Decision Making in Organizations - Essay Example

Students Name and Number: Lecturer’s Name: Institution: Course: Date of Submission: Work place report (organizational behaviour) I am in a small start up company of which I am a founding member. The organisation is composed of five key decision makers but we have an employee base of 20 permanent employees, we hire extra workers as and when we require them. Our company is in the business of sourcing grocery supplies and selling them to small retail stores at wholesale prices. It is a demanding business that takes a lot of our time and resources. The business is still at its initial stages, and as such we have not developed complex organisational structure. We have adopted an entrepreneurial structure that reduces much bureaucracy and reduces the time for decision making and also helps to create unity when everybody is brought on board. We have a flat management structure where nobody has supreme authority over the others since apart from being the owners, we double as managers in respective operations of the business and also as board members. We encourage as much as possible employee contributions whenever we want to try out a new idea. We do this by having joint meetings where we invite a few employees to contribute to the agendas. From here the employees are absorbed in the implementation teams to carry out the new ideas. Effective teams We develop teams in the organisation on a regular basis. We understand that teams are set to achieve more results if their energy is combined in a way that can bring out the best from the team. There are various reasons why we have teams but mostly we have teams to drive up sales, to come up with new business development ideas and teams to come up with cost reduction measures. One of the critical factors we noticed was the size of the teams we make. Team size can make a group effective or ineffective. Big teams tend to move towards consensus than team thinking, each an every member shelves his own ideas in fear of getting into collision with the others. For these I always strongly recommend to the board that we should keep team sizes at an optimum size of five to seven members. (Dale and Cloyd, 2004) suggest that a team should be small yet self sufficient as it will allow for intense sharing of views and opportunity to understand the rationale of others without so much time being taken from the effort on the work itself. However sometimes it necessitates addition of more members due to the availability of some team members. Most of us and the employees have multiple tasks it therefore means some will miss team meetings and deliberations due to other engagements. Our teams are composed of both the employees and the management. We do this to ensure that the views of the employees and their interests are taken. However team composition should not include a lot of the top management as it may limit creativity since some team members might not be able to effectively communicate their ideas freely in presence of ever domineering top management team member. It might therefore be a good idea if the top management should play a role of facilitation and overseeing that the team collaborate and move in tandem with their mandate. We have reduced the barriers to communication when it comes to teams. We try as much as possible to make the organisation as entrepreneurial as possible so as everybody could be a team player and freely communicate his ideas to the team members. (Dale and Cloyd, 2004) are of the view that small teams are better as they enhance communication and cohesion amongst the team members. If this is limited then there is a high probability that factions will emerge in the team meaning there will be sub groups within the group. However teams cannot only be run on such a platform. There is supposed to be an elaborate frame work to facilitate communication. The team members should be aware of the core values and the aspirations of the company in general. This way they will know what is required of them by fellow group members and by the company in general. We generally review the teams to ensure that the talents with a few individuals can also be utilized by other teams. This is an effort to motivate the rest of the employees to also explore their full potential and achieve something for their team and ultimately benefit the company. However it is important that team members are not changed constantly as team members over time develop interpersonal relationship that enable them to understand each other better and how they can use their differences to their benefit. In light of this therefore it will be wise to let group members to select the people they feel comfortable working with. Care should however be taken to ensure the choice of group members is jot motivat6ecb by ulterior motives with some group members. As mentioned earlier we usually place a top management member to be a part of the teams that we create however it has negatively impacted on the team when the top official fails to show up in the meeting due to other commitments. The team members also get reluctant and loose their commitment to the team. For teams to perform there must be a proper selection of team leaders who is not so much committed and can be able to be present at he team meetings and activities to command commitment to the team and encourage creativity and team spirit in the group. Team leadership as noted by(Laura and Glen, 2010) will determine whether a team succeeds or fails in it s mandate therefore it is important for the organisation to ensure that the leaders are more informed and go an extra mile in ensuring that: the team is focused on the appropriate goals that the organisation requires it to achieve; the team has the right structures and a process that facilitates ease of decision making; the team is adequately prepared with all the information and skills required in tackle the problem presented to it; there are set standards for team and individual performance. (Laura and Glen, 2010) goes further to advice that in order for all the mentioned measures to work, the leader should: coach to improve interpersonal skills among his team members; encourage collaboration; allow for intellectual but not personal