Management concepts and applications

Decision-Making Process

There are several steps in the decision making process: recognize a problem or opportunity, diagnosis, develop alternatives, selection of desired alternative, implementation of chosen alternative, and evaluation. Of these, Don Anglos has currently recognized the opportunity, and the company has undertaken at least part of a diagnosis. There are only two alternatives on the table right now, partly because the diagnosis has not been fully constructed. There has been no selection of alternative nor any of the subsequent steps either.

The diagnosis should analyze the underlying causal factors of the opportunity. The opportunity is said to arise more because a competitor is seeking to acquire Hoilman, but there are other factors as well. Anglos is recognizing that his company is in a mature industry, and believes that the company needs a competitive advantage in order to have a pathway forward to growth, so the slow growth at Pinnacle is one of the underlying causal factors along with the rumors of Hoilman perhaps seeking and finding a suitor elsewhere. The fact that Hoilman has key technology under patent that Anglos feels would provide his company with the services boost it needs to move forward is another underlying causal factor.

The diagnosis is incomplete in the sense that the other members of management have offered objections, but have not really noted what doing nothing is going to achieve. They are not starting from a point where they are diagnosing a problem or opportunity. Thus, the "do nothing" alternative that they are presenting is something that is not really based on diagnosis -- or at least they have diagnosed that there is no problem or opportunity facing the company.

Style

Anglos has a directive style of decision-making, which is based on simple, clear-cut solutions to problems. He has really only thought about one solution to the problem he perceives and has not worked with a lot of data, has not taken others into consideration and doesn't have a broad amount of information.

Recommendation

My decision-making style is a bit more analytical than Anglos', so I would recommend learning more. This decision has been spurred by a couple of things -- the rumor and the need to re-shift the organization. The dissenting managers are presenting some information about the market for services, but they need to back up their side with numbers, forecasts and just more information in general. So my recommendation at this point is to get a better understanding of the current state of the organization, where the future of that business is going, and what alternatives exist. A bold shift in strategy should be done with a lot more analysis that what we have seen here.