal would boast your company's ability to drum up business. If you did somehow manage to get the project done, you would build a great name for your company.
What do you do?