Introduction
Managerial decision-making plays a critical role in the functioning of the organization while the simplicity is the core definer of the actualization of the presented actions. It is essential for the bias-avoidance and determines the assortment of the relevant facts to the decision making. This aspect is vehemently significant in the context of my workplace-based case, as it has a substantial impact on the ability to assess the role and relevance of acquisition as a core instrument for the enlargement of the operations. Based on the information provided above, the primary goal of the literature synthesis is to understand the critical traps associated with the decision-making while determining the solutions accompanying their avoidance. In the end, the conclusions are drawn to summarize the primary findings while portraying the dissimilar perceptions of the issue.
Literature Review
The decision-making is a complex instrument, and it is related to the vast variety of biases, which are highly associated with the cognitive nature of human beings (Bazerman & Watkins, 2008). Meanwhile, the cognitive heuristics tend to be the primary cause of errors while the biases are referred to illusions of the positive development of events, egocentricity, lack of desire to prevent the existent strategies, cancellation of dramatic nature, and absence of visual portrayal of the problem (Bazerman & Watkins, 2008). These aspects tend to have a high reflection on the critical thinking of the individuals, as they present the overall features affecting the human thinking. Nonetheless, this approach has limitations due to the inability to deliberate the vitality of the external factors while defining the modifications of the critical thinking but it has a tendency to provide novel insights, which imply a new viewpoint considering decision-making.
Managerial practices are the crucial definers of the flow of events in the organization while the executive dysfunction might be considered as a primary cause of the presence of traps related to the sufficiency of the decision-making. In this instance, the judgment has a significant association with the biases, as the managerial prejudice tends to cultivate the wrongful interpretation of the events, which leads to the inability to determine the relevant decisions for the processes (Bazerman & Moore, 2008). Despite the relevance of the described strategy, it remains apparent that this approach is highly limited, as not only managers have a tendency to participate in the evaluation of the relevance and applicability of the decisions, but also dissimilar levels of subordination tend to take part in the process.
Alternatively, leadership has a substantial impact on the presence of errors while being unable to propose a sufficient assortment of data (Pater, 2015). Sustainability of the company is vehemently associated with the efficacious integration of leadership style and managerial approach. The controversial interpretation of events occurs due to the reliance on the leader’s authority, as the rest of the decision-makers are misled by the actions of the primary leader while determining the presence of errors in the decision making (Pater, 2015). In this instance, the leader can be viewed as a critical figure, which has a fundamental impact on the decision-making, and the misconceptions of the leadership styles could be considered as a causation of failure. This perspective underlines the essentiality of the leader’s actions, but this approach has to be utilized while revealing cognitive deceptions simultaneously, as they tend to explain the traps related to complexity and simultaneous minimalism of the issue.
Another matter, which is vehemently associated with the management, is the ability to acquire particular competences to determine the level of skills and emotional intelligence required for the relevant decisions while acting in dissimilar situations (Zhang, Chen, & Sun, 2015). This approach is highly associated with the previous viewpoint, as the managerial skills and the ability to determine whether a particular segment has a beneficial impact on the overall functioning of the company. Meanwhile, critical thinking and individuality of the manager define the capability of the lead to apply simplification instruments efficiently regarding the consideration of the complexities while filtering the information.
As for the clash of theory and practice, Drummond illustrates the potential issues in the managerial decision-making by providing an example Baring’s venture in Mexico, which was associated with unrespectable losses (2001). In this instance, it could be said that this mistake occurred due oversimplifying the financial statements while creating the bias in proposing alternative decisions and evaluating the current situation in the acquired company (Drummond, 2001). It remains apparent that this illustration depicts the drawbacks of the overreliance on the theory while practical approach has to be viewed as a defining component of the decision-making since the malpractice leads to the failure and necessity to find alternative solutions to fix the situation.
Lastly, the de Bono Group, LLC introduced a sufficient approach for the parallel monitoring of the decisions from the different angles while ensuring their compliance with the core aspects vital for the company’s functioning (The de Bono Group, LLC, 2016). It tends to diversify the characteristics between the members of team including white (factual understanding of the processes), yellow (positivity and benefits), black (judgment), red (feelings), green (novelty and creativity), and blue (monitoring the flow of the processes) hats (The de Bono Group, LLC, 2016). It is apparent that the discovery of the issue from the dissimilar perspectives contributes to the increase of the productivity and efficiency of the organization while minimizing the possibilities of the wrongful decisions. The critical vision of this method adds compliance between the contradictory components while eliminating the impact of biases and external factors on the decisions and creates a novel understanding of the simplicity, complications of the processes, and the consideration of externalities.
