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Seriously...

Deciding Fast and Slow

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1885 Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What is it really like to make decisions affecting millions of people, knowing that a mistake might be pounced upon instantly and your career left in tatters? Government ministers face this challenge every day, and now under ever-rising pressures - not just 24 hour news, but also hugely influential social media and far stronger demand for more open and accountable decision-making. Elinor Goodman finds out from senior politicians, civil service leaders and their advisors how government ministers make decisions in the face of growing pressure from this instant all-pervasive information culture. How is the quality of decision-making affected when the demands for faster and more transparent policy-making become impossible to resist? As information circulates ever faster, can ministers actually keep up and make good decisions rather than succumb to the demands for swifter ones? Where once there was just a news cycle to manage, now there is a need for instant replies to all manner of questions and challenges about the detail and purpose of policies themselves - and sometimes this happens before the policy has actually been finalised. David Cameron leads a government that can only dream of the time and space afforded to his political hero Harold Macmillan, who was able to take weeks deliberating on subjects which today's PM must sometimes resolve in minutes. So, what are the pressures and processes that contribute to ministerial decision-making in the 21st century? Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi and welcome to Seriously with Me Testament. Thanks for making the decision to download this

0:09.1

podcast. I really mean that because life in the modern age may be set up for convenience

0:13.7

but nowadays it means we're overloaded with decisions to make there's a myriad of

0:18.0

choices all around us however the majority of the time we're lucky that these

0:21.9

decisions aren't going to affect many people

0:23.6

but what if you're in the position where your choice could impact millions of people

0:28.0

be that good or bad enter the realm of the government minister who faces this

0:32.4

challenge every day.

0:33.7

In a world of 24-hour news and the ever-growing presence of social media in politics,

0:38.8

decisions now often have to be more transparent, explainable and accountable.

0:43.6

What used to take weeks of deliberation and thought

0:47.2

now requires an answer in minutes with a full breakdown following surely.

0:51.8

And anyway, you've already made the decision to listen.

0:55.6

So this is Ella Goodman with deciding fast and slow. In a contemplative fashion,

1:08.0

in a contemplative fashion and a tranquil frame of mind

1:12.0

free from every kind of passion.

1:19.0

58 years ago, the then Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan had a quote from Gilbert and Sullivan's

1:24.8

operator the Gondoliers pinned to his door.

1:27.8

Quiet con delimitation disentangles every knot.

1:36.0

Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot to advise the song.

1:41.6

McMillan himself was never as relaxed as he liked to seem.

1:45.0

Events, as he famously got in the way,

...

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