Organizational Decision Making

Reviewing Organizational Decision-Making

INTRODUCTION

Over the last 20 years, I have been in many organizations across various industries and have often been surprised and perplexed as to how decisions are attained. On occasion, one could observe that organizations arrive at decisions after careful planning and consideration. Other times, decisions seem to be reactionary to meet the challenges of an ever changing and competitive market place. Furthermore, there are occurrences where it seems that instead of a detailed analysis of the situation, decisions are based on a best guess or gut feeling.

In this paper, I will focus on organizational decision making with both my current and past employers. During my two decades of work experience, I have held various management and non management positions. Currently I work as an admissions advisor for Keller Graduate School.

Depending on the organization and the type of decision that must be made, decision makers can come from various levels of management. Many times "no-brainer" situations lead to unanimous decisions being made. While other times, there is much debate and discussions prior to arriving at a final decision.

It is my intention to analyze these processes and determine how organizational decisions are made. This paper will scrutinize the influence that corporate politics, emotion, power, ego, or fear have on the decision making process. It will also explore how to enhance organization decision making at all levels.

OCI - Organizational Culture Inventory

Although the focus on this paper is not exclusive to my current employer, Keller Graduate School was focal point of my OCI. According to my OSI profile, I view my organizations primary style to be Competitive, while my secondary style was the perfectionist. The weakest style of the organization according to my OCI results is Oppositional. My second weakest style was Self-Actualizing. While I believe that a low Oppositional style can be positive to an organizational culture. It can have an adverse affect on the decision making process if it discourages confrontation of ideas. When people are afraid to speak up or are not encouraged to question flawed initiatives, it can bring unfavorable consequences to the organization. Self-Actualizing also scored low which may be a concern, since this means that more emphasis is given to quantity over creativity or quality.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

What are the methods to best improve the decision making processes in organizations?

Organizations do not consistently implement the best decision making processes. This is due to a myriad of reasons, many of which include but are not limited to: corporate politics, emotion, power, ego, lack of research and fear of change. Poor decisions can have undesirable consequences on employees from all levels. This is a far reaching problem that is evident across organizations in all industries.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Organization Behavior 10th Edition

The book did a good job of defining the decision-making process. According to the authors, it is important for managers within an organization to "provide for decision making that encourages the free flow of new ideas and supports the efforts of people who want to make their ideas work as they reach for success." (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn p. 298). This is something that is currently lacking in many organizations. And should be implemented in the culture of organizations that wish to succeed and bring out the best in their employees.

It also spells out five basic steps which are imperative in systematic decision making.

1. Recognize and define the problem or opportunity.

2. Identify and analyze alternative courses of action, and estimate their effects on the problem or opportunity.

3. Choose a preferred course of action.

4. Implement the preferred course of action.

5. Evaluate the results and follow up as necessary.

Chapter 13 describes the role that culture and ethics play in organizational decision-making. It also speaks frankly about the fact that decisions are sometimes made under the pressure of time or a lack of information. Decision making during changing or uncertain environments can augment the chances of adding risk to the process.

According to the book there are three useful decision-making models. They are the classical, behavioral and garbage models. The authors make the case that in order to be successful in today's complex environment, "intuition, judgment are just as critical to how decisions are made." (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn p.305).

Finally the book made an essential point for managers when it comes to decision making. First they need to realize that not all decisions carry the same urgency and therefore need to be made immediately. Second, they need to realize they can't make all of the decisions. The more comfortable they become in delegating some of these tasks the better it can be for the entire organization.

Decision Making Under Pressure

Stan Shapiro wrote a terrific article in the Futurist magazine called Decision Making Under Pressure. He is an emergency-room physician who shortly after the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 reflected on how to avoid disastrous outcomes in decision making.

He came up with Five Pitfalls in Critical Decision Making. They are as follows:

1. Unique Situation - He described how NASA faced a situation they had never faced but instead of approaching the situation cautiously, they quickly made a decision that turned out wrong in very tragic. He describes them as "inherently risky and dangerous, and should be considered invitations to poor decision making." (Shapiro 42).

2. Data Deficient - He argues if there is inadequate data, more information must be obtained prior to making a critical decision. While I tend to agree with his opinion, the luxury of time does not always exist.

3. Emotional Denial - The author brings up the very interesting and true point about how we tend to avoid negative outcomes and go