Colombus Case Extrapolated To Organizations Essay, Research Paper

The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus shows how organization leaders take risks. Columbus was confronted by complex situations and people challenged him to prove his theories. In 1492, C. started a journey that began as a crazy thought but became an historical change to the world. This journey and the antecedents can be extrapolated to organizations, showing leadership and a cognitive decision process.

Columbus showed acts of immense courage that were done through risk taking, decision making, ambition and knowledge, which are common strategies in today s organizations. Columbus had concoctive thinking and previous experiences that allowed him to reach his goal.

Organizations are faced with taking risks in stages to succeed just as Columbus took the risk to explore new lands. However this risk was taken on the basis of his knowledge of astronomy, geometry and cosmography. These basis or conditions are quite similar to the ones an organization has, such as the knowledge of its own products, competitors, barriers and the whole environment. To take risks one must be confident of the facts that take place in certain situations; therefore, the power to convince becomes a reality to the decision takers. Columbus convinced the Spanish sovereigns through an elaborate plan to win much more than they could lose and also negotiated with them to get a tenth of the profits and be named Viceroy of the new lands. Organization leaders should take advantage of risk taking in fields, which are unexplored by competitors. The Negotiation factor also becomes an interesting matter for managers in risk taking, that has to be considered carefully in order to succeed.

“Columbus was an inspired purveyor of ideas as well as a splendid seaman and readily synthesized all the information at hand into a pattern that established that China lay some 3,000 miles due west of Europe” (Wilcox, 1977, p.13). This fact presents how Columbus’ Bounded rationality let him take a chance that if he had known that the distance was more than 11,000 miles, he would not have started his expedition.

Great expectations and ambition to succeed were important to Columbus goal because they maintained his expectations and made him face his goal, even though he was in an environment full of difficulties, rejections and breakdowns. During Columbus journey he had to deal with complex uncertain conditions and conflicts such as hunger, fights between him and his crew associates, desperation, etc. Similar situations affect an organization when managers are running in uncertain markets. They are faced with internal pressures from shareholders, external pressures from banks and competitors and economical crisis. Managers must stay focused on their goal through all of this

“Apart from Columbus’ own inspired, but totally inaccurate calculations, there was no way of knowing how long the journey west might take nor what strange monsters or human enemies might be met with on the way” (Wilcox, 1977, p.31). Many times organizations do not know how long critical situations are going to last due to wrong market projections, small budgets and speculation from competitors so they have to utilize new strategies to succeed.

Finally this case exemplifies how leadership takes an important place in success that was accomplished through rational thinking, ambition and risk taking, which is a natural cycle, that organizations experience.