Marcia Blenko
argues that decision effectiveness correlates positively with employee
engagement and organizational performance. How do you think employee engagement
relates to decision effectiveness? I
would agree that companies with higher decision effectiveness have happier
employees. When employees buy in and are
on board with the decision being made, they are more committed to making sure
those decisions are executed properly. When
employees know they have a part in the decision making process, they become committed,
which translates into better productivity and quality. I think that the four elements of good
decisions {quality (Q), speed (S), yield (Y), and effort (E)} are also the
qualities you get from employees who are a part of the process. Using the four elements can enhance in better
productivity and efficiently. Form my perceptive,
employees are willing to not only execute decisions but also accept them while
at the same time putting forth more effort to help lower costs by working
harder to achieve company goals.
What are some
impediments to good decision making? Companies
have become quite complex over the years. There are a lot of people involved in the
decision making process. Some companies
have a President, CEO, CFO and even a board of directors that make decision;
thus sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen. Some companies operate in a matrix, and it is
hard to tell who is making what decisions. Sometimes, employees at all level are unclear
when it come to whom should be involved in the decision making process. This brings up the next impediment of
time. Organizations of every industry
are often forced to make split-second decisions that have significant impacts
on their business, but often times it’s hard to make a quality decision in so
little time. Decision making is also
impeded when people are trying to make a decision without any type of current
information or data. This would be a huge hindrance in my opinion. In some
cases, leadership can impede the decision process because the employees do not
support the decision that has been made. For example, they must be open to
discussion during the decision process. If the company appoints someone to make
a decision, they may or may not like the outcome or the costs related to the
decision made by the appointed party. Without the support of leadership they
entire decision making process could come to a stop. There has to be a pool of
talent to carry out the decision making process and the final decision
implementation.
Blenko suggest
that there are four elements of good decisions: quality, speed, yield, and
effort. In your opinion, is there anything missing from this list? In my opinion, knowledge is missing from
this list. Marcia Blenko stated that
decisions are often hindered because people make decisions without any
information. Research or knowledge is
always a key in any form of good decision making. Current market research or data increases the
quality, speed, and yield of good decision making with will determine the
overall effort needed to achieve the organizational goals. Employee engagement
should also get added to the list. This is another key to ensuring that
decisions are properly executed and embedded throughout the organization.
Employee engagement eases the transition and implementation of company goals
based on company decision making. Operational decisions are also very important
and directly affect the employees.
What can you
take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career? Due to the fact that part of my job
is curriculum development and training, I would use the four steps of good
decision making to determine what information will be most beneficial to the
students to achieve the educational goals of the courses I develop. This, in turn, benefits the organization as a
whole. I also take away from this exercise that some organizations are stronger
in one area versus other areas of effective decision making. With this
knowledge I can first determine where the strengths of my current organizations
lie—and possibly make suggestions as to how this can be improved.
Once you have
reflected upon these questions, list any other questions or insights that have
come to you as a result of this exercise.
As a result of this exercise, a few questions have come to mind.
Marcia Blenko says that they use 1000 companies as these bases of their
decision effectiveness scale. Does the list ever change? If so, how often—or do
they just keep the same companies on the list? Do they offer easy to improve
decision effectiveness for those companies that are strong in some areas and
weak in other? I do not think that all companies are created equal, so
sometimes in spite of making all these best decisions, and organizations may
not reach their goals. I think that sometimes organizations may need to slow
down on their decision making—especially if you operate in an industry in which
things are ever changing. By the time a company completely implements the
change, consumer needs may have changed as well. Earlier, we discussed some
impediments to good decision making. I think it is good to discuss these
obstacles because they are often overlooked by those not in leadership
position. We always look at the cost or bottom line without considering other
factors.
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