SBenegaL

Blog

  • Escalation of Commitment

    In the last byte, we looked at the concept of risk aversion. In today’s byte we look at the concept of escalation of commitment.

    One often finds situations where good money is thrown behind a failing cause – this is an indication of escalation of commitment. Escalation of commitment refers to the tendency of people/organizations to continue to support a failing course of action. Escalation of commitment need not just take the form of investing more in a firm or a cause; it could also be in the form of bearing deeper losses.

    If one were to wonder why this tendency occurs, it becomes clear that one of the reasons could be that humans dislike inconsistency and that when there is inconsistency among their attitudes or inconsistency between their attitudes and behavior, they strive to reduce the dissonance. The other reason could be optimism and control which over estimates the likelihood that positive things will happen to them.

    One way to reduce the possibility of escalation of commitment in organization is to split the responsibility for decision of projects – one individual could be initial decision and another could make the subsequent decisions. Also it is possible to reduce such an act by making it a group decision scenario instead of an individual decision.

  • Risk Aversion

    In the last byte, we looked at the various models of decision making. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of risk aversion.

    Risk Aversion refers to the tendency to choose options that possess fewer risks and less uncertainty.

    Individuals differ in their capacity to handle uncertainty and take risks. Some choose fewer risks and prefer familiarity and certainty while others prefer to take greater risks – they accept the loss in decisions and are willing to take more uncertainty.

    Risk taking could be an extremely individualistic behavior, but it is also influences by organizational factors – If an upper-level manager could be discouraging of risk taking then the creativity and innovation could suffer. What is important tough, is that the company/organization should have a consistent attitude towards risk and not fluctuate.

    Losses are bound to occur when one takes risk – however the key is not to throw the good money after the bad due to commitment – we shall discuss this in the next byte.

  • Decision Models

    In the last byte, we looked at the various steps involved in decision making. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on various decision models.

    Mangers make decisions that involve significant risk and in the face of uncertainty, they don’t have complete information most of the time about the problem and are forced to decide and act. Decision making could thus be extremely stressful since they would be ultimately responsible for the outcomes of their decisions. Added to this is the kind of decisions that managers are required to do – they could range from simple ones to painful ones like exiting businesses, firing people and admitting wrong!

    If one is to measure the success of a manager it would be through the number of effective decisions that one makes. An effective decision is one which is timely and meets the desired objective and is acceptable to those individuals affected by that decision.

    There are multiple ways in which one could model the decision making process, here is a list of those that we would be dealing with over the next few bytes:

    1. Rational Model
    2. Bounded Rationality Model
    3. Garbage Can Model

  • Decision Making Process 3

    In the last byte, we began our discussion about the first two stages of the decision making process. In today’s byte, we look at the remaining stages.

    The third step indicated in the process of the decision making process is that of gathering information that would help the manager decide about why the problem occurred.

    The fourth step is that of listing and evaluating the alternative courses of action – the manager in real life might not list it on a paper or board but would keep tab of the alternative courses and the various factors that affect the outcome there in. It also helps if some amount of brain storming could pitch in here (this is driven by the management style of the manager really!)

    The next step is to select the alternative that best achieves the objective that the manager set out to achieve in the first place. If the problem was appropriately diagnosed and the alternatives properly identified, it would be an easy step at this stage.

    The last and most crucial phase is that of implementing the decision. If there is no implementation of any decision made, it would be of no use – the situation should also be monitored to see if the decision made really meets the objective – the follow up is only complete if the monitoring and corrective action are taken up based on the feedback received.

  • Decision Making Process 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on decision making process and classified the decisions into 2 types. In today’s byte, we look at the various steps involved in a decision making process.

    The decision making process could be summarized in the following diagram (adapted from the reference book):

    The first step in a decision making process is that of recognizing the problem. The other way of looking at this is it is the point when the manager realizes that he/she has to make the decision in the context. It is important to identify the real problem else it is very possible that any action taken would not fix the real underlying reason – it would only be treating the symptoms and that is more life firefighting than the root cause fixation.

    The second step in the process is for the manager to indentify the objective with which the decision is to be made – that is, the manager should determine what needs to be accomplished through the decision.

    We shall continue the discussion on the other steps in the next byte.

