Personal Decision-Making Process Analysis

Managers within organizations are faced with the challenges daily of making excellent decisions. In everyday life we are challenged in making sound decision, decision that will last for a life time. Folk often wonder after making a decision if it was the right choice, will it affect the people around me, was this a good choice for my family, and will the decision affect them. In order to be an effective manager you have to possess the skill of outstanding decision making skills. In order for one to be successful within their personal life they may also need to possess an understanding of effective decision making. The decision- making process should be one that makes a positive change. Can the decision making process work

Decision-making in the workforce is a process of responsibilities used by upper management to implement, enforce rules, regulations, and maintain a successful environment. Decision-making implemented more effectively by making a plan, thinking it through, accepting more than one opinion and determining what is best. However, decision-making often utilized more effectively by opening doors of opportunities for a suggestion, question, discussion, and feedback. Although, more involvement helps improve understanding, utilize behavior skills and present opportunities for better communication. Everyday life consists of decision-making, the right decision may not always be applied, but ensure room for improvement and opportunity. Individuals approached decision-making in many different ways. As stated by (Jones, Graham, & Bateman, 2006) decision making is a procedure used to recognize a problem, weigh the alternatives and evaluate a solution in which, certain situations will require different approaches to become effective.

People should make decisions every day, some of those decisions are easy to make, while others are quite difficult to implement. An appropriately combined and organized decision-making process will help to control this issue and bring a positive outcome for those involved. The decision-making process may become challenging for people due to “the lack of structure and entail risk, uncertainly and conflict” (Bateman and Snell, 2012, p. 86). That is why people trying to make important personal or professional decisions should have an appropriate model to follow in order to avoid these challenges. Bateman and Snell identified six steps or stages of decision-making process

It feels as if we rarely have situations with sufficient data to make decisions clear and absolute. Maybe those situations do occur frequently, but because they are obvious, we don’t even register them as decisions. Leadership hinges on effective decision making and judgement calls. That includes gathering information for analysis when available, but also recognizing how not to be caught in analysis paralysis. Effective leaders constantly evaluate the situation, recognize the benefits, risks, and constraints and move forward. Nothing impedes an organization more than inability to commit to a path forward.

Risk management is a continual process that is used by every person throughout their day. It is an autonomous activity, that when an individual is presented with a situation their brain assesses the associated risk and quickly makes a determination as to whether that risk is acceptable; based on the potential benefit or the possibility of an adverse outcome. For just one person, this can be a difficult process and without preparation, the outcome is reliant on chance, as in a toss of a coin. This describes a basic reactionary process; the goal is to develop a proactive stance that eliminates, mitigates, or defers the effects of unknown and unexpected disruption events.

A leader who follows Badarocco’s decision making format could be viewed as inconsistent. If decision making is based on the situation and the players involved, the leaders decision making could be seen as erratic and inconsistent overtime. The leader also will not have a consistent framework for the behavior they model, because the framework is also situational. In contrast, Hill presents a decision making plan identifies values that

A further aspect of leadership, which can also be believed to have a direct link with communication, is decision-making. Both leadership styles are similar in the way that ideas need to be stored before making a business decision. In an autocratic work place “decisions are made independently with little or no input from the rest of the group” (Riley, 2012 n.p.). However, in a democratic society “employees have greater involvement in decision making” (Riley, 2012 n.p.). Both these types of leadership have their benefits and disadvantages with respect to decision-making. In his research on different types of leadership, Joseph, (n.d.) stated that autocratic leadership style could be effective in a business environment as decisions can be made quickly without consulting with workers. According to Cherry, (n.d.) this type of leadership would be advantageous in situations such as the military where decisions need to be taken quickly. Though quick decision-making can be beneficial, it could be argued that it can lead to a demotivated workforce. Employees’ motivation decreases

Making prodigious decisions is an everyday challenge. A great deal of the time, those tough decisions is dependent on who it affects. Thus, when the impact of that decision touches thousands of individuals, the pressure is multiplied beyond measure. Moreover, there are several key factors that a great leader should keep in mind when the decision making time is ready. Firstly, will this pronounced decision compromise the safety of anyone? Secondly, how can the decision made by the leader be communicated throughout the workgroup?

In chapter 12, the book offered 7 strategies to improve decision making efforts. These strategies were broken in to two separate groups, the first three are broad sweeping changes, and the last four are techniques to improve decisions we are making. Managers are measured on the decisions that they are making. A good manager will know what it takes to make sound, and reasonable decisions. Decisions define who we are, and they can have profound effects on others, so we must choose wisely when it comes to the final result.

Now it is important to keep in mind that decisions evolve with circumstances some decisions are made simply with more time to decide and others require quick if-then thinking to achieve results. The focus here is how to prepare ourselves to do those rapid decisions that needs to be made under pressure.” (Fred, 2008)

Thinking critically and making decisions are important parts of today’s business environment. It is important to understand how the decision making process works and the steps involved. The nine steps of the decision making process are: identifying the problem, defining criteria, setting goals and objectives, evaluating the effect of the problem, identifying the causes of the problem, framing alternatives, evaluating impacts of the alternatives, making the decision, implementing the decision, and measuring the impacts. (Decision, 2007.) By using various methods and tools to assist in making important business decisions an individual can ensure the decisions they make will be as successful as possible. In this paper it

Leader’s choices and actions are the result of the leader’s experiences (Bennis & Goldsmith, 1997). Leadership in organizations is driven by uncertainty. How leaders make decisions based on that uncertainty determines the performance of an organization (Hatch, 1997). Decisions are made on the basis of information available about various environmental variables. However, the variables are many and complex in nature. They may be related to political, economic, social, or other unknown variables. It is not possible to study all such variables in depth because of inadequate information or data. This leads to inaccuracy in decision-making.

The decision is to select an action among a number of actions that solves a given problem, that prevents a problem from happening, or that forces to apply new ideas for development. The need for understanding decision making process is increasing because the complexity of modern organizations is increasing, and because the modern organizations' effectiveness depends on the decisions made by the managers. The question is how to select the most appropriate action to solve the problem satisfying all stakeholders.

The focus of my term paper is the decision making process used by today's top-level managers. Top-level managers, such as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Operations Officers (COOs), and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), must make critical decisions on a daily basis. Their choices and the resulting outcomes affect the company, the employees, and the stakeholders. Due to the high importance of their decisions, the process they use to reach them merits a close examination.

As individuals, we make decisions throughout the day weighing the cause and effect, cost and benefit, risk and impact of our actions on ourselves and upon others. When taken to a larger scale, as the manager of a team, the CEO of a corporation, or the leader of a nation, the decisions exponentially increase in impact and importance.