DQ 5-2

1.

In my current role as a supervisor for a government agency over 14 employees I constantly have to make major decisions.  I have the opportunity to make decisions on how government funds are spent, how they are proved to the community and how staff operates.  One of the major decisions I recently had to make was is bring change within our department and how we operate. I was tasked by our executive deputy director to make our unit more effective on how we provide services to business. With this I had to break up the unit and decided who would be good at what and what their new role will be. This was a difficult decision because most of my staff has been in their current roles for over ten years and from my decision on what their current role will be there would be resistance. As change happens it is natural to be resistance to the change and according to the article How to Reduce Employee Resistance to Change “Resistance to change is a natural reaction when employees are asked, well, to change. Change is uncomfortable and requires new ways of thinking and doing. People have trouble developing a vision of what life will look like on the other side of a change. So, they tend to cling to the known rather than embrace the unknown” (Heathfield, 2018). After researching the Rational Economic Model I feel was a similar strategy I used and it worked well for me. As I made these changes I was not influenced by emotion, I provided a clear understanding of our goals, and I provided the “why” we are doing what we are doing.  At first there was resistance however six month later I have received great feedback from my staff and for the most part they understand the changes and how the changes has made our unit more efficient.

Reference

How to Reduce Employee Resistance to Change You Can Minimize Employee Resistance to Change by Taking Appropriate Actions BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated January 14, 2018 retrieved from: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/how-to-reduce-employee-resistance-to-change-1918992

2.

Calabretta, Gemser, and Wijinberg (2017) said that both intuitive and rational approaches can play important roles in strategic decision making. My career path has been a combination of rational and intuitive decision-making process. I always follow a path from problem to solutions. I choose solutions in agreement with my preferences, my beliefs and my gut feeling, because I like consistency and completeness. I have a High School diploma in Sciences (In Cameroon, we have three different High School (Literature, Sciences and Sciences-Math-Physic). Literature are for education, philosophy, journalism, or communication. Sciences is for health fields, biochemistry, medical research while Sciences-Math-Physic is for engineering, math, physic and scientific research.

Because I wanted to be a nurse, I chose Sciences and after High School, I obtain an Associate in Art and Sciences to enter nursing school. My rational approach was to gather all the necessary information and facts to be ready for a health career. I use the need to plan and prepare for it by seeking relevant information. When the facts don’t meet the reality of life (financial hardship and lack of social support), I decided to do something less stressful but healthcare oriented such as Public Health. In 2015, I started my bachelor in Public Health. Having a Bachelor degree didn’t guarantee a job because the reality is that for better job opportunity one must obtain a master degree. This time I didn’t use a rational approach instead I use my intuitive approach. I rely on my feelings, my learned experiences as a CNA, management, and Staff support, and in my personal experience of the Holy Spirit guidance (most people called it gut). Choosing my Master program was more of an intuition than a rational approach. All my internships were in hospitals on patients’ education, awareness, patients’ advocate and management. I figured that I had enough practice to be more as a public servant than a nurse. When I thought about Public Administration within Healthcare, I had that feeling that motivate me to act, a peaceful thought without any doubts, almost as if God was validating my choice.

Harvard Business Review said: “Decision-making is far from a cold, analytic process… Instead our emotions and feelings play a critical role by helping us filter various possibilities quickly, even though our conscious mind might not be aware of the screening. Our intuitive feelings thus guide our decision-making to the point at which our conscious mind is able to make good choices. So, just as an abundance of emotion can lead to faulty decisions, so can its paucity.”

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