1. Prof. Jayashree Sadri
Management Consultant
And
Visiting Professor of HR and
Business Ethics

2.  A decision is a choice from among the
available alternatives. Decision-making is
the process of developing and analyzing
alternatives and making a choice.
 Most decisions are prompted by problems.
A problem is a discrepancy between a
desirable and an actual situation.

3.  Planning
 What are the organization’s long-term
objectives?
 What strategies will best achieve these
objectives?
 What should the organization’s short term
objectives be?
 How difficult should individual goals be?

4.  Organizing
 How many subordinates should I have report
directly to me?
 How much centralization should there be in the
organization?
 How should jobs be designed?
 When should the organization implement a
different structure?.

5.  Leading
 How do I handle employees who appear to be low in
motivation?
 What is the most effective leadership style in a
given situation?
 How will a specific change affect worker
productivity?
 When is the right time to stimulate conflict?

6.  Controlling
 What activities in the organization need to be
controlled?
 How should these activities be controlled?
 When is a performance deviation significant?
 What type of management information system
should the organization have?

7. Examples of decisions different managers face
 Accounting manager
 what accounting firm should we use?
 Who should process our payroll?
 Should we give that customer credit?

8.  Finance manager
 what bank should we use?
 should we sell bonds or stocks?
 should we buy back some of our
company’s stock?

9.  Human Resource Manager
 From where should we recruit
our employees?
 Should we set up a testing program?
 should I advice settling the employment
complaint?

10.  Production Manager
 Which supplier should be use?
 Should we build the new plant?
 Should we buy the new machine?

11.  Sales Manager
 Which sales representative should we use
in this district?
 Should we start this advertising campaign?
 Should we lower prices in response to our
competitor’s doing so?

12.  The two differ in the extent to which the decision
must be handled as a completely new situation.
 Programmed decisions are decisions that are
repetitive and routine and that can be solved through
mechanical procedures such as by applying rules.
 Up to 90 percent of management decisions are of the
programmed variety.(Koonz)

13.  These are unique, and mechanical
procedures are not available for making
them.
 Crisis decisions- like managing the rescue
work of a plane crash- are one example.
 Generally speaking , non-programmed
decisions rely heavily on judgment and focus
on the firm’s long-term strategic
development and survival.

18.  Overcoming the many decision-making barriers identified
can lead to better decisions by almost anyone.
 Increase your knowledge:
- Many bad decisions stem from the decision
maker’s lack of experience with the
problem at hand.
- Through a lack of experience you make a questionable
decision and through over confidence you blindly stick
to it.

19.  De-bias your judgment :
These biases include overconfidence, the tendency to
seek confirmatory information, and escalation of
commitment. At least four steps needed:
1. understand that the possibility of bias exists;
2. understand how the bias can affect your judgment;
3. analyze previous decisions made to get feedback on
whether and how bias has influenced your judgment;
4. accept the fact that such biases exist but can be
reduced/eliminated through your diligent efforts.

20.  Be creative :
Creativity is the process of developing original, new
responses to a problem.
Creativity is essential for decision-making activities like
developing new alternatives and correctly defining the
problem.

21.  Use your intuition:
- Many behavioral scientists argue that
overemphasizing rationality and logical can
actually backfire by blocking you from
using your intuition.

22.  Don’t overstress the finality of your decision.
- Do not get frozen in the finality of your
decision.
 Make sure the timing is right:
- Managers should not let their decisions be
swayed by passing moods.

23.  Whether they are called work
groups, teams or committees, groups
accomplish much of the work in
organizations.
 A group is defined as two or more persons
who interact together for some purpose
and in such a manner that each person
influences and is influenced by each other
person.

24.  Groups are important at work in part because
of the effect they have on their members. For
example, pressure by other group members
can cause a member to raise or lower his or
her output.
 In turn, the extent to which a group can
influence its members depends on several
things, including
- the cohesiveness of the group- the attraction
of the group or its members – and
- on the group’s norms – the informal rules that
groups adopt to regulate and regularize group
members’ behavior.

26.  Brainstorming
- Brainstorming is a way to simplify the
creative energies of a group.
- It is defined as a group problem-solving
technique whereby group members introduce
all possible solutions before evaluating any
of them.
- The technique is aimed at encouraging
everyone to introduce solutions without fear
of criticism.

27.  The Delphi Technique
a. A problem is identified.
b. Expert’s opinions are solicited anonymously and
individually through questionnaires.
c. The expert’s opinions are then analyzed and
resubmitted to other experts for a second round of
options.
d. This process is continued for several more rounds
until a consensus is reached.

28.  Another process for reducing group decision-making
barriers like group think.
 It can be defined as a group decision-making process in
which participants do not attempt to agree as a group on
any solution, but rather meet face to face and vote on
all the solutions proposed after privately ranking the
proposals in order of their preference.

29. 1. Each group member writes down ideas.
2. Each member presents ideas which are
written on a board for the other
participants to see.
3. After all ideas have been presented, the
entire group discusses all ideas
simultaneously.
4. Group members individually and secretly
vote on each proposed solution; and
5. Participants do not try face-to-face
consensus; solution with the most
individual votes wins.

30.  The person leading the group discussion can have a big
effect on whether the group’s decision is useful or not.
 An effective discussion leader therefore has a
responsibility to do the following:
- see that all group members participate.
- distinguish between idea getting and idea evaluation.
- do not respond to each participant or dominate the
discussion.
- see that the effort is directed toward overcoming
surmountable obstacles.

31. 1. A decision is a choice from among available alternatives.
Decision making is the process of developing and
analyzing alternatives and making a choice.
2. Decisions can be either programmed (repetitive and
routine) or nonprogrammed (unique and new).
Nonprogrammed decisions require more intuition and
judgment of decision-making.
3. Rational decision-making assumes ideal conditions such
as accurate definition of the problem and complete
knowledge about all relevant alternatives and their
values.

32. 4. Decision making in reality is bounded by
differences in managers’ ability to process
information.
5. Bounded rationality describes decision
making in reality and often implies satisficing
alternatives.
6. Guidelines for making better decisions
include: increase your knowledge, de-bias
your judgment, use creativity, use
intuition, don’t overstress finality, and make
sure the timing is right.

33. 7. Group decision-making can result in the
pooling of resources and strengthened
commitment to the decision, but it can also
be flawed by group think, or an
overwhelming desire for unanimity.
8. Tools for better group decisions include
brainstorming, the Delphi and nominal
group techniques.

34. THANK YOU