Defining the manager role and responsibilities

¶ … Manager

When Work is Frantic, Managers Need Ways to Expand Horizons is an article that essentially refers to the fact that successful decision-making in business is largely a function of developing a strategy and business model that is unique and effective in fulfilling customer need gaps ahead of the competition, while simultaneously managing to establish cost efficient ways of doing so in order to maximize profitability. Today's increasingly competitive and fast paced world, however, does not allow managers the luxury of either the resource or the time to follow systematic and streamlined methods of studying and analyzing the environment sufficiently enough to come up with sustainable, competitive ideas. The situation described by the article therefore relates to Herbert Simon's theory of 'bounded rationality,' which suggests that the costs of acquiring present information as well as uncertainty about the future limit the extent to which managers can make fully rational decisions, leading to 'bounded rationality.' Under 'bounded rationality,' managers are forced to make decisions not by 'maximization' but by 'satisficing,' or compromising on less than the ideal aspirational level. In the event that the compromise decision is not good enough, managers are further compelled into once again changing either the aspirational level or the decision (Herbert Simon).

Availability Heuristic' also plays a role in the kind of decision-making environment described in the article. If managers are being forced into multi-tasking at lightening speeds, then inevitably they are taking decisions based on what they can remember instead of taking the time to look at the complete picture. Chances are also very high that their decisions are getting influenced by the more recent events, which have had a more vivid impact though such events or data may actually be the exception in reality and not representative of market trends (Availability Heuristic).

The concept of 'group think' relates to the article under consideration as well: "...the managers are forced into an ever-narrowing circle of contacts that look more and more like themselves." This is exactly the type of situation described in 'group think,' a term first coined in 1972: a cohesive ingroup where the striving for unanimity overrides independent thinking and consideration of alternative courses of action; insulation from the real world; pressures from a situational context; structural faults of the organization; and the lack of norms requiring methodical procedures for dealing with decision making tasks. This, as also mentioned in the article, leads to the symptoms of poor information search and selective bias in processing information at hand (Janis, 1982).

Assuming that managers are faced with a large number of recurring problems, the key steps they need to take to reduce their decision-making burden are: to reassess whether the problem or opportunity has been defined correctly through ensuring that all relevant data has been compiled and analyzed properly; re-examine underlying causes to the problem, assumptions and perceptions that have played a role in the decisions taken; and finally re-evaluate alternative courses of action available.