  • Decision Making Process

    In the last byte, we looked at the difference between the responsibilities of a manager and a team leader. In today’s byte, we look at decision making process.

    Decision Making is an integral component of the life of a manager. We could classify these into 2 categories:

    1. Programmed Decisions
    2. Non Programmed Decisions

    Programmed Decisions refer to those decisions which are simple routine matters for which a manager has an established decision rule.

    Non Programmed Decisions refers to those decisions which made in new and could therefore be complex decisions that require a creative solution.

    Independent of the classification of decision making, it would be best we understand the process – how a decision is made by an individual or in a group. The following diagram illustrates such a process.

  • Managerial Implications of Team Work

    In the last byte, we began our discussion about the managerial implications on team work in the modern day. In today’s byte, we continue the discussion further and look at the managerial implications in detail.

    The manager’s responsibility in the triangle of new age team management is that of creating a receptive organizational environment for work groups and teams to work in. So, the manager would have to look at a balance between setting limits and removing barriers to enable the employees work better at their full potential. Unlike the traditional model, the manager here would be required to create a broad charter for this team, and give the team members the freedom to work – the role required from the manager would be to coach the team. Timely feedback and performance evaluation are other responsibilities that the manager would shoulder.

    The team leader role differs from the managers’ role on the following dimensions. The team leader would need to teach, listen, solve problems, manage conflicts, and enhance team functioning to ensure its success. It is primarily the team leaders’ responsibility to help the team work through interpersonal, task, and authority issues and show skill in nurturing a cohesive and effective team. Clearly we find that the team leaders’ role is more hands on than the managers’ role described above.

    Simply put, the team leaders should be skilled at forging the teamwork amongst diverse group of individuals, while the managers would need to be skilled in forging collaboration amongst diverse groups.

  • Managing in a New Environment


    In the last byte, we looked at how empowerment plays a role in forming effective teams. In today’s byte, we look at the triangle for managing in a new environment.

    In an earlier byte (look here) we discussed about the difference in the new and old work environments. Given that most current day work environments prefer following the new work environment, we look at three components – managers, teams and individuals in a work environment. There are a lot of unique demands that the new work environment places – managing these requires and understanding of the individual diversity and interrelationships of individuals, teams, and managers as shown below.


    We shall continue this discussion in the next byte.

  • Empowerment in Teams

    In the last byte, we looked at how diversity and creativity influence the group settings. In today’s byte, we talk about empowerment.

    In order to ensure that teams manage themselves (self-manage) it would also be important to empower them. While team work builds the spirit of a team and helps the team members achieve more than they could individually do, if empowered it the right skills they could achieve more. Here are a list of four such skills that help empower the team members and there by the teams.

    1. Competence Skills – these refer to the skills that deal with the strength – the mastery and experience in one’s chosen discipline and profession. This is like the bed rock on which other skills and the team’s performance could be built up.
    2. Negotiation Skills – this helps the individual team members negotiate with their friends and foes on various aspects to be able to actively achieve what they intend.
    3. Cooperative Skills – this deals with the individual’s ability to motivate his/her colleagues to work on increasing the gains for everyone in the team – this behavior is usually encouraging, helping etc to bring about the sought end.
    4. Communications Skills – this is an essential skill that allows the team member to express self and also reflect and think. It is this expression that allows people to express and understand others.

  • Diversity and Creativity in Teams

    In the last byte, we looked at the social benefits of work groups. Today’s byte, we shall briefly discuss about the role of diversity and creativity in teams.

    We understand that teams are united by their purpose – this is like the shared goal towards which the team-members work, however this doesn’t imply that the team members should be similar or they should all follow a strict defined way to doing things. We are hinting here at the role of similarity (a component of diversity) and creativity in teams.

    Dissimilarity amongst team members have varied affects on the team and the individuals involved in terms of the employee’s commitment, turnover intentions, beliefs, self-esteem etc. While the dissimilarity also helps in enhancing the creativity given that the same aspects is observed by team members from diverse opinions. This means that creativity could be looked at in a team context and not just the individual context; there could be a process that could help tap the creativity of individuals and solve the work-team challenges.

    The creativity aspect in work teams could not just arise for the dissimilarities in the social context, but also the prior experience of the team members. This is also one of the reasons why diversity based on the team composition varying in experience levels and the domains could actually benefit the teams in solving challenging problems.