How do decision makers or more precisely managers make fast, yet high-quality strategic choices? Decision making is a seemingly simple title for a text or study to cover, after all, we all make decisions every moment of our lives, from the trivial choices of “what shall I wear tonight?” to more difficult decisions about “where shall I pursue my higher learning degree?”. However, managers face these dilemmas on basis that would affect a whole organization, including its employees, customers, suppliers and so on. Decision making is one of the very main strategic aspects of an organization’s road to success. The chapter in the book starts by explaining that each decision a manager makes follows a process that starts with identifying the problem that might be an obstacle in achieving an organizational goal, next step is to identify decision criteria relevant to solving the problem, allocate weights for the criteria. Once that is done, a manager needs to come up with alternatives and analyze them based on the criteria. The final major step would be to select the best alternative, implement it and then evaluate the results to see if the problem is solved. Of course, for a manager to be a successful one, he/she needs to be rational, meaning the choices made need to be logical and consistent. The manager shouldn’t include any subjectivity in his/her decisions and should make them in the best interest of the organization and its goals. However, in order to have a more realistic approach towards decision making, managers are encouraged to satisfice (accept solutions that are “good enough”), simply because managers’ rationality is bounded by their ability to process all information related to the alternatives. Nonetheless, not all decisions ... ... middle of paper ... ...s us that to be successful in today’s world, organizations “must embrace procedures that can deal with complexity” (Courtney, 2001). Furthermore, more than ever, managers now need to build an organization that spots the unexpected in order to adapt to the ever changing environment and just in time operations. As evident from the reliable and successful organizations of today, some few characteristics are present in all of them, all these organizations embrace complexity, defer to the experts on the front line for critical decisions, know how to handle unexpected circumstances and anticipate the impossible, and most importantly; none of these organizations take their success for granted nor get tricked by their present profits. The premium currently is moving fast and keeping pace, the optimum decisions are irrelevant if they acquire too long to prepare or formulate.
This book is important to business students because it shows that even the most seasoned executive runs into unexpected challenges and can find themselves in uncharted territory. Jim Barton’s experiences and lessons can be lessons for anyone. Any employee, whether they are support staff or a top executive, should always maintain an open mind and be ready to learn from a situation or the people around them at any time.
It is difficult to make life decisions when knowing that it is all up to you to make the right choice not knowing what the outcome is. In “Gregory” by Panos Ionannides, the soldier has to decide whether to follow the headquarters or his own instincts. Furthermore, in “Just Lather, That’s All” the barber also has to make a choice in a small amount of time, to either kill Torres or not. Moreover, he has no orders to kill Torres it was his own decision to kill someone. The protagonists in “Gregory” and “Just Lather, That’s All” both face moral dilemmas throughout the stories. In the short story “Gregory” by Panos Ionannides, the soldier decides to follow his ethics. In the story “Just Lather That’s All” by Hernando Tellez, the barber has chosen to go towards his morals. Both the soldier and the barber portray that they both need to make decisions that are wise.
“What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions” by David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto explores the ways successful leaders can design an effective decision-making process, and the areas one needs to avoid. Some areas that are mention are how leaders should focus on maintaining an Inquiry style decision process, and avoid an Advocacy style decision process. They explore how constructive conflict is desired if its cognitive conflict which allows people to openly express their differences which allows everyone to introduce new ideas. Affective conflict is to be desired, as it is emotional based and cause problems amongst teams. Garvin and Roberto talk about how leaders need to show they were listening to the discussion, and once a final choice is made, leaders need to show logic as to why the decision was made. Garvin and Roberto discuss closure within deliberations, and they talk about a Litmus Test. Throughout the paper Garvin and Roberto discuss many do’s and don’ts about decision making and ways leaders can be successful in running a team.
In a complex world where decisions are daily activities in business practice, requires agile decision-making, strategy capability, expertise and governance of the organization. Strategic positions in the organization need to identify critical process and guidelines to figure out the gap between strategy and execution, also create a frame of the problem. In addition, executives might be able to handle complex decision in an uncertain environment. They have to adapt to new environment (flexibility and innovation) preserving the best interest (cut costs, expand services, grow revenues, improve infrastructure, aggressive corporate culture) with simple rules across the team members (Eisenhardt, 2009). Thus, organizational behavior is a relevant factor that executives should consider: Relationships, collaboration, communication, leadership, power and politics. In this case study, power and politics play a relevant role to create biases, halo effects and influence decision by personalities.
