GD - DECISION MAKING

Decision making

The process of making choices by identifying a decision, gathering information, and assessing alternative resolutions.

Continuous, indispensable

The decision-making process is a _______________ and _______________ component of managing any organization or business activities.

Decision

Can be defined as a course of action purposely chosen from a set of alternatives to achieve organizational or managerial objectives or goals.

Intuition

Immediately knowing something without reasoning or analysis.

Intuition

Determines which option to choose when two alternatives are apparently equal, it speeds up the decision-making process and when hard facts are insufficient, it allows the individual to decide on one path or another.

Reasoning

A process that uses existing knowledge to reason or make decisions about new situations and information acquired during new experiences.

Problem solving

The capacity to identify problems, generate solutions, and implement effective courses of action.

Emotional intelligence

Being aware of and managing your own emotions, as well as understanding and empathizing with others ' emotions.

Creativity

Thinking outside the box to generate innovative solutions and approaches.

Time management

Prioritizing tasks and allocating time effectively to make timely decisions.

Collaboration skills

The ability to effectively work with others towards a common goal or objective.

Delegation of Authority

Takes part of the workload off your plate, preventing you from developing decision fatigue

Decision trees

Visual tools that map out all possible outcomes of a decision and their probabilities.

Cost/Benefit analysis

It compares the expected costs of an option with its expected benefits.

Pros/Cons

It involves listing the advantages and disadvantages of different options.

Heuristic methods

It is used to reduce options or save time when approximations will be acceptable.

• Identify the problem

• Note potential solutions or actions

• List the advantages and disadvantages of each option

• Choose the decision you want to proceed with and measure the results.

Decision-Making Process (4)

Orientation - Discussion - Decision - Implementation (ODDI)

Conceptual analysis of the steps or processes that groups generally follow when making a decision.

Orientation

Decisions begin with a problem that needs a solution.

Goal clarification

Requires setting specific & attainable goals, review of the group's overall mission, the problems it is dealing with and the decisions it must make, results it intends to deliver, and the criteria it will use to evaluate the quality of its performance and results.

Goal-Path clarification

Requires spelling out just how the group will do its work, including identifying tasks and subtasks, organizing members’ roles and responsibilities, specifying how the members will work together, determining how the group will make its decisions, and setting milestones and deadlines.

Planning fallacy

The tendency to underestimate just how long a task will take to finish.

Law Triviality

The time a group spends on discussing any issue will be in inverse proportion to the consequentiality of the issue.

Discussion

The communication of information between two or more people is undertaken for some shared purpose, such as solving a problem, making a decision, or increasing participant's mutual understanding of the situation.

Collective memory

The shared reservoir of information held in the memories of two or more members of a group.

Cross-cueing

The enhancement of recall that occurs during group discussion when the statements made by group members serve as cues for the retrieval of information from the memories of other group members.

Information exchange

Exchanging information among the members of the group, thereby further strengthening their access to information as well as their recall of that information.

Processing information

Group members analyze each other’s ideas and offer corrections when they note errors. Members dialogue with one another, sharing viewpoints and seeking a shared meaning.

Error detection and correlation

Groups discuss information, they appraise the validity of ideas being shared, seeking increased accuracy, and identifying any errors of fact or implications.

Social decision scheme

A group’s method for combining individual member’s inputs in a single group decision.

Statisticized decisions

Groups make decisions by combining each individual’s preferences using some type of computational procedure, then get the average curve for the final decision.

Veto scheme

The group’s decision rules may give single individuals the authority to rule against any impending decision.

Consensus decision scheme

Happen when the advisory committee takes several polls of the members, but, in the final review, the group’s position is unanimous.

Authority scheme

The leader, president, or other individual makes the final decision with or without input from the group members.

Implementation

A plan of steps for a decision to take effect.

Evaluated

Weighting the impact and necessity of the decision.

Normative Model of Decision-Making

A theory of decision-making and leadership developed by Victor Vroom that predicts the effectiveness of group-centered, consultative, and autocratic decisional procedures across a number of group settings.

Decide

FIVE BASIC TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The leader solves the problem or makes the decision and announces it to the group.

Consult (Individual)

FIVE BASIC TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The leader shares the problem with the group members individually, getting their ideas and suggestions one-on-one without meeting as a full group.

Consult (Group)

FIVE BASIC TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Discusses the problem with the members as a group.

Facilitate

FIVE BASIC TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The leader coordinates a collaborative analysis of the problem.

Delegate

FIVE BASIC TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

If the group already functions independently of the leader, then he or she can turn the problem over to the group.

Normative Model

Synthesizes studies of leadership, group decision-making, and procedural fairness to predict when a choice should be made by authority and when it should be handled by the group.

• Cohesion

• Structural faults of the group or organization

• Provocative situational contexts

Three key sets of antecedent conditions (Janis)

• Overestimation of the group

• Closed-mindedness

• Pressures toward uniformity

Symptoms of groupthink (three categories)

Overestimating the Group

Groups that have fallen into the trap of groupthink are actually planning fiascoes and making all the wrong choices. Yet the members usually assume that everything is working perfectly.

Illusion of invulnerability

Members felt that they were performing well, even though they were not.

Illusion of morality

The planners believed in the inherent morality of their group and its decisions.

Closed-Mindedness

Rigidly shut off from alternatives, merely seeking to bolster their initial decision through rationalization and stereotypes.

Collective rationalization

Once the group began to lean in the direction of endorsing the plan, members began to discount information and opinions.

Stereotyping

Generalized belief about a particular category of people.

Pressure toward Uniformity

The struggle for consensus is an essential and unavoidable aspect of life in groups.

Self-censorship

Many of the members of the group privately felt uncertain about the plan.

Illusion of unanimity

Members of the group falsely perceive that everyone agrees; silence is seen as consent.

Direct social pressure

As the group’s support for the plan grew stronger, individuals who disagreed were pressured to keep their doubts to themselves.

Mindguards

Some members of the group shielded the group from information that would shake the members’ confidence in themselves or their leader.

Abilene paradox

Tendency for a group to decide on a course of action that none of the members of the group individually endorses, resulting from the group’s failure to recognize and manage its agreement on key issues.

Entrapment

Form of escalating investment, pursuing a chosen course of action than seems appropriate or justifiable by external standards.

Sunk cost effect

An investment or loss of resources that cannot be recouped by current or future actions.

Closed style of leadership

They were to announce their opinions on the case prior to the discussion.

Open-style leaders

Were told to withhold their own opinions until later in the discussion.

Group-Centrism Theory

Identified a syndrome that characterizes groups and often causes them to make faulty decisions.

Cognitive closure

”A desire for a definite answer to a question, any firm answer, rather than uncertainty, confusion, or ambiguity” and so adopts a more centralized structure with autocratic leaders.