Reading 1.5
Jackall, R. (1988), Chapter 4, ‘Looking up and looking around’, in Moral Mazes, Oxford University Press, NY.
This reading is about decision-making process that one undergoes before arriving at a final decision having put into consideration a number of factors he/she thinks affects the final outcome. It highlights how other people’s decision affects another person decision. In a work environment we have hierarchical ladder which one “looks up to” before taking a certain decision at times a person also considers the decision of people whom they are in the same level for example at workplace, in what the reading labels “looking around”, before making the final decision. The author of this reading highlights about a paralysis situation which everyone from mid level management to senior most managers at the helm of the company. The situation could be one which can go either side and both sides have ramifications. For example if the decision will be good the company will avoid incurring huge unnecessary capital on the other hand if the decision will be bad the company will count big loss. At this point, which the author is referring to as paralysis, one may seek opinion of persons above him and/or even persons at same level as him in order to make final decision. According to the article managers’ dread making wrong decisions because it can either make or break them and at the same time managers’ at this situation don’t want to appear indecisive or lacking in leadership. A Standoff or what the author refers to as paralysis state. The article points out that the most important skill when in this kind of scenario is ability to think quickly and make sound decision that will be effective in solving the problem. (Jackall,1988).
Assuming I work as a production manager of a newspaper company and my role is to decide on the number of newspapers to be printed out daily based on the recent demand that has been on existence. But in recent weeks the company as faced a dip in number of newspaper sales due to adverse media reports linking my company to fake news to make sales. But we believe in our quality and trustworthiness of our reporting. I have make a decision on whether to trust our recent numbers and order similar number of copies for production or admit we’ve lost considerable market and print less copies by a million. Printing less may send signal of admitting fake news on our side printing more people may not buy and company runs into big losses. After careful consideration consulting PR manager at my level and managing director, I decide to stick with our numbers and it paid off!
Reading 5.2
Hogarth, R.M. (1981) ‘Beyond discrete biases: functional and dysfunctional aspects of judgmental heuristics’, Psychological Bulletin, 90(2)
This article articulate issue concerning discrete judgment and its shortfalls when making a decision about aspect or a scenario that requires a decision to be made, it lays more empathises on the need to have a continuous, collective and systematic judgment-making process as opposed to being individual based. The author asserts that for a judgement to be more sound and correct it has to be a process rather than a heuristic approach where an individual decides on the final outcome or decision about a certain aspect or case. The article notes that psychologists to put more weight on discrete, individualistic judgment –making approach than a continuous, collective judgement- making process thereby watering down the importance of feedback when making judgement. To underpin the importance of feedback in the process of making a fair judgement, the article looks at factors that points out the importance of feedback and finds that feedback is a tool that judgement making process has utilize in order to capture all the important points regarding a situation and thus arrive at a collective conclusion that best captures the situation under consideration. It questions the validity of assumptions being taken without being put in question and puts out that those assumptions could be wrong and needs to be tasted before being taken in as acceptable assumptions. The study finalizes that decision-making and judgement theories need to have an aspect of continuity as opposed to discrete way of making judgement in order for the judgements to be collective and sound. (Hogarth, 1981)
While at work I experienced situation where I think it was a case of conflict of interest on the part of the manager. The judgment arrived at was not a continuous collective process rather in it was a heuristic and discrete. The firm is a manufacturing and processing that deals with cement production. The case concerned a colleague who made repairs on some motors and it happened that proper repairs procedure was not followed and ended up requiring the company to purchase new motor because of the extend of the damage. This case involved to employees who were on duty same time, one was demoted by the manager while the other one was left untouched reason given was that the one demoted did not give satisfactory answer on why repairs was not done correctly but in inquiring I found out the one not punished was related to a senior manager.
