peer response unit 5 LCS

Why do some people consistently make better decisions than other people? It is critical that managers have good  decision-making skills —the ability to identify and analyze a challenge, identify and examine the alternatives, choose and implement the best plan of action, and evaluate the results. When making important decisions, managers often go through a formal decision-making process similar to that shown in Figure 7.3. Analyzing data and looking for trends allow a manager to identify unseen problems or opportunities. Examples may include poor growth in sales, an increase in customer dissatisfaction, or an opportunity to expand into a new market. Next, managers work with their teams to generate possible solutions. They can then evaluate each potential solution based on various criteria, such as cost, feasibility, and time and resources needed. Once they have evaluated the potential solutions, managers select the best plan of action. At this point, managers often seek the opinions of customers or other people in the marketplace before completely committing to this choice. If the feedback is not positive, another alternative might be pursued. When the final choice has been made, plans are established to implement the plan of action. Finally, managers evaluate the results of their decisions. If changes need to be made, the entire process begins again.

Figure 7.3

Stages of Decision Making

© Kendall Martin

BizChat Social Media: How Do Web-Based Tools Make Time Management Easier?

Calendars have traditionally been a tool used by individuals to manage their personal schedules. But with modern social media tools, web-based calendars can be used to synchronize and manage the schedules of many people simultaneously. Multiple people can add new events to the calendars, thus making the scheduling of meetings easier and faster. For example, using Meeting Wizard, you can send out e-mail invitations that contain a poll of suggested meeting times. The application then creates a report for you with the group’s responses and sends everyone a confirmation e-mail with the final time chosen. NeedtoMeet is another application that allows you to have everyone in the group enter their available times on a web-based calendar. Doodle (also available for iPhone or Android) is scheduling software that lets you check out the yes/no votes for suggested meeting times on your phone.

Such tools have proven useful to many managers, but some people argue that web-based tools can make simple tasks more complicated and can make us actually less productive. What do you think? Do we rely too much on fancy electronic tools to manage our lives and our time?

Think back to Ursula Burns, the CEO of Xerox Corporation. How did her education equip her with the technical skills she uses to achieve success? Do you think her success reflects strong interpersonal skills? What does the direction in which she is taking Xerox say about her decision- making and conceptual skills? How might time management skills come into play in terms of her ability to manage a giant corporation? To have Burns’s prominence and success in business, a combination of management skills is vital.