Decision-Making Process: Improving Our Ability to Make Decision
Facing a situation, you have to decide. For example, the fire surrounds you: What do you do? Jump through the windows and risk to kill yourself or to wait the firemen and risk to be burned to death if they come to late? Every decision that we make or don’t make shapes our future. Everyone tries to make good decisions. However, it is easy to overlook an important factor, miss a desirable option, or base the decision on unreliable information. In addition, fear of making a wrong choice can cause someone to postpone decisions, leading to miss opportunities. A businessperson must have the ability to make decisions under the pressure of time and circumstances. This ability needs a good knowledge of the decision making process.
From a practical point-of-view, of the most important human skills is decision-making. Both at a personal level and in context of organizations, decision-making skill strongly affects the quality of life and success. Decision-making is the process by which a person or group recognizes a choice, gathers information, analyzes the data, and determines the best option to choose. The decision-making process employs high levels of critical thinking skills and problem-solving techniques. Decisions are guided by several factors, primarily the significance of the issue, the impact the decision may have, and the person's or group's morals and cultural norms. For less significant decisions that have little impact, people might not invoke the higher thinking skills that theorists expect (Decision-Making 2015). Flipping a coin, hoping for a miraculous sign, following the crowd, or by passing the responsibility to someone else are all means of making decisions. For more important decisions with greater impact, people often employ more advanced thought processes like those demonstrated in decision-making models by social psychologists and behaviorists.
Most theories accept the idea that decision-making consists of a number of steps or stages such as improving creativity, critical thinking skills, and problem solving techniques. It is well recognized that routine cognitive processes such as memory, reasoning, and concept formation play a primary role in decision-making (Decision-Making 2015).
Leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the life blood of their o...
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...d are seldom subject to critical review. As a result, managers frequently have a difficult time improving their decision-making capacity.
Good business decisions are the heart of a successful organization. Without a process decisions may be made by the most powerful or influential person in the group or not made at all. Good decision-making is a balance between getting the most of what we want with as little risk as possible. It means that we include the right people and use a process that encourages participation while keeping or focus clearly on the decision at hand. This allows people to make the decision with a high degree of confidence and efficiency.
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Welch, D. (2001). Decisions, Decisions: The Art of Effective Decision Making New York State. Prometheus Books.
Before starting this reading assignment I never thought to question why I make the decisions I do in such a short amount of time. After reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, written by Malcolm Gladwell I have a better understanding of how we as individuals perceive and react to information. This book provides insight on how to critically asses and understand the way our minds operate on a deeper level. The book consists of 6 chapters, each providing insight on how the decision making process works and how it affects what we do with every second of the day. Throughout each chapter there are subsections with personal stories, case studies, or examples that help provide an alternative view on how the decision making process is carried out under normal circumstances.
It’s hard to believe how making one decision can impact and shape your life for the future. According to Google, decision-making is the action or process of making decisions, especially important ones. While discussing this important topic, decision-making, I’ve come across some things I’ve learned and how they can impact my life. First, impulsive decisions can lead to bad outcomes. In the short story, The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs, the story is based around the idea; think more about a decision than quickly resolving one. Secondly, deciding to run away from your problems can lead to an even greater one. In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, The Masque of the Red Death, the characters are faced with a problem, but when they believe it has been resolved it turns out to be deadlier than
Turman, P. (October 13, 2000b). Group Decision Making & Problem Solving: Group Communication [Lecture] Cedar Falls, IA. University of Northern Iowa, Communication Studies Department.
Critical thinking and decision-making are related in more ways than people think. This paper will define critical thinking and decision-making according to the book Whatever It Takes. It will also present a personal definition of critical thinking and decision-making from the author of this paper. The relationship between the two will be explained as well as the benefits of being a critical thinker. The author of this paper will also show how critical thinking is present in his organization and how he implements critical thinking techniques on a daily basis.
In this book Gary reveals that 90 percent of the important decisions that we make throughout our lives is based on intuition. Klein came to the theory by studying those who are under extreme stress that are forced to make critical decisions every day such as CEOs and Firefighters. He also states that the we have the ability to harness our intuition and to train it to make us better decision makers overall. In this book Klein teaches readers about his three-tiered process called the “Exceleration Program.” The program has been claimed to help train individuals on the tools they need to build upon their own intuition skills and to help them make better critical decisions
Making business decisions involves choosing between alternative courses of action. Many factors affect business decisions, yet analysis typically focuses on finding the alternative that offers the highest return on investment or the greatest reduction in costs. Some decisions are based on little more than an intuitive understanding of the situation because available information is too limited to allow a more systematic analysis. In other cases, intangible factors such as convenience, prestige, and environmental considerations are more important than strictly quantitative factors. In all situations, managers can reach a sounder decision if they identify the consequences of alternative choices in financial terms. This unit
Blenko, M. W., Mankins, M. C., Rogers, P. (2010). The decision-driven organization. Harvard Business Review, 88(6), 54-62
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...
... settings, CEOs have to command action so that they can execute efficiently and capitalize on opportunities that are often fleeting. Leaders must recognize the value of learning quickly from events and the importance of keeping updated on developing events to stay ahead of competition. To create this scenario requires leaders must nurture creativity and openness, encourage exploration and invention, and facilitate cooperation across disciplines and perspectives. To meet conflicting demands, leaders must alternate between directing action and enabling innovation. As demonstrated by Sougarret, leaders must show decisiveness, give instructions, and periodically terminate discussions so teams can get things done. Yet, leaders need to understand that other times require them to create space for innovation, encourage opposition, ask questions, and promote experimentation.
Life is full of decisions. Some decisions are trivial. Should I choose paper or plastic at the grocery store? Which of the 31 flavors of ice cream should I pick? Other decisions are vital. Should I get married to her or should I take this new job? Your decisions may affect many people or only yourself. In this paper I will present a decision-making model. I will describe a decision that I made at work using this model and how critical thinking impacted that decision.
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.
Critical thinking a strong and powerful way to use the brain, it is used by millions everyday some without knowledge that they are even using it. Critical thinking according to Diane Halpern as " The use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome...thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed - the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking task. Critical thinking is sometimes called directed thinking because it focuses on a desired outcome." Halpern (1996).
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.
“Decision making is a process of first diverging to explore the possibilities and then converging on a solution(s). The Latin root of the word decision means "to cut off from all alternatives". This is what you should do when you decide.” (Kotelnikov, 2008). In fact, the decision making process helps reduce doubt and uncertainty about alternative choices to allow individual to choose the best reasonable choice. In addition, the decision making process can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful organization. Consequently, management tries to use the best techniques and tools possible to make the best decision. Nowadays, most organizations seem to think that they have the most effective and efficient decision making process. So what are the different styles of decision making processes have organizations implemented? In order to answer this question, the team members will investigate and observe the decision-making processes most prevalent in their organization. As a result, these papers will first compare and contrast the problem identification and formulation styles in the team members’ organizations. Then the most favorable aspects of each style will be discussed to describe a process by which a problem can be identified and described to stakeholders in a manner that is sensitive to their perspective.
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.