Discuss about the Challenges and Decision Making.
When it comes to effective decision making, many factors influence this activity for it to be an efficient process. From a personal point of view, making a decision involves coming up with planned changes which will make a difference in the output expected from a process (Wheelen & Hunger, 2011). In this section of the analysis, a decision-making process is discussed as seen by a colleague (Henry Joe) who wanted to change the mode of communication around a busy workplace. This individual had noted that verbal communication in issuing instructions and directions to the junior staff was becoming a problem.
Since the nature of operations involved in that particular firm required execution of assignments accurately, Joe noted that verbal instructions were frequently misinterpreted. Consequently, the quality of submissions made for jobs was growing very wanting from day to day operations. This prompted a change which considered consulting and researching widely to make a valid decision. After conducting several benchmarking processes of other established organisations, Joe felt that communication via email was the best channel of giving assignments and issuing instructions (Tang, 2015).
During one of the regular working hours, all the staff members were called for an impromptu meeting that was meant to introduce them to the new way of communication. The decision was made to the members present a series of staff training was arranged to have the decision implemented within the quickest time frame possible (Lewis & Saunders, 2012). The meeting was also meant to present the staff with a platform on which they would state their working grievances emanating from how information is relayed to them. Various concerns were presented which directly reflected the reason as to why there were numerous misunderstandings.
During the implementation of the change that came with the decision, various concerns came to reality. To begin with, the IT knowledge among the workers was wanting, and this necessitated other steps to fill this loophole. Secondly, the infrastructure requires for the implementation of the decision change also required an upgrade (Slavin, 2011). However, since the execution of that change, the outcome was felt far and near around all the corners of the firm’s operation. The quality of submissions from the junior staff was improved as every working team enjoyed how their responsibilities were cut down to specific instructions.
From a clear point of view, it would be very genuine to note that the logical decision-making process follows a predefined model which moves the decision to be made in a couple of phases (Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2014). These phases are there to ensure that the process follows a credible procedure whose consistency makes it inevitable to have a likely and reliable decision. Nevertheless, the following path describes a rational decision-making process which ideally suits the observation summarised in the decision summary section of this discussion.
In rational decision making, the directive of the process is initiated by determining what goals ought to be achieved by the model in the decision expected. Similarly, before Joe contemplated on making the decision, he considered various elements and how they would suit the problem at hand on the decision he projected to make eventually. Through a personal observation, Joe’s goals were to take communication in the workplace to a whole new level. The technology was supposed to form the core of the decision affecting the process.
Before making the decision, there is a certain standard that has to be adopted according to the rational decision-making model. In most cases, a decision is not something that comes overnight and implemented at the dawn of the following day. There ought to be a process that is expected to determine how the decision will be made. It was the same approach that was used by Joe in his decision making. He decided to visit established institutions’ ways of communication by sampling some of the best methods that were beneficial to the involved firms (Amin, et al. 2011). It is through benchmarking that he was able to come up with a sound and firm decision.
Before settling on a particular decision as the final one, the rational decision-making model suggests that one determines alternatives in a critical evaluation process. This step or phase of decision model presents an individual with choices which at times would be advantageous than a desired one (McNeil, et al. 2015). Comparatively true, Joe also made sure that he exhausted all of the alternatives that were available to him. He had even thought critically of accommodating the use of information relay via notice boards where staff members would get their instructions.
After establishing that all alternatives to a decision are viable, the rational decision-making process suggests that these options undergo a review process. It is through an analysis procedure, through consulting widely with all stakeholders, that a refined decision is made (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). Joe was also aware that his decision would significantly impact the organisation in its entirety. It is for this reason that he had to engage all head of departments to get their views on the new change. Meetings were held periodically to address the decision from different perspectives which formed the analysis phase of the rational decision-making process.
In the rational decision model, the output of this exhaustive and comprehensive procedure happens to be a refined choice. This decision was arrived at by following all the steps above before which each step must be satisfactory addressed before moving to the next one. Before considering using emails for communication within the firm, Joe had reviewed the use of destined notice boards for the same function. However, the official look of notice boards was wanting and this disqualified those channels as the principal means of communicating relevant information. That is how Joe settled on emails as the final decision (Clegg & Matos, 2016).
