Менеджеры и менеджмент (Executives and Management). Коломейцева Е.М - 24 стр.

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Encouraging employee thinking and participation in solving problems can improve decision quality. Frontline
workers who are in touch with the needs and concerns of customers can have a clearer insight into how to solve prob-
lems that directly concern those customers. For example, soliciting the input of terminal workers at Greyhound Lines
might have helped Greyhound executives avoid some of the costly mistakes they made with the Trips reservation sys-
tem. At Chrysler, the team manager for the new Dodge Neon asked for line workers' input regarding specific problems
and got more than 4,000 ideas, many of which were implemented.
In today's fast-changing world, decisions must often be made quickly, and an organization's ability to stimulate the
creativity and innovativeness of its employees is becoming increasingly important. Competitive pressures are challeng-
ing managers to create environments that foster and support creative thinking and sharing of diverse opinions. An envi-
ronment in which bosses make all the decisions and hand them down to frontline workers is becoming not only inap-
propriate but inefficient. As organizations seek to take full advantage of all workers' abilities and make the best use of
everyone's time, it makes sense to have those who are closest to a problem involved in solving it.
How can managers pursue the advantages of participation and over-come some of the disadvantages? A number of
techniques have been developed to help individual managers as well as groups make better decisions. These techniques
are often used in the interactive and nominal group formats discussed in the previous section.
A devil's advocate
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is assigned the role of challenging the assumptions and assertions made by the group. The
devil's advocate forces the group to rethink its approach to the problem and to avoid reaching premature consensus or
making unreasonable assumptions before proceeding with problem solutions. One management scholar has recom-
mended that companies create "an institutionalized devil's advocate" by appointing teams to act as perpetual challengers
of others' ideas and proposals. This forces managers and others to examine and explain the risks associated with a par-
ticular decision alternative. This approach would be similar to multiple advocacy
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, a technique that involves several
advocates and multiple points of view. Minority opinions and unpopular viewpoints are assigned to forceful representa-
tives, who then debate before the decision makers. Former president Bush was renowned for using multiple advocacy in
his decision-making. The proposal for clean-air legislation in 1989 was a textbook case, because White House aides
staged debates they called "Scheduled Train Wrecks" to help Bush think through the issue. These were live scrimmages
with Bush asking questions back and forth during the debate. The result was a decision based on solid argument and
understanding of all perspectives.
Brainstorming
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uses a face-to-face, interactive group to spontaneously suggest ideas for problem solution. Brain-
storming is perhaps the best-known decision aid; its primary role is to supply additional creative solutions. Kodak en-
courages continuous brainstorming and has created a "humor room" where workers can relax and have creative brain-
storming sessions. The room is filled with videotapes of comedians, joke books, stress-reducing toys, and software for
creative decision-making. The brainstorming technique encourages group members to suggest alternatives regardless of
their likelihood of being implemented. No critical comments of any kind are allowed until all suggestions have been
listed. Members are encouraged to brainstorm possible solutions out loud, and freewheeling is welcomed. The more
novel and more unusual the idea, the better. The object of brainstorming is to promote freer, more flexible thinking and
to enable group members to build on one another's creativity. The typical session begins with a warm-up wherein defi-
nitional issues are settled, proceeds through the freewheeling idea-generation stage, and concludes with an evaluation of
feasible ideas.
SUMMARY AND MANAGEMENT SOLUTION
This chapter made several important points about the process of organizational decision-making. The study of de-
cision-making is important because it describes how managers make successful strategic and operational decisions.
Managers must confront many types of decisions, including programmed and nonprogrammed, and decisions differ
according to the amount of risk, uncertainty, and ambiguity in the environment.
Two decision-making approaches were described: the classical model and the administrative model. The classical
model explains how managers should make decisions so as to maximize economic efficiency. The administrative model
describes how managers actually make nonprogrammed, uncertain decisions with skills that include intuition and coali-
tion building.
Decision-making should involve six basic steps: problem recognition, diagnosis of causes, development of alterna-
tives, choice of an alternative, implementation of the alternative, and feedback and evaluation.
At Intel, some observers believe Andrew Grove's doggedly analytical style hampered his ability to consider all
sides of the situation to determine the true nature of the Pentium chip problem and carefully consider decision alternatives.
Grove also failed to listen to employees who had a better feel for the situation, such as many of the company's 2,000 em-
ployees who had expressed disagreement with the harsh initial policy. Intuition is not highly valued at Intel–as Grove puts
it, "Intuition is not going to get you a 3-million-transistor microprocessor." Evaluation and feedback led Grove to imple-
ment a replacement policy and decide that Intel needs to be closer to consumers. The company opened a hot line staffed
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Devil's advocate A decision-making technique in which an individual is assigned the role of challenging the assumptions
and assertions made by the group to prevent premature consensus.
13
Multiple advocacy A decision-making technique that involves several advocates and presentation of multiple points of
view, including minority and unpopular opinions.
14
Brainstorming A decision-making technique in which group members present spontaneous suggestions for problem solu-
tion, regardless of their likelihood of implementation, in order to promote freer, more creative thinking within the group.

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