SBenegaL

Blog

  • Group Decision Making 3

    In the last byte, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of group decision making. In today’s byte, we discuss about which one is a better approach. 

    It is logical for one to ask – would a group decision be more favorable than individual decision making? The simple answer is – it depends! It depends on the kind of task.
     
    On tasks that have a correct solution, it has been found that individuals outperform groups, while if the interaction required is for a long time – has shown the opposite – group outperforms the individual when a long period of engagement is needed.
     
    While initially, there could be a best member in the group – as time progresses and gains more experience the dependence on the best individual becomes less important.
     
    While it is common for managers to believe that group decision is advantageous and likely to be proffered, it comes in with its own liabilities. There are two potential liabilities with the group think approach – groupthink, group polarization!

  • Group Decision Making 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on group decision making. In today’s byte, we look at advantages and disadvantages of this process. We shall list down the same here to begin with:

    Advantages:
    1. Greater Knowledge and information due to pooling of group member resources
    2. Increase acceptance and commitment to the decision due to the involvement of members in decision process
    3. Greater understanding about the decision as the members are involved in various stages of decision making
    Disadvantages:
    1. Pressure within group to conform and fit in
    2. Domination of the group by one forceful member or dominant clique
    3. Amount of time required – greater than an individual making a decision. 

    We shall continue the discussion further in the next byte.

  • Group Decision Making

    In the last byte, we looked at the aspect of how involved participative decision making could be. In today’s byte, we discuss about group decision making. 

    It is common practice that groups are used in decision making. There are two broad highlights of this form of decision making:
    1. Synergy – this refers to a positive force that occurs in groups when group members stimulate new solutions to problems through the process of mutual influence and encouragement within the group.
    2. Social Decision Schemes: refers to simple rules used to determine final group decisions.
    Synergy is definitely beneficial to the decision making process, another related aspect that comes in is the commitment to a decision that flows in along with the group behavior – the knowledge and experience of the team members is voluntarily placed on the table.

    Some examples of social decision scheme are: majority wins, truth-wins etc.

  • Participative Decision Making – Levels of Participation

    In the last byte, we looked at the individual foundations that help foster a participative decision making. In today’s byte, we look at what levels of participation are found to be most satisfying and impact making.

    When multiple people are involved in decision making, managers are generally in charge of the team’s output and it is a must for them to understand some or the all stages where employees could play a role in decision making. Typical stages in decision making are – identifying problems, generating alternatives, selecting solution, planning implementation, evaluating results etc.

    It is commonly seen and also ascertained by research that greater the involvement in all these stages, there is a greater satisfaction the employee finds and this translates into better performance.

    Definitely, the decision process is not the same in all organizations and the culture plays a major role. None the less, in scenarios where the employee participation is not possible at all levels, employees are found to be give high pay-offs if involved in generating alternatives, planning implementations and evaluating results.

  • Participative Decision Making 4

    In the last byte, we looked at the organizational prerequisites (foundations) that assist a participative decision making. In this byte, we look at the individual prerequisites for a participative decision making.

    Research has indicated that there are three individual prerequisites for participation and empowerment at workplace these are:
    1. the capability to become psychologically involved in participative activities
    2. the motivation to act autonomously
    3. the capacity to see the relevance of participating for one’s own well-being.
    The first aspect of psychological involvement is extremely essential as a failure to be involved could be empowered could make them ineffective. Ex: Cultural aspects like having grown up in an authoritarian set up could hamper voluntary participation.
    The participative decision making is driven by people who are open to work autonomously – have an internal drive. If the team has dependent people they wouldn’t be effective contributors to the effort.
    The ability to look at a personal benefit (not short term alone but also long term) becomes important if one is to become an effective member of such a team.

  • Participative Decision Making 3

    In the last byte, we discussed about the advantages of participative decision making and how technology has influencing decentralized decision making. In today’s byte, we look at the foundations on which we could build participative decision making primarily organizational in dimension.

    We could classify the foundations necessary for a participative decision making, which enables empowering of employees towards enhanced task motivation and performance under two heads.
    1. Organizational
    2. Individual
    Organizational factors like a supportive organization culture and team-oriented work design play a major role in empowerment of the teams. Let’s understand this a bit, when we empower a lower level employee to make decisions – it is quite possible that the middle level management could sense fear and anxiety and in some extreme cases even terror! The senior leadership in such a scenario must create a culture that is reassuring to the middle level managers and also be supportive. If this factor is overlooked the middle management could turn into a restraining or disruptive force that puts participative decision making efforts off track.
     
