Gut Instinct in Decision Making - Coursework Example

Decision-making process By + Gut Instinct in Decision Making Since time immemorial, making decisions has never been easy for most people. Many people including politicians, managers, and even the common man find themselves at a position where they are expected to make decisions in one way or the other. Many people prefer not to make decisions than make hard decisions (Kelly 2003). Their fear to make decisions emanates from the perceived grave repercussions associated with each of the options at hand. On the other hand, there is another group of individuals who enjoy making decisions, even the most difficult ones. Some of these even make this a profession in which they offer advice to clients who need professional advice pertaining decision they have to make (Adair 2010). In most cases, these people find themselves making major decisions for companies, political parties, and even wealthy individual who cannot afford to make mistakes in what they do. The fact that some people are afraid of making decisions that would greatly affect their lives brings another aspect to this discussion; there are good and bad decisions (Edwards 1954). Many scholars do researches to understand the decision-making process and its associated effect. There is no standard measurement of a good or bad decision as people make decisions depending on the available alternative. However, decisions can be classified as either good or bad depending on the outcomes that follow a particular decision. Some outcomes may cause long-lasting detrimental effect while others cause life-long happiness (Bazerman 1986). Therefore, bad decisions have negative effects while good decisions have positive effects. It is for this reason and many others that individuals and organisations appear keen in their decision-making habits. Great scholars and researchers in the world all over have put their effort in trying to unravel the factors, barriers and theories of decision-making. To that effect, many theories have been put forward to explain how decisions come about. As clearly depicted by these theories, decision-making depends on the individuals themselves or the environment that surround them. Additionally, decision-making processes vary across various individuals and professions. This paper seeks expound on the decision-making processes for managers and those at management level. Managers of different organisations use different ways of making decisions depending on their educational background, organisation, and the environment (Benidir 1991). Theories have been put forward to show the diversity of individuals in relation to decision making. These theories are paramount in understanding how different individuals and organisations make decisions (Sedney 1994). However, managers should do not need theories but gut instinct when it comes to decision making. First, managers need to understand the difference between personal style and the environment. Most managers have their individual way of doing things including making decisions that are derived from naturality (Kelly 2003). It is normal to find a manager who never consults or enquires form a particular body of knowledge when it comes to making his or her decisions. Others have criticized this method of management as an inefficient and uninformed way of doing things. It is worth noting that this personal style of making decisions if more or less guided by the environment in which one exists (Edwards 1954). Different surveys that are conducted on different manager show that their actions are often responses to events that happen around them. Additionally, other people around managers have a great impact on the decisions the managers make as they sub-consciously find themselves making decisions relating to what others around them do. Secondly, managers need to understand the relation between rationality and decision making. Scholars have defined rationality as the predetermined rules of logic mostly depicted in the deductive reasoning principles (Sedney 1954). Things are termed as rational if they enable an individual to achieve what they want. In the case of managers, the decision is rational if it helps him or her make a founded decision. Where principles of a particular decision making are violated, the decision is termed as irrational. Rational managers are known to make good decisions as they tend to base their decisions not on the theories but their gut feeling. Rational decision making is based on the rational model where manager’s views take the form of a well-informed and rational decision maker. According to the rational theory, there are various steps that rationality takes place. The steps are intelligence, design, choice and review (Bazerman 1986). The intelligence stage involves looking for an event on which to make a decision while the design stage is the developing and analysing stage for the course of actions. The choice and review stage involves selecting a particular course of action and assessing of past choices respectively. Additionally, the rationality approach help managers attach values to each of the alternatives they have before making decisions. The managers now use the respective values and utilities to make a decision mostly by selecting the alternative with the highest value (Adair 2010). It worth noting that there it is assumed that managers know all alternatives and that they have a properly organised set of preferences and their respective consequences. Managers should use the naturalistic approach to decision making. The naturalistic approach is based on the natural way and feeling in doing things. When managers base their decisions on this natural way, they are said to be following the gut feeling and not theory that is mostly preferred for managers. The naturalistic decision-making theory is concerned with investigations and comprehension in the natural context (Kelly 2003). Additionally, contributions have been made to the field of naturalism by other scholars.one such contribution is the recognition-primed decision (RPD) Model. The RPD model is founded on abilities of the decision maker to identify situations that that are the same as some earlier experiences and making the appropriate course of actions (Benidir 1991). Managers need to reflect back to some previous experiences so as to make quality decisions. However, other scholars greatly criticize the naturalistic decision-making process on the basis of its limited knowledge of quality alternatives. Moreover, the naturalistic decision maker makes a decision based on his or her feelings about a particular