Reading 7.1
McIntyre, R.M. and Salas, E. (1995), ‘Measuring and managing for team performance: emerging principles from complex environments’ in Guzzo, R.A. and Salas, E. & Ass (eds), Team Effectiveness and Decision Making in Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
The paper zeroes in on the various aspect of teamwork in a military context. It explores how team teamwork in military can be used by the military to address complex and dynamic challenges that military faces while on duty or carrying out their mandate. It highlights on the need for military teams to achieve their mission, the ideal size of the team, leadership and the need to take strategic decisions in order to fulfill their missions. The study also highlights challenges in measuring teamwork performance as well as how the team can be trained on teamwork skills. The study has noted insightful principles that can help effectively provide training to military teams, how performance can be measured and how the military team can be managed. Through survey on military teams the study was able to note down these observations with an aim of adding to the knowledge base how best the military teams can be handled in a more effective manner. The paper highlighted limitation of the previous research and collected data in the context of the team and analyzed to draw insightful meanings with regard to measurement of team management, performance, trainings and other aspects which the study explained in detail. The study also explored the role of individuals in the team. It recognizes the roles of individuals in the team that will eventually counts into the collective achievement of the team. (Mclintyre and Salas, 1995).
I think I can relate to this concept in that teamwork results to achieving objectives that would have been otherwise not met if every team member was working individually. Example is at my work place where I and colleagues have embraced teamwork at work. When any of my colleagues meets a client he/she tries to find out which product might the client be interested in in our company even if the client ends up picking a product that is not under his or her portfolio. Therefore we end up making referrals to each other that would have otherwise be impossible to get if we were not working as a team.
Linstone, H. (1984), ‘Our proposed perspectives’ in Linstone, H., Multiple Perspectives for Decision Making, North Holland, NY.
Reading 8.1
This paper addresses various aspects or perspectives of decision making process that are unique according to the environmental, organizational and personal context. These perspectives according to the article are subject to these contexts because they occur within it. The technical, organizational and personal perspectives are introduced by the author of the article to ease the understanding of how different elements in these perspectives affect the outcome of taking or making a decision. The idea of how technology, being within the environment of human beings have affected the human beings in terms of how it has assisted them, hurt them and changed them in the way they exist in the environment. The article postulates that in order to answer the question of how and what it is imperative to consider respective perspectives when studying technical, organizational and personal elements. Considering these elements in their respective perspectives will assist in drawing various relations among the elements in each perspective thus having a better understanding. The article also reviewed various literatures to gain understanding of various standpoints as postulated by various scholars. The Andersen’s concept of personal perspective is postulated that this perspective is a resultant of environment surrounding that particular person. That a person decision will be according to how his or her environments have shaped or conditioned his or her standpoints on various issues that needs a decision to be taken. (Linstone,1984)
Brainstorming ideas at my workplace has been one of the key pillars in our company. Whenever the company or my department needs to take a decision it has been norm for the manger to call for a meeting a let each one of us propose way forward regarding an issue. This is a resource that our company has really utilized for a very long time even before we joined the company. The company is aware that different people have different perspectives regarding same issues. Each person has had a difference experience in schooling and as well as work related issues. When these minds are put together hardly would they brainstorm an idea that will not work out things for the company as expected or even beyond expectations. I participate fully in these sessions and bring forth my idea on the problem can best be handled by the company. I can relate very well with this study based on the above account.
References:
Hogarth, R.M. (1981) ‘Beyond discrete biases: functional and dysfunctional aspects of
judgemental heuristics’, Psychological Bulletin, 90(2)
Jackall, R. (1988), Chapter 4, ‘Looking up and looking around’, in Moral Mazes, Oxford
University Press, NY.
Linstone, H. (1984), ‘Our proposed perspectives’ in Linstone, H., Multiple Perspectives
for Decision Making, North Holland, NY.
McIntyre, R.M. and Salas, E. (1995), ‘Measuring and managing for team performance:
emerging principles from complex environments’ in Guzzo, R.A. and Salas, E. & Ass (eds), Team Effectiveness and Decision Making in Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
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