conflict; enhance team commitment in demanding principled behaviour from all team members. Decision making We as an organisation have our core values and objectives. These two guide all the decisions made in any company meeting. As such the pre-programmed decisions have an effect on what a team should aspire to achieve as it is governed by the rules and the regulations of the team. The team leaders have a mandate of communicating to the team members what decisions the company will not allow. This means that team members usually have the power to overrule team decisions or impose some decisions to be followed by the team. Of course there is the challenge of new problems that the management has never encountered and therefore don’t have an elaborate guideline on how to deal with the problem. For this I think it is therefore necessary that the company adopts a more participatory decision making where every team member will be allowed to give their suggestions on how we can solve a particular problem or how to achieve certain goals with another strategy other than the one adopted by the management earlier. After these suggestions the management can review them and see which ones are in the good spirit of the main objective of the organisation. These will give a sense of belonging to the team members as they will feel a part of the team rather than spectators in decision making. It is also worthy to note that the employees at the lower level in the organisational structure interact with the customers or suppliers the most and therefore are better placed to give vital information that could be utilized to solve problems and develop new strategies for the organisation. Groups tend to make better decisions as bad ideas can be noticed by the group members before they reach adoption level. According to Daniel (2010), group decision making has a motivational effect on the group members, being a part of the group encourages members to make good decisions and perform better. Members are likely to be more committed to decisions they made at the group level. Our company has been making decisions in a fairly long process. As a matter of fact no one makes crucial decisions alone we only make decisions once we have all the information so that we thoroughly asses the options. It’s a good approach especially when there are decisions to be made regarding a new phenomenon that is least understood. This philosophy is in line with (Daniel, 2010) suggestion that groups should not be allowed to make all the critical decisions affecting an organization as they are at a risk of being polarised. By this it means the group can tilt towards making more risky decisions than an individual could thereby risking to plunge the company into a financial crisis. This view then means that the analytical decision making style is favoured by the management and so it is replicated even in teams that are formed in the company. However they tend to be slow and bureaucratic. (Robins Stagg & Coulter, 2006) suggest a more engaging behaviour decision making where suggestions are welcomed and the team achievements is a matter of concern. This style of decision making reduces the frequency of conflicts in the groups as the acceptance of decisions made is of paramount importance to the leader of the group. If teams are to achieve impressive results then it is important that every member of the group feels free to give his views and suggestions on how things can be improved or how a problem can be solved. It is a known fact that every member in a team brings his/her own special talents and knowledge that improve the performance of the team as the team has a pool of knowledge to be utilized whenever crucial decisions are to be made. The implication of this is that the team can now make more informed decisions by letting all the members to participate in the decision making process. The contribution of the management should however not be ignored at all as the decisions and recommendations made by a team are not made for the sake of it they are to be implemented. (Alistair, 2003) suggests that the management should make use of their power to force an implementation while it can also make use of the selected taskforces to implement the decision. Conclusion By comparing the differences between the theory and the practice in our organisation, there are clear points of collision between the practical and the theoretical organisational behaviour. While the company has adopted a less company has adopted a more liberalised position on the size of teams, research is totally in disagreement with this small teams seem to be favoured as opposed to large teams. In small teams, members develop interpersonal relations that enable them to understand each other and work in the manner hat suits them better to achieve their set objectives. Small teams have ease in decision making and provide an environment where suggestions are not ignored by the other team members. It is also important that the management demands commitments in the teams and lead by example when the top management members in any team avail themselves for team meetings and act on deliberations made. Decisions in the teams should be made in a more participatory manner that will involve every team member to give a pool of suggestions to choose from. This also ensures that informed decisions are made in tackling challenging situations. When the management adopts a more innovative a creative approach top decision making then creative solutions can be made regarding new problems that have not been encountered by the company earlier. References Alistair McKinnon, 2003, Decision Making in Organizations, [PDF] accessed online on 11/Oct/2012 from http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~jamckinnon/business/Decision-Making%20in%20Organisations.pdf Dale , E , Y , Cloyd , H, 2004, High-Performing Self-Managed Work Teams: A Comparison of Theory to Practice, SAGE Publishers Daniel, L, 2010, Group Dynamics for Teams, 3rd edn ,SAGE publishers Laura, G, Glenn, R, 2010, Cases in Leadership, 2nd edn , SAGE publishers Robbins, S, Bergman, R, Stagg, I & Coulter, M, 2006, Foundations of Management 2nd edn, pp 204-205, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest Read More