Advice Taking and Decision-Making - Case Study Example

Personal case study reflection Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction The purpose of this report is to discuss and show the outcome of the decision I made in my workplace which resulted in a recommendable performance of the organization. I have been an employee Trams Company and I am the chairman of the procurement oversight committee whose purpose is to assess and evaluate what to buy or make for the organization. This committee is responsible for accepting or rejecting the requisitions from each department for concerning what to procure or make. This committee approves or rejects the proposals of the made by the tendering or the purchasing committee. Tram Company for a long time now has been outsourcing the cleaning services for the organization instead of doing internally. I proposed to this committee in which I am the chairman that we should do the organization cleaning internally instead of outsourcing the services. I went further and explained the need for not outsourcing the service and why we should it on our own. This report discusses the impacts of such a move and how it helps the organization to grow and save the outgoing financial resources when we have the potential to do the service by ourselves. The decision perspective The move to do cleaning of the organization by ourselves was a great move and was supported by almost all the group members who said the decision will have a big impact on the organization. From the past information of outsourcing the cleaning services, it was found out that a lot of financial resources are spent in hiring the services which could have been cut off if the organization could have done cleaning internally. This decision came as a by the way because it had not been planned so but by the creativity thinking of all the group members (Malakooti 2012). There were some talented and skilled employees in the organization that could do the cleaning job. Of course this move was expected to be supported by top management or be opposed by the top leadership. In this regard we as the committee focused on how to explain what will be the benefits of the decision and how it will cut down the resources spent in outsourcing the cleaning services (Malakooti 2012). Back in our minds, we had somebody in the organization that had the experience of cleaning and therefore we can make use of him instead of the outsourcing the services. To support our move, we will look at the past records about the cost of outsourcing the cleaning services and at the same time present a breakdown of what it will cost if we decide to do the cleaning by our own resources in the organization. Setting goals and objectives The committee members and I after through consultations came up with a set of goals and objectives of the decision through thinking creatively (Bonaccio & Dalal 2006) and how it should be conducted. As result of creative thinking we came with some objectives which the decision will aim at. At some point in our discussions on how best we can accomplish this decision, we invited the skilled employee in our organization. We also consulted him on how we can achieve the goals using the available resources. We the committee introduced the cleaning expert to our objectives of applying internal resources than outsourcing the cleaning services (Boinaccio & Dalal 2006). The main challenge of this decision was the time frame with which we were allocated to achieve this task. The contract with the cleaning organization was due to expire in three months time and by that time we could have put everything in place to do cleaning services internally. After some time wee were able to purchase all the necessary equipment which could be used for cleaning services as prescribed by our expert. Emerging issues In the process of implementing the decision, our cleaning expert and we encountered some issues but we managed to overcome them. It was important for us to solve every issue before we proceeded to the next step of the implementation process. The first issue was that the financial resources allocated for the purchase of equipment was inadequate (McKee 2010). We as the committee we met and solved the problem by informing the top management about the issue and they managed to increase their funds which we managed to purchase more items. This problem caused the whole committee some trouble and frustration but we managed to solve the problem before it was too late and the cleaning operations could stop. Due to creativity of the committee members, one of the members suggested that we use machine cleaners instead of the manual ones because they will be more economical and will achieve high productivity. It was also suggested that the employees involved in the cleaning section undergo some training so that they will gain some expert knowledge on the cleaning (Johnson & Johnson 2009). This will improve the quality of the cleaning services as well as towards achieving the goals and objectives of the decision. Despite these emerging issues we still held meetings regularly to see that our decision is on the right track towards achieving our target objectives. Conflict situation The top management had given the committee a period of three months to put up everything in place so that when the outsourced cleaning services contract expires, the Company will be able to start the cleaning services on its own (Johnson & Johnson 2009). At first the committee thought that this period of time was adequate to purchase all the cleaning equipment as well as allocating some employees to assist in the cleaning sector. The contract for the outsourced services expired and still the committee had not established the employees who will work in the cleaning section. The committee asked for some extra time to purchase and train all the employees who will be involved in the cleaning section. This meant that the organization had to hire or outsource the cleaning services for another extra time of two months while the employees undergo training. The time was added to the committee to finalize the preparations for the internalizing cleaning services and to how to implement the decision effectively. If this time was not added then the committee will not achieve its objectives because more time was needed to train employees and purchasing of cleaning equipment through a long tendering process. But with the addition of time for the decision to be implemented there was likelihood that the goals and