An Essential Approach to Business Management - Case Study Example

Name Professor Institution Date Making decisions is a process the involves deciding on choices among alternatives. Organizations decision making can be strategic or tactical. Making a strategic decision has a long impact on the organization hence only a few are made. These decisions are usually left for the management. Tactical decisions are made more often. These decisions have no long-term effects on the company. This assessment will analyze change management, HOTS, complex adaptive system and De Bono six hats theory. Change management Bringing change involves decision making. Before making any decision, the first thing to do is to define problem so that it becomes possible to come up with alternative solutions. This is followed by performing sensitivity analysis. To execute change in an organization, the management has to understand the impact it will have on the employees. When carrying out major changes, the management should focus attention into the strategic and technical plans. For the successful implementation of change, the management must understand the change management the human way. This includes aligning the company’s culture, values, people and their way of behaving to lead to the desired results. There is need to understand how the group or team is going to be impacted by change. Carrying out change in a way that is not going well with the environment may lead to conflict and chaos. Working with the people is the most difficult part in managing change. People have different way of reacting to change. When change is effected, some of the people have to lose while others experiences fear. There is also need to understand that everyone has needs as well as expectations. The expectations should be realistic. Change is situational which include having new roles and procedures (Manikandah, 2010). There is need to understand that there are things which we are to lose so as to have a good change. There are twp types of changes. Change can be transformational or incremental. When carrying out transformational change, there is a visible change in the appearance and the structure of the organization. The transformation change has first to come to the individuals before occurring to the organization. This change can be compared as a change in mindset. When carrying out incremental change, change occurs in small bits such that it does not impact the people in a very great way. Policy changes are carried out in small bits over time which accumulates to bring change. In order to manage the change more effectively, management should be capable to define the expectations from the stakeholders. An effective communication should be carried out to make sure that all the stakeholders understand what change is. The benefits that are to be attained by implementing the change should be laid out so that all the stakeholders understand them. The purpose of change management is to make sure that the process of change is achieved faster (Manikandah, 2010). HOTS (hotel operations and management systems) Simulation tools are important support in decision making. The hotel operations and training system (HOTS) is a simulator which was made for the service industries. Use of this simulator is very important in predicting what can happen after taking certain decisions. The simulators are of the two types. One of the types is the analytical simulator and the other is instructional simulator. Analytical simulator helps in simulating situations and helps in decision making. In the hotel industry, the simulator can be used to simulate how the guest enters a hotel and their times. This is an important aspect that can help ion coming up with a plan. The simulator offers a unique method of training which helps the users to develop on their knowledge. The knowledge gained through the simulator can help the personnel in business strategy, marketing and sales. The main advantage of using the HOTS simulator is that it helps in strategies and reinforcement for the understanding of the concept. Simulation is one of the most widely used tools for decision making. The technology industries have been evolving at very high rate. Apart from the hospitality industry, simulation is also used in the educational sector. Use of simulations acts to supplement the practical experience in a firm the cause and effect of the decision making is analyzed through simulating. The main aim of using simulation is to look at the strategic and tactical factors that may affect the business. While simulating, the computer moves forward in time utilizing cycling. The participants in the simulation have the advantage of taking hard decisions which they carry out without risking what can happen if the decisions have been practically carried out. Skills to deal with other data processing are developed such as use of excel to process the data. The simulators have the ability to give those carrying them knowledge on how to understand the financial reports. Confidence and capability is improved in the skills such as accounting. The simulations such as HOTS utilises knowledge from different areas. This helps in making integrated decisions (Feinstein and Parks, 2002). Complex adaptive system This is a concept that looks at the organization as living organisms which are complex and interrelated which leads to impacts on making decisions. The model has many parts which are interrelated, independent, linked thorough connections and behave as a whole unit. Complexity of the system occurs due to the interconnectivity, inter-action, and interrelationship. Complex adaptive models have the capability to fit into any environment change. Change is supposed to go together will all other systems being affected. To control behavior, there is no any specific mechanism. A decision carried out in one part of the complexity adaptive system lead to a change in all other parts. This is due to interrelation. When utilising co-evolution, the system components change due to interactions with each other as well as environment. The behavioral patterns can take a long time to change. Complex adaptive systems are very sensitive to their initial conditions. Making a small change can have a great impact on the overall system. To study the complex adaptive model, aggregation simplifies and has no error in the system (Sussman, 2000). The complexity of an organization can be taken to refer to the subsystems that form it. In complex adaptation theory, leadership- forms a vital part. Leadership is an influence over others. Complex adaptive systems are well known through their elements. The complex adaptive systems are important in solving problems in organizations. The systems have the ability to give information on change ion organizations as well as insight into the quality assurance. For complex systems, knowing the right connections is critical. This helps in understanding the complex systems in making decisions. Each element in the system has its own responsibilities which are based on choice. The fact that output from a complex system should lead into deeper understanding of the systems. The behaviors of the single entities are unique such that they cannot be predicted. The agents are distributed and hence there is no central control. The managers are faced with the problem in cases where the options to make decisions that are given by the complex adaptive model are not clear. Complex adaptive systems provide information that is crucial in managing processes. This is because the complexity systems have the capability of leaking information. Fro the system to work in decision making, constant communication is a must to ensure that the system does not weaken (Sussman, 2000). De Bono 6 Hats Theory De bono six hat theories is an important problem solving technique for organization. Each hat represents a certain way of thinking according to his theory. The method relies on the fact that the human brain has several unique ways of thinking. These ways can be deliberately challenged to give one group methods for thinking about specific issues. The hats that are used by De Bono are metaphors in that they represents certain decision making process. The red hat is based on feelings and intuition. This means that the people can put forward their feelings and do not have to explain or try to apologize. Intuition occurs as a judgment that is related to experience. This approach can be valuable though the main cause can not be well explained (De Bono, 1985). Black hat represents a situation that is logical negative. This hat shows caution and critical judgment. This makes the hat the most followed and making mistakes can be dangerous. The problem with using the black hat is the fact that it may lead to lack of creativity. The overuse of black hat leads to poor ideas as creativity is not there. Yellow hat represents optimism and having a logical view on things. The hat takes time to look at the idea feasibility to know how things can be done. The user of the hat looks into the benefits that can be achieved on logical terms. The green hat is used to symbolize creative thinking, coming up with new ideas and looking for alternatives. This hat is the best for showing creative effort. In this hat, lateral thinking is combined with creative thinking to solve problems. The blue hat symbolizes process control. This hat is used to symbolize the action of having thinking overview. The hat is used to set the agenda for thinking and neat step to take in thinking. Using the theory, the participant takes position and defends them. This theory leads to cooperation among the members involved. In a meeting scenario, every person takes a position and is given time to explain and defend the position (De Bono, 1985). References De Bono, E 1985, Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management, Little Brown, & Company. Feinstein, A & Parks, S 2002, Simulation Research in the Hospitality Industry, Paper presented at the Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Pensacola, FL, USA. Manikandah, P 2010, ‘Change Management- Where Do Leaders Make Difference?’ Advances in Management, Vol. 3, No. 9, p. 5-7. Sussman, J 2000, Ideas on Complexity in Systems - Twenty Views, Engineering Systems Division Working Paper. Read More