Vroom-Yetton Decision Making
1
At my firm, management had to make the decision about whether to increase production or not. Their decision-making style was autocratic, meaning that they alone made the decision without consulting with others or taking group input into account. The reasoning behind this decision was likely that they felt they had the knowledge and expertise to make the best decision for the company. Additionally, they may have felt that consulting with others would have taken too much time and delayed the decision-making process.
While an autocratic decision-making style can be efficient, it can also be risky, as it does not allow for dissenting opinions or alternative solutions to be considered. In this case, management may have benefited from a more consultative or group-based approach, because in the end, they increased production without realizing that the surge in consumption was due to a one-time event that had nothing to do with changing demographics or a substantial shift in buying trends. Thus, management had to deal with excess inventory when the event was over and basically created a problem for themselves that could have been avoided if they had simply engaged in some consultative decision-making.
2
The problem process did not necessarily have any quality requirement associated with it. It was simply...
According the Vroom-Yetton model, their approach could have remained autocratic in this manner. It was not something that required a great deal of commitment from the team, other than in terms of upping production. They had to shift resources slightly to increase production but it...
…as it did Son with the Sprint/T-Mobile deal (De La Merced, 2014). Ultimately, the decision-making process requires diagnosis that has to be rooted in neutrality (Rigolosi, 2005).
I was not surprised by the recommendation given by this model regarding decision-making style because it made sense and was rational. My problem is that leaders can be irrational and biased at times and therefore do not realize when they are making a blunder as they had no thought for their own limitations. Yes, leaders can learn to lead and often do (Vroom, 1976). However, I feel that is more a response to real world practice, of leaders getting experience and understanding that they do have limitations and that they do need to be objective in decision-making matters. Models can help so long as leaders admit their limitations and take an objective approach to the process,…