objectives could be achieved. The effect of extra time The time which was added to the committee to accomplish its tasks was adequate for the committee to plan all events regarding the decision implementation. This added time also gave the committee enough time to focus on how and when every operation should be implemented. The committee came up with thoughtful ideas now that we were under pressure of implementing the decision before the time expired. The committee worked together in team work conception to achieve the goals and objectives of the decision (McKee 2010). We the committee we were determined to achieve the goals by implementing the decision successfully. He cleaner expert amongst the committee members led the whole team in generating ideas which will help to implement the decision with ease. The teamwork spirit of the committee members led to effective utilization of time and resources. The team had time to review the whole process of implementing the change and putting all equipment available and ready for implementation process. The management was also well informed on the major changes which were to take place due o the implementation of the new change. On the other hand, in the process of strategizing the implementation process, it was found out that some more useful resources of the company were available which could have made our work easier (McKee 2010). There were some employees who were more experienced than the one employee we knew of but they were not identified as expert cleaners who had worked in other organizations as cleaners. If we had identified the employees earlier, the committee’s work could have been much easier and more efficient because the skilled employees could have provided more information on the cleaning services. They could help the committee on various issues like the equipment required for cleaning and the skills required. The skills could have also reduced the time for training new employees in the cleaning sector. The decision reflective This decision which was made by our committee to stop outsourcing cleaning services was a good one and was not a failure as it has been proved the achievement of goals and objectives of the decision. Nevertheless our committee did not fully follow the eight steps of implementing a decision or a strategy (Malakooti 2012). These steps could have helped the committee to evaluate all the alternatives available before embarking on this decision. Also these steps could have helped the committee members to come up with more viable ideas by challenging the ideas of each committee member. We could have identified the resources of the company and know how best we could have approached the decision implementation. Being the chairman of the committee, I could be held responsible if I could have allowed our department to fail as a result of the decision making thinking tips which can include sticking to the original ideas. This first information may not be adequate or viable. I also encouraged the committee to develop group work thinking (Malakooti 2012). In this approach, all members were encouraged to think and that each idea presented was not wrong only that it was to be amended and challenged to see if it’s viable and can be adopted. Each group member thought that his or her thinking was not bad and it was for the interest of the organization and we did not critically evaluate these ideas. In this regard the risks were not fully assessed and the impacts of the decision were not regarded and their consequences to the organization as a whole. If I could have acquired the decision making knowledge and skills at that time we were making that decision, I could have done better in terms of assessing the decision risks and the impacts on the organization (Malakooti 2012). I could have applied the skills to utilize the resources better and time. If I could have acquired the decision making skills at that time, I could have assessed the various strategies for implementing a plan. This committee did a task which cannot be easily accomplished by a single person. Were it not for the teamwork spirit, we could have not achieved implementing the decision because we ran out of time but we happened to achieve our goals through teamwork spirit. Finally, our refection is that we implemented our decision through the eight steps of implementing a plan or a decision and we observed all the decision making models which made our process better. If we could have had the decision making skills and knowledge we could have implemented the decision effectively. Conclusion This discussion was able to apply the decision making theories. These theories of decision making helped in analyzing the effectiveness of conducting the cleaning services internally instead of outsourcing the services which proved to be expensive (McKee 2010). This report has also discussed the various engagements of each committee member and how we achieved our objectives. There emerged issues during the decision making process but we were able to overcome them and move towards achieving the goals of the decision. The eight steps to decision making were also observed and they helped us to overcome challenges. However there seemed to be some errors during the decision making because of the critical thinking of the members. Finally, the decision making process could have been done better if the decision making skills could have been observed and acquired. These skills could have presented a clear indication concerning the effects of using internal cleaning services rather than outsourcing the services which proved to be expensive from the research conducted on the available information. References Bonaccio, S. & Dalal, R. (2006). Advice taking and decision-making: An integrative literature review, and implications for the organizational sciences. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, Vol. 101, pp. 127–151. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.07.001 Johnson, D. & Johnson, F. (2009). Decision Making. In Joining together: group theory and group skills, 10th Ed, (pp. 264 – 317). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc., Prentice Hall McKee, A. (2010). The Human Side of Planning: Decision making and critical thinking. In Management: A focus on leaders, 1st Ed, (pp. 176 – 209). Sydney: Pearson Australia Malakooti, B. (2012). Decision making process: typology, intelligence, and optimization Journal of intelligent manufacturing, Vol. 23, pp. 733–746. Doi 10.1007/s10845-010-0424-1 Read More