Before making any decision, there are several decision steps to be followed. These include the assessment of the decisions to be made compared to the outcome desired, gathering information to identify alternatives, selecting the alternatives, and knowing what actions to take from the alternatives. Systematic decision-making style is the one used in high school. It involves recognizing and assessing each possible course of action, where the board of governors sits down and makes systematic decisions from the group and reviews all their points while selecting the best alternative. In car sales, the style used for decision is intuitive, although it is subject to change depending on the urgency of a decision. Intuitive decision-making entails selecting the right market for sales, which is determined by circumstances and nature of the business, especially when making car sales to customers.
According to Plous (2000), planning is a decision-making technique which simplifies decisions. It is used in high school because it helps in coming up with independent goals. It also gives a standard of measurement and converts values to actions. The school is able to allocate resources in an orderly way – it uses these levels of decision making: strategic level, which contains the general direction and long term goals; tactical level, which supports strategic decisions; and operational level, which supports tactical decisions and they are usually structured. The techniques used in the board of governors’ decision-making include T-Charts, which are graphic representations of points given in a decision. The charts highlight both positive and negative aspects.
Second, measured technique is used in car sales. Here, the decisions are drawn in tables with weights assigned depending on the significance of the decision. The data on a table includes comfort of a car, speed, safety, and mileage. Each data is given its corresponding points depending on the type of car, and the total number of points is added at the end of the table in to make a decision. Likewise, decision matrix technique is used in high school. For example, if a class teacher wants to decide on the students who are to be promoted, he comes out with alternatives like students’ performance, screen writing, and behavior disorders with the help of a computer application such as spreadsheets.
Therefore, it is important to change decision making technique because some decisions are short term – for example, in car sales and students intake. Some are periodic – for example, budgets in both high school and car sales, and others are long term depending on the decisions made by the management.
The best decision-making model in the organizations is rationale. It is based around a cognitive judgment of the advantages and disadvantages of various options. It selects the most reasonable and consistent alternative that will produce best results. Rationale usually involves detailed review of these alternatives and the advantages and disadvantages of each. However, rationale model requires a lot of information gathering.
Consequently, Facione & Facione (2007) argue that internal and external shareholders affect organizations decision-making because in the case of car sales, the stakeholders will determine the company’s selling techniques to employ and the stocks to order. In a high school, the stakeholders affect decision-making from the board of governors because they have to sit and decide who to employ, how many students to enroll, and how many with regards to teaching or non-teaching staff.
The type of decision-making model is based on the stakeholder because it depends on time available to make decisions. Normally, decisions are short-term, periodic, or long term. In short-term decisions, especially in car sales organization, ordering of new stock and creation of production schedule may be made daily or weekly. In high school, students’ intake is also short-term. Periodic decision making is made when there are variances in budgets in a school, and in the car sales company, when production is failing behind schedule. Therefore, any decision-making model must incorporate the requirements of stakeholders, both from within and outside the organization.
References
Facione, N. & Facione, P. (2007) Thinking and Reasoning in Human Decision Making, California: The California Academic Press/insight Assessment.
Plous, S. (2000).The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. New York: McGraw Hill.