    The design of work in these organizations shouldn’t be just limited to the concept of work specialization and narrow task definitions which make the work extremely routine in nature. This should be replaced with a more absolving and responsible of the complete piece of the work – we call this approach a team-oriented work design. This team oriented work design is a key organizational foundation that helps achieve broader tasks and a responsible execution.

  • Participative Decision Making 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on participative decision making. In today’s byte, we continue the discussion further.

    Participative decision making has several advantages to it; some of them are discussed in here:
    1. Given that the people affected by decision are generally involved in the decision making process, this helps reduce (if not eliminate) the negative experiences that could arise from organizational politics.
    2. Participative decision making helps increase employee creativity, job satisfaction and productivity. The employees involved look at the implementation of their choices, suggestions etc and this plays a crucial role in job satisfaction. The sense of ownership of the decision made helps increase productivity!
    It is interesting to note that the business environment of the present day is playing a huge role in fostering participative decision making.  We today live in a knowledge driven economy and the points of highest knowledge generation is typically at the boundaries of the organization – tapping them is quintessential for sustaining business advantage. Also, the advent of new technology and communication means has helped make decisions quick and decentralized!

  • Participative Decision Making

    In The last byte, we looked at the various types of creativity. In today’s byte, begin our discussion on how to unleash the potential of participation in decision making. 

    Intuition and Creativity are extremely handy in decision making, however there is not a prerogative that these are properties of managers alone – people at any level could pitch in with the relevant inputs for a better decision. With companies employing a large work force, effective management of the people could help the company improve its economic performance tremendously. Participative Decision making is one such means by which companies could capitalize on the power of its people.

    Participative decision making is a kind of decision making in which individuals who are affected by decision influences the making of decisions. In such cases the company generally created an empowered self-managed team to make decisions.
     
    Let’s take an example to understand this – In a hospitality industry – guests residing in the hotels have various requests and they interact extensively with the guest service personnel. Empowering the guest service personnel to do whatever is necessary to make guests happy – without really consulting their supervisors could be one way in which this could be used!  (Definitely the cultural context in which such decisions are made cannot be ignored.)

  • Decision Making: Creativity Factors – Individuals & Organizational

    In the last byte, we looked at some of the mental blocks to unlocking creativity. In today’s byte, we continue the discussion further and explore the roles of individual and organization factors in creativity.

    Creativity doesn’t just help in finding problems but also helps fixing them. Research has classified the kinds of creativity into four types, based on where it is triggered from and the source of the problem.
    1. Responsive Creativity
    2. Expected Creativity
    3. Contributory Creativity
    4. Proactive Creativity
    Responsive creativity refers to the response (solution) to a problem presented by other as part of your job. Expected creativity refers to the discovery of problems as part of the expectation the organization places on the individual. Contributory creativity refers to the situation where a problem is presented to you since you want to be creative and Proactive creativity refers to the nature of discovering a problem because you want to be creative!
     
    It is important to note – creativity has emerged as a global concern as a response to addressing the uncertainty that one faces in the modern day business and leaders play a key role in modeling creative behavior in organizations.

  • Decision Making: Creativity Inhibitors

    In the last byte, we looked at what organization characteristics influence creativity dimension of decision making. In today’s byte, we look at some of the mental blocks that inhibit creativity from emerging to its true potential. 

    One would need to understand that creativity is not hard-wired, it could be developed. It however would emerge only if the mental blocks that inhibit creativity are removed. Following a list of such mental blocks that research has identified:
    1. Search for “the” “right” answer
    2. Attempting to be logical
    3. Be bound by rules
    4. Avoiding Ambiguity
    5. Looking for practicality in the solution
    6. Fright of being foolish
    7. Trying to be in the comfort of only one’s expertise, avoid zones not under expertise
    8. Fearing failure
    9. Believing that one is not creative
    10. Eliminating Play from work!
    Unlocking these mental barriers could release the creativity hitherto untapped both for individuals as well as organization.