situation. It is for this reason that the model only suits environments surrounded by chaos and lots of uncertainty due to the limited information surrounding (Sedney 1994). Therefore, Managers should strive to use this naturalism coupled with their experience in decision-making. Managers may also be logical but should apply a bit of theory in some instances. Certainly researchers have proposed other rational decision-making procedures that are logical in nature and on the hand they are still theorised (Adair 2010). Researchers brought about the philosophies of normative theories that are characterised by being positive and classical in nature. The normative theories are said to be derived from philosophies that are mathematical, statistical and economical in nature. Normative theories that lie within positive domain of decision making are mostly based on probabilities and statistics. These theories are established in order to evaluate the good decisions to be made and assess how effective and positive the results to be realised become. Also, these set of theories are used to determine how rational people make decisions. Therefore, the theories main function is to point out how decisions should be made within an optimal and ideal environment. This environment is one in which, the decisions to be made are based on clear and hard evidence that is logical and has known conclusions (Kelly 2003). Moreover, decision analysis helps in inculcating the aspect of risk in making decision. This inculcation should help managers to weigh and explicate risks associated with each alternative; it helps protect against making decisions that would have extreme negative effects. Risks in this case find their basis on the managers feeling and perception rather than theories save for the normative approach that reinforces the aspect of risks (Sedney 1994). On the other hand, some scholars hold that managers should not make decisions wee-knowing their outcomes. This school of thought lays emphasis on the theories that according to them should influence decision-making process in managers and other individuals at the managerial level. Fourthly, managers should always compare their decisions with those of others at the same level as them. The comparison may be done across s professions since management is more or less related. For instance, a manager in a business unit and another at a hospitality business are required to make decisions regarding operations and organisation of their respective fields. This aspect of comparison has been reinforced in the social judgement theory (Bazerman 1986). In this theory, another way of looking at judgements is by comparing them with the “quality of judgement” and the judgement process. The comparison is based on the premise of accuracy. A major assumption is made in this theory; that a person’s judgement relates to the reality of his or her environment. Specifically, the “lens model” has been put forward as an alternative to the study of the human judgement process. In the lens model, every organism is seen as a lens that gathers many cues that come from an object and then refocus them in the system of the organism as judgement pertaining the said object (Adair 2010). However, just as human beings see a particular thing differently, the lens model acknowledges existence of the lens placing different emphasis on the various types and aspects of judgement. As a more specific and conclusive requirement for managerial decision making, the decision they make should be accurate. This accuracy means that much as managers should base their decisions on gut feeling; they should also strive for accuracy in, those decisions. Accuracy is seen as a tendency to make decisions whose outcomes are not varied from what was expected at the time of making the decisions (Edwards 1954). Kareem, a great scholar expounds on the quality of decision and its importance in determining the accuracy of the same decision. The accuracy debate implies that all decisions’ accuracy can be improved. The driving force behind this accelerated quest for improving accuracy is the desire to improve the probable outcome of a particular decision such that a manager can make “better” decisions. Decision-making accuracy for managers should be considered when thinking about the varied decisions in their management decisions that they have to make (Sedney 1994). In order to make accurate decisions, managers should take a keen look at the alternatives at hand and choose on with the highest degree of certainty. There are two classifications of theories of decision-making process, that is, the analytic and experimental. The two schools of thought have great differences in the way they perceive decision making. However, they have similarities when it comes to the steps involved in decision making regardless of the differences in professions (Kelly 2003). Managers’ decisions follow particular steps starting with problem definition, identification and selection of alternative and lastly implementation. Whether using the gut feeling or theories, managers decision follows these steps. Factors influencing decision making using the gut feeling are three; understanding the context, packaging information, and self-help technology. In understanding the context, managers classify people, alternatives, situations and being sensitive to value systems. Moreover, after understanding the context, managers ought to put the vast information they usually have about a particular thing into one group that communicate effectively (Benidir 1991). The self-help technology involves the manager using technology in the form of applications such as Ms Excel in making decisions. In conclusion, theories of decision-making are important but good managers should use their gut feeling in making decisions. The importance of the gut feeling is perceived as unbiased, accurate an experimental in decision making. For this reason, it is a superior method of decision making for managers. Bibliography Adair, J. (2010). Decision making and problem solving strategies (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page. Anderson, D., & Sweeney, D. (2000). An introduction to management science quantitative approaches to decision making(9th ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western College Pub. Audley, R. (1967). Decision making. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. Baron, J. (2008). Thinking and deciding (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bazerman, M. (1986). Judgment in managerial decision making. New York: Wiley. Bekker, H. 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