This decision-making model stipulates that a decision made by an individual is limited to time, their cognitive mind limitations and the amount of information they have. Similarly, Joe was bounded to make a decision that had randomly hit his mind due to the communication difficulties the firm was facing. On the decision steps described above, Joe was forced to come up with a refined decision basing it on the knowledge he had about it. In other terms, Joe was confined in making a decision using the information he had obtained through a series of benchmarking activities (Habermas, 2015). Through consultations, Joe was able to settle down on a decision he thought was best for the entire organisations’ progress and development.
One of the potential issues that Joe had to consider was the integration of technology into the firm in line with the level of communication at that particular time. To be more particular, Joe had to think how much his company had contemplated integrating technology to vital operations of the organisation. This would then prompt him to come up with alternatives that would aid the business to achieve its long desired objective as it improves on communication. The implementation would alter the way the organisation was operating.
Another critical and potential issue to have bounded Joe’s decision was the financial implication of executing the decision. Integrating technology for any firm would come with number economic impact. The financial stability of the business would be the ultimate determinant of the decision to be made. Fortunately, the strategy of the company to move its operations in the technology direction made it easy for Joe’s decision to be accepted by the corporation. Additionally, the financial implication regarding revenue generation after successfully implementing the decision would attract the attention of the management in a positive direction.
From another angle, it would also be faithful to acknowledge that Joe encountered several limitations before he succeeded in making the ultimate decision. For instance, he was periodically rejected by some firms whose internal operations felt threatened. Businesswise, no company would feel comfortable to invite an outsider into its internal operations due to unfair competition that would arise from such a scenario (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). Since information is considered as a valuable weapon for any firm. This posed a significant challenge in the information-gathering phase of his decision-making quest. Some companies would reject his physical presence for fear of feeling robbed of their creativity and ideas.
From another angle, the cost of making the decision (as a process) was quite huge for some reasons. For instance, Joe had to use personal resources to come up with a decision that would impact on his line of work in a positive direction. His ambitions would, in turn, motivate his efforts, and therefore, the entire cost of the decision-making process was not massively hindered by the lack of finances from the firm’s end. Additionally, the cost incurred in training the staff members on using the email platform for communication came as a barrier to his decision implementation process (Robbins & Judge, 2012).
In conclusion, it would be important to note that any decision-making process consumes some resources. This is mostly so when a decision process has to follow the rational decision-making model (Krejewski, et al. 2013). Similarly, Joe had to sacrifice a lot of time and physical resources such as transport that was required to come up with the decision that he eventually made. Balancing his working hours and researching for the decision elements of satisfaction were quite a process which required professional insight and personal ambitions.
References
Amin, S. H., Razmi, J., & Zhang, G. (2011). Supplier selection and order allocation based on fuzzy SWOT analysis and fuzzy linear programming, Expert Systems with Applications, 38(1), 334-342.
Clegg, S., & Matos, J. A. D. (2016). Sustainability and Organizational Change. Routledge.
Fleisher, C. S., & Bensoussan, B. E. (2014). Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective application of new and classic methods. Pearson Education.
Galliers, R. D., & Leidner, D. E. (2014). Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Habermas, J. (2015). Communication and the Evolution of Society. John Wiley & Sons.
Krejewski, L. J., Ritzman, L. P., & Malhotra, M. K. (2013). Operations management: processes and supply chains. Pearson.
Lewis, P., & Saunders, M. (2012). Doing research and business and management: An essential guide to planning your project. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
McNeil, A. J., Frey, R., & Embrocates, P. (2015). Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2012). Organisational Behaviour 15th Edition. Prentice Hall.
Slavin, R. E. (2011). Cooperative learning. Learning ad Cognition in Education Elsevier Academic Press, Boston, 160-166.
Tang, M. (2015). A Practice Oriented Enterprise Resources Planning Course Design. In LISS 2015 (pp 1795-1800). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2015.
Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2011). Concepts in Strategic management and business policy. Pearson Education India.
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