The main topic of this article is how an organizational leader can make better decisions for his company and ones his subordinates will be more willing to follow. The article gives guidelines for decision making based on the problem at hand. The author provides the dimensions of effective decisions, the first dimension is the objective or impersonal quality of the decision. The second is the acceptance or the way the persons who must execute the decision feel about it. He gives the formula ED = Q X A, the ED represents the effective decision, Q signifies quality and A stands for acceptance. High quality decisions require knowledge and wisdom, high acceptance involves satisfaction and satisfaction is achieved through participation in decision. The author warns in the article, if we try to achieve both high quality and high acceptance , we may achieve neither.
The high-quality, low acceptance are decisions best used for problems types for that are solved by experts and do not generate acceptance problems. These problems include: 1) Decision regarding expansion, new products, decentralization, plant sites, etc. 2) Problems with setting prices, determining costs, etc. 3) Problems with technical or specialized knowledge.
Problems with high-Acceptance, low-quality decision fall into this category are: 1) The fair way to distribute a desirable item. 2) The fair way to get an undesirable something accomplished. 3) The scheduling of overtime, vacations, coffee breaks, etc. 4) The fair way to settle disciplinary problems, violations of regulations, lack of cooperation, etc.
High-acceptance, high-quality decisions are used for all problems that do not fit in the previous two categories. Group decisions increase the intellectual resources and the reaching of the high-quality decision is a by-product.
What I learned from this article is group problem solving increases the quality of a decision because the intellectual resources increases. Each member of the group thinks differently than the other, as well as, they have different knowledge and skill sets. I can use these resources to maximize the quality of the decision. Group members may see or know of an aspect of the problem I had not thought about and prevent an error in the decision to become a major error in business or life.
I used the group decision to solve our group project problem this past week. We had to think of way to accomplish the Milestone 4 task. We had not used tool book yet and we needed to get a copy and complete it. Using this technique we were able to get a copy and complete the task.
Organizational Change Strategies and Tactics
The topic of this article is how to accomplish organizational change and to minimize the resistance to it. The author gives a formula for assessing if organizational change is needed. The formula is, change = D X M X P > C where D stands for the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo, M signifies the new model for managing, P represents the planned implementation and C is for the cost of the change to the people in the organization.
Human resistance to change can come in many forms, open rebellion to subtle passive resistance. This resistance emerges for many reasons, these reasons are as
