Aricle about Decision Making

Groups are faced with many challenges key among them being: problem solving and decision-making.

The solution to these problems solely depends on the group leader who will either involve the team members or decide on his/her own concerning a challenge facing an organization under his/her custody. Group decision making can be through: brainstorming, consensus or compromise. The CEO of Nutrorim Company, Don Rifkin, was in a crisis when the company’s new and improved sports supplement powder called chargeup, was nearly withdrawn from the market.The consumers of the product complained of gastrointestinal distress where they suspected it was after consuming chargeup with liptrene. The leadership capacity of the CEO was put into check when he was supposed to lead the company in reaching the best decision towards this problem.

Prior to the problem the company’s top managers did complain about the leadership style of Don Rifkin which according to them did not work well with the company’s goals and objectives. They further said that his leadership had propagated slow decision making process thus stalling many projects.An organization is very effective and efficient when the staffs are loyal, feel more needed and wanted, feel they are respected and feel that their opinion count. In addition decisions tend to be better when they are sought from wider range of knowledge, information and experience.

Participatory approaches usually mean that decision making is more transparent, increased trust among the staff and the leadership of the manager is made easier. Similarly the CEO should conduct regular reviews with all the staff and give feedback on the organizations recent activities and input to be inserted in the upcoming annual work plan.Management of a group is far too important to be left to the managers only and therefore all the staff should be involved. Don Rifkin’s style recognizes this but seems seems not to work very well. However, he should employ ratification strategy where subgroups are formed to address an issue and return the recommendations to the larger group within an organization. This will help reduce the number of people involved in decision making and thus saving on time.

In the crisis facing Nutrorim, the CEO should have chosen a task force immediately to look unto the issue instead of involving the whole management team.Ratification strategy lowers costs since it saves on time, this is because fewer people are involved thus reducing complexity, and decision making time is shortened since the interests of fewer people are involved. Rifkin should encourage participatory management where all the staff and not the designated managers have an input and influence over the decisions affecting their organization. However he should have the final say for making decisions and answering for them after all the members of the staff who are affected by those decisions have provided their observations, analysis, suggestions and recommendations.

This style of leadership works well since every team member will feel responsible in every decision that is reached by the company. As evidenced by Don Rifkin agitates for participatory leadership style and puts everything on the table for discussion. Christopher I. McCormick agrees that Rifkin is honest and very much interested in doing the right thing, Attributes, which he agrees that are good for a leader (McCormick et al 2006).However, this leadership style is deficient of objective analysis of the problem as well as open inquiry into the crisis and this has resulted into, slower decision making, frequent conflicts and complaints from among the top managers and murmurs which go unattended to by the CEO.

According to Vroom, V. A (2000), Rifkin should allow enough questions from the team members as well as employ all the leadership styles depending on the surrounding context. He further says that active consultation with the staff when making decisions will lessen suspicion, increase trust and efficiency.Garvin and Roberto (2001) however, acknowledge that obtaining a participatory input has related costs which include; more deliberation time and delayed decision making when compared with unilateral decision making. But they further say that benefits of participatory approaches outweigh its limitations.

Rifkin solely uses a democratic participatory devoid of controversy leadership style which did not work very well when faced with a situation on which to decide on whether to recall chargeup from the market or not.If he could use a dictatorial and directive leadership style as well as being very consistent, The Company could have reached on a decision as fast as possible. Rifkin should also face the problem and try to solve it wherever it arises