MANAGEMENT SCIENCE AND THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Most chief executives have heard the GIGO cliche about management information and computer systems: 'Garbage in—garbage out'. Recently a colleague of mine, who had been reviewing some rather poor results in a large diversified company, called my attention to an interesting phenomenon: namely, although the information being fed into the corporate decision‐making apparatus usually was good, the quality of the decisions coming out usually was atrocious. In other words: good information in, garbage out. As my colleague remarked, “These executives need correct, timely, relevant information, and by and large they're getting it. What they haven't got are the right methods for dealing systematically with that information to help them choose better among their alternatives”.