Management Skills
Decision making is one of the most important skills in management. Basically, management is a decision making process. Everything a manager does involve making a choice among alternative choices and course of actions. Making decisions permeates across all managerial functions and responsibilities. It is an on-going daily process in every organization whether large or small. Manager’s failure to make decisions can cause chaos and confusion among employees and more worse disrupt overall productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of the staff. All employees look at the manager for competent decision when facing urgent and sensitive matters involving the organization. Various areas of decision making skills need improvement to enable a manager to make sound and professional decision in management that will ensure an organizations performs as efficiently and effectively as possible.
One of the key areas in a manager’s decision making skills that need improvement is the ability to make quick decision. Most managers are unable to handle situations that arise unexpectedly and require urgent attention. Their inability to make quick sound decision disrupts effectiveness and efficiency of the staff and has a long lasting repercussion on production of a firm. The second area that needs improvement is the ability of a manager to make well informed decision and allowing employee participation in decision making. He must make his decisions based on facts presented after defining the problem as clearly as possible and include the workers view of the situation. Among the main obstacles facing sound decision making by managers is the lack of necessary skills required to evaluate a problem and investigate all the information and data available. The other obstacle is lack of including the employees in the process of making choices that affect them. Thirdly, there is need for dire improvement in the area of understanding the basic facts to consider and not to consider in the decision making process. A manager ought to understand the right procedure to follow, what to omit and what not to when making a decision.
Business managers today are highly required to have the ability to make quick decisions in a rapidly changing world. They must make quick right decision for their business to run effectively in a highly developing and competitive business environment. Experienced managers have the ability to determine whether a problem requires urgent attention or to delay the action for a more appropriate time (Weller 2010).
For a manager to be more effective with his decision making skill he should be able to easily act on a particular management decision by identifying personal triggers that aid him to make a rapid right decision (Weller 2010). To most appropriate way to activate these triggers is to identify factors that motivate him as a manager. The triggers can range from personal job satisfaction, end month bonuses or a simple review of task required to be dealt with. Once the triggers are identified, the managers should practice them to ensure they are as effective as possible. A manager is able to avoid time wastage in his decision making by ensuring he uses these triggers as early as possible (Weller 2010). The triggers enable the manager to identify a problem early and have more time to prepare for the action to take. The triggers ensure the manager runs certain firms system effectively and efficiently. Once the manager receives a trigger, he/she is required to make the appropriate decision without delay. Consistent use of the triggers enables the manager to quickly gauge whether a situation requires urgent action or further gathering of data. If the manager has all information it’s highly advisable to act quickly otherwise the final decision should be made once all facts are presented (Weller 2010).
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