The article addresses the issue of being successful in a highly uncertain business environment. Some managers prefer to play it safe by adopting a wait-and-see strategy while others may invest in flexibility that allows their companies to adapt quickly as the market evolves. The companies sometimes neglect the fact that having a successful strategy depends on several factors, including their industry position, assets, or their willingness to take a risk in investing in such strategies. The paper introduced some of the tips and terminologies that could help managers facing uncertainty decide on whether to play safe or bet big. The traditional practice is to put a vision of predicted future events
• Strategic management is fluid and complex. Change creates original combinations of conditions requiring shapeless non-repetitive responses.
Managers should be ready to teach the importance of decision-making skills and reinforcing organizational policy. Avoiding hasty, careless decisions, which can have devastating results on the manager's unit or the entire organization. Decisions made with forethought, using the many managerial tools available will lead to better and more profitable operatio...
Nutrorim has a lot to learn about decision-making. They can go about changing their decision-making process into an effective tool for the company several ways. Don Rifkin needs to change his leadership style and research the different methods of decision-making that will be useful for his company. He needs to reformulate the problem and consider all the employees’ ideas before a final decision is made. In order for good decisions to be made, Nutrorim will have to try different methods and learn through trial and tribulations to end the conflict that plagues their discussions.
Management will continue to encounter new challenges that require problem solving and decision-making strategies. Some problems may be easily resolved while others could take much longer depending on the complexity of the problem. In order for management to make effective decisions and achieve success for their businesses, the decision makers need to have adequate knowledge of the situation, critical thinking and excellent communication skills, and a sophisticated approach for tackling problems. Every business should have a systematic approach for solving problems and making decisions. Without one, decision making would be insufficient and businesses would be unproductive.
When it comes to the reasoning and problem solving of any issue there are various ways to come to a decision; thinking is the mental process that allows the people in the world to deal with it effectively, according to set goals, plans, ideas, and desires. Thinking involves the gathering of information that forms concepts and engages in problem solving, reasoning, and making precise decisions for the benefit of whom is concerned. Thinking according to Kirby and Goodpaster (2007),"is an internal mental process that uses information as input, integrates that information into previous learned material and the result may be knowledge or may be nothing". Creative thinking, logical thinking, and persuasive thinking are three types of thinking. Each of these types of thinking affects the critical thinking process in various ways. The three thinking types will be compared and contrasted, as well as applied to affects they have in the critical thinking process. Every person has a primary style of thinking that is used most to help in his or her decisions. Finally, critical thinking will be applied to the decision making process by using workplace examples.
An employee does an unsatisfactory job on an assigned project. Explain the attribution process that this person's manager will use to form judgments about this employee's job performance.
Managerial decisions are an important component in achieving the objectives of the organization. The success or failure of a business depend upon the decisions made by managers (Jurina, 2011). Today’s increasing complexity in the world of business brought forth greater challenges for both the firm and its managers. The rapid rate of technological and digital advance as well as greater focus product innovation and processes that influence marketing and sales techniques have contributed to the increasing complexity in the business environment.
The monumental consequences of strategic decisions call for individuals with unique performance abilities who can navigate the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. inherent in the nature of those decisions. Aspiring leaders can rise to the challenge by undergoing self-assessment and personal.
Making decisions is an important part of our everyday life. Decisions define actions and lead to the achievement of goals. However, these depend on the effectiveness of the decision-making process. An effective decision is free from biases, uncertainties, and is deeply dependent on information and critical thinking. Poor decisions lead to the inability to achieve set objectives and could lead to losses, if finance is a factor. Therefore, it is important to contemplate about quality and ways to achieve it in decision-making, which is the focus of this paper. The purpose is to look into the needs of decision-making, including what one should do and what one should not do.
Rational decision making is one of the most common problem solving methods and can be used to solve almost all problems. Rational decision making and problem solving processes can be explained in a logical manner. Effective leaders use rational decision making processes to identify the problem, think up solutions, evaluate alternatives along with select a solution, implement and evaluate the final solution. In rational decision making leaders analyze the problem to achieve the most efficient choice through different possible alternatives from different scenarios before making a selection.