Decision-Making and Problem-Solving - Essay Example

This decision-making process is used both consciously, and unconsciously by all individuals continuously. When the process of decision-making is practiced consciously, it can be used to resolve workplace problems effectively. Every manager is constantly required to provide solutions to several tasks and people-related problem situations. The manager is also required to give solutions that are to the best advantage of all parties concerned – a task that is often Herculean. Using the steps of decision-making and problem-solving consciously can sometimes help in ensuring that vital information is not missed out while trying to resolve a problem.

A case in point would be a situation wherein it was found that a new employee from a minority community was being made the butt of jokes by many other employees behind his back. Although there was no malice involved, the clandestine manner in which the jokes were made had given rise to a communal stereotype, and the minority employee (Mr. R) was constantly evaluated using that stereotype. Such racial or communal attitudes are frowned upon in the organization, as they have the potential of creating strife between co-workers and affecting the mental peace of the target employee.

Given the situation, it was first important to identify what behavior lay within the problem area. It seemed that the behavior that caused the most concern to the manager was the casual but regular passing of stereotypical statements and the tendency of some employees to expect that Mr. R would behave stereotypically.

Possible solutions to this situation were to:
- warn or penalize the perpetrators of this behavior;
- issue a distinct warning to the entire staff that using communal stereotypes to judge someone at work was unacceptable, but not single anyone out;
- give Mr. R the power to pick out individuals who may have troubled him for a meeting with the management;
- try and identify the reasons for such behavior and understand if there was any legitimate concern underlying it.

Initially, it was decided that certain staff members who were on-lookers to teh entire situation should be isolated and questioned about the origin of the problem, and the extent to which it was considered a legitimate situation. The interviews brought to light that when Mr. R had joined the department, his communal background had been used to identify him amongst others; and what had started as harmless jokes from no particular source had become blatant stereotyping over a few months. That Mr. R was somewhat shy and did not mix easily and mostly kept to himself only added to the problem. It was also identified that while the situation did occasionally cause Mr. R distress, there was no visible intention to harm.

It was decided that there was no immediate need to penalize anyone, but a general warning should be issued against stereotyping. Some weeks later, evaluating the situation showed that some employees were still making communal jokes since they did not consider it as stereotyping behavior. It was then decided that a short workshop should be conducted for the office so that everyone would be sensitized to what constitutes the use of stereotypes in the workplace; what the law said about such behavior; and what the organization's policy was in the matter. Thus, a 3-hour interactive workshop was conducted which also covered how such behavior should be identified and reduced by the staff itself.

Resulting of this new understanding of policy, it was found that the number of stereotypical jokes had significantly reduced and employees were helping each other in getting over stereotypes. The manager also talked with Mr. R to encourage him to interact more with his colleagues so that they would know him as a person and not simply by his communal background.

This experience was different from the previous exercise in that the decisions taken needed to be applied and the personality of each player in this situation was important to the final decision being successful. Knowledge of the personality types did play an important role in identifying pitfalls and also in the success of the final solution.