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11: Decision Making

  • Page ID
    24377
    • Anonymous
    • LibreTexts

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    • 11.1: Decision Making
      This page emphasizes the significance of decision making in leadership and management. It explores individual versus group decision processes, identifies causes of poor decisions, and aims to improve personal decision-making skills by addressing biases and optimizing processes for better organizational outcomes.
    • 11.2: Case in Point: Bernard Ebbers Creates Biased Decision Making at WorldCom
      This page discusses Bernard Ebbers, the CEO of WorldCom, who cultivated a culture of poor decision-making that resulted in a $9 billion accounting fraud. His avoidance of conflicts and refusal to address financial issues led to falsified reports and rising debt. After leaving in 2002, auditor Cynthia Cooper exposed widespread misconduct. Ebbers was convicted of fraud and conspiracy, receiving a 25-year sentence, while WorldCom was later merged into Verizon.
    • 11.3: Understanding Decision Making
      This page outlines the significance of decision-making in organizations, categorizing decisions into programmed and nonprogrammed types, and discussing strategic, tactical, and operational levels. It presents various decision-making models, emphasizing the limitations of the rational model and the role of bounded rationality and creativity. It highlights personality traits, leadership, and team dynamics in fostering creativity, providing techniques to enhance it.
    • 11.4: Faulty Decision Making
      This page discusses cognitive biases and decision-making traps that impede effective decision-making, including overconfidence, hindsight, anchoring, framing, and escalation of commitment. It emphasizes recognizing poor decisions, sharing examples, and understanding the dangers of these biases. By referencing psychological and philosophical studies, the text highlights the importance of avoiding these pitfalls to improve decision-making processes.
    • 11.5: Decision Making in Groups
      This page examines the pros and cons of individual versus group decision-making. Group decisions can foster creativity and effective implementation but may suffer from issues like groupthink and social loafing. Strategies to mitigate these issues include encouraging critical evaluation and using techniques like the Nominal Group Technique. Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) aid collaboration but can also lead to information overload.
    • 11.6: Developing Your Personal Decision-Making Skills
      This page explores the "premortem" technique for proactive decision-making, which helps teams identify potential risks before they result in failure, potentially increasing success rates by 30%. The process includes brainstorming reasons for possible failures, categorizing issues, and adjusting plans.


    This page titled 11: Decision Making is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous.