Successful and unsuccessful experiences in group decision-making processes

¶ … group decision-making process. Identify successful unsuccessful experience group decision making. Discuss factors affected group's effectiveness, drawing concepts readings. Please include headings sectional headings.

Group decision making

The decision making process is pivotal within any organized group and it influences the ultimate success of the overall entity. In modern day times, the organizational leaders no longer make and implement decisions top down, but engage their subalterns in the decision making process.

The group decision making process

The group decision making process is virtually understood as an organized effort in which various members of a group discuss a situation and make a mutually agreed upon decision. In a more professional formulation:

"Group decision making is a type of participatory process in which multiple individuals acting collectively, analyze problems or situations, consider and evaluate alternative courses of action, and select from among the alternatives a solution or solutions" (Barnett).

The primary advantage of group decision making is that it capitalizes on the expertise of all of its partners, and the final decision relies on the specialized input of all team members (Levi, 2010). By making such well informed decisions, the group maximizes its changes for overall success (Schafer and Crichlow, 2010).

Nevertheless, aside from the benefits, group decision making also reveals a series of shortages, the most important of them being the potential for a decision to not be reached due to inability of agreement within the group (Dine, 2000). In such a context, it is important to establish the rules by which decisions are made, in case of failure to agree. Some methods in this sense include the decision by authority, the decision by majority, the decision by negative majority or the decision by ranking (University of Waterloo).

3. Successful experience with group decision making

An important aspect of group decision making is that it generates brain storming ideas which deal with numerous issues, aside the actual decision itself. For instance, the group members could come to discuss the potential impacts of the decision and could as such make a better informed decision (O'Connell and Cuthbertson, 2009).

This was also the case during a work related meeting, when the team members were trying to decide upon the vacation times and how these should be synchronized during the winter season. Everybody wanted to take time off, but challenges were continually raised about who would cover for one or the other. Eventually, it was agreed that the entire firm would be closed for one week during the holydays. This decision generated high levels of employee success, and added to the operational efficiency and motivation.

4. Unsuccessful experience with group decision making

A major downside of group decision making is represented by the fact that the level of democracy might sometimes be too high within the group, and this might lead to delays in the final decision to be made (Gastil, 1993). Such a situation occurred within a marketing team, trying to create a campaign for a prospective customer. The team members were unable to decide upon the message which best described the client. Before the team could decide upon the campaign to be created, the prospective customer signed a contract with another company, which promised to be more efficient and rapid in completing the campaign desired by the company.

6. Conclusions

Overall, decision making is a crucial process for the success of any economic agent, as well as any other organized group. Modern day decision making is changing and striving to involve more members of the group, but this can materialize in both positive as well as negative effects. In this context, the recommendation is for group decision making to be customized to fit the specifics of each and every situation.

References:

Barnett, T., Group decision making, Reference for Business, http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Gr-Int/Group-Decision-Making.html#b last accessed on March 28, 2012

Borchers, T., 1999, Decision making, ABACON, http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/decision.html last accessed on March 28, 2012

Dine, J., 2000, The governance of corporate groups, Cambridge University Press

Gastil, J., 1993, Democracy in small groups: participation, decision making and communication, John Gastil

Kameda, T., 2011, Effects of two procedural factors on group decision making: deliberation style and assigned decision rule, Ideals, http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/21912 last accessed on March 28, 2012

Levi, D., 2010, Group dynamics of teams, 3rd edition, SAGE

Lizarraga, M.L.S.A., Baquedano, M.T.S.A., Cardelle-Elawar, M., 2007, Factors that affect decision making: gender and age differences, International Journal of Psychology and Psychologic Therapy, Vol. 7, No. 3

O'Connell, T.S., Cuthbertson, B., 2009, Group dynamics in recreation and leisure: creating conscious groups through an experiential approach, Human Kinetics

Schafer, M., Crichlow, S., 2010, Groupthink vs. high-quality decision making in international relations, Columbia University Press

Group decision making, University of Waterloo, http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/group_decision_making.html last accessed on March 28, 2012