Conclusion
The literature review depicted the potential traps correlated to the issue with the decision-making from theoretical and practical perceptions to understand the possible ways to minimize the existence of the failure related to malfunction. In this case, the misleading aspects of the decision-making are dependent on the cognitive nature of a human being, the level of prejudice, and the ability to discover the issue from the dissimilar perspectives. Nonetheless, all aspects mentioned above have to be considered simultaneously, as, otherwise, the presented matters tend to lack the insights about the features determining the right level of simplicity while considering the internalities and externalities instantaneously. Meanwhile, it remains evident the core solution is the discovery of the ability to portray the issue from the dissimilar perspectives while utilizing the de Bono Group’s hat principles, as it tends to organize the flow of the critical thinking and avoid the biases related to the cognitive nature and misuse of the simplification.
Workplace Problematizing
The current problem at my workplace needs restatement and reevaluation, as it contains misconceptions regarding the efficiency of the utilization of the acquisition as the most suitable instrument to improve organizational performance. Despite the lack of the reasoning for the application of this approach, management decided to disregard the risks and prioritize this method as the core solution to the presented issue. In this instance, it remains apparent that the managerial actions are vehemently associated with the threats and traps presented in the literature synthesis. Consequently, the primary goal of this section is to apply the hats as a core instrument and determine the sources of uncertainty, as a combination of these factors has a critical influence on the functioning of the company as a complex mechanism.
The judgmental errors occur and have a substantial impact on the decision-making. As for me, I have made a mistake while being unable to view the workplace-based problem from the dissimilar perspectives, as the previous solutions were associated with one issue only. Meanwhile, the decision-making requires the sufficient discovery of the deficiency of the overall functioning of the organization as a critical matter. In this case, the traps are vehemently associated with the overreliance on the management and inability to view the overall decision-making process due to the absence of the overall vision of the situation. A combination of these aspects can be regarded as a consequence of oversimplification while diminishing the critical elements for the basis of the relevance of the proposed actions. Despite having a crucial impact on the organizational sustainability, the issue could have been fixed by utilizing the de Bone hats principles for reanalysis and the determination of the coherent alterations required for the errors’ covered in the presented case.
Nonetheless, the presented workplace-based problem has to be portrayed from the dissimilar perspectives while utilizing the fundamentals of the de Bono Group’s hat principles, as this approach will contribute to the understanding of the endeavors related to problematizing. In this context, the core issue was associated with the utilization of the acquisitions as the crucial instrument for enlargement of the operations. Meanwhile, the presented scrutiny and lack of provisioning questioned the positive consequences of the application of this tool. Firstly, the red hat can portray the situation from the emotional perspective as it involves a vehement level of uncertainty, and emotional drivers associated with the matter are fear while having the feeling of a positive outcome. As for the black hat, the core difficulties are the lack of the knowledge of the acquired company, inability to predict the marketing trends, and the economic instability. In this case, both hats contribute to the understanding of the problems from the skeptical perspective, but using red hat has the presence of hope and aim at the positive outcomes. As for the problematizing endeavors, the black hat will clarify the required process by suggesting the consideration of the risks while the red one will create confusion due to the utilization of emotionality as a critical factor. Consequently, using the black hat is vital, as it will help to view the issue from the critical perceptive, which lacked application in the past and led to the inefficient decision-making.
Despite the diversified nature of the hats depicted above, other usages of hats have a tendency to be present to contribute to the overall perception of the workplace-based issues. In this case, it could be said that red and black hats can be viewed as the central components of decision-making while other play the supplemental role in the deciding process. The black hat implies a high reliance on the criticism and adverse economic aspects while playing the role of the logical instrument while balancing the decisions. In this case, white (the application of facts) and blue (monitoring of the progress) hats are supplementing segments of the black hat’s nature (The de Bono Group, LLC, 2016). A combination of these hats contributes to the efficiency of the organization with the critical assessment of the decisions.
As for the red had, it implies the importance of feelings while balancing fears, hope, and positive attitude (The de Bono Group, LLC, 2016). In this instance, yellow (optimism) and green (creativity) hats are the supplemental aspects of the red hat, as these matters are vehemently associated with the discovery of the positive outcomes (The de Bono Group, LLC, 2016). Nonetheless, green hat plays the role of the connector while balancing the functions of all hats, creating the necessity to discover the issue from dissimilar perspectives, and highlighting the vitality of the creativity as a critical success factor. In this case, the green hat can be viewed as an additional essentiality for the decision-making due to its integrative nature between emotions and logical thinking. In turn, it reveals the correlation between red and black hats, as the determination of the alternative solutions has a positive influence from all perspectives covered by the de Bono Group.
References
Bazerman, M., & Moore, D. (2008). Judgement in managerial decision-making. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Bazerman, M., & Watkins, M. (2008). Predictable surprises: The disasters you should have seen coming and how to prevent them. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Drummond, H. (2001). The art of decision-making: Mirrors of imagination, masks of fate. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Pater, R. (2014). Overcoming the top 10 leadership mistakes. Professional Safety, 59(6), 30.
The de Bono Group, LLC: Six thinking hats. (2016). Web.
Zhang, S., Chen, Y., & Sun, H. (2015). Emotional intelligence, conflict management styles, and innovation performance. International Journal of Conflict Management, 26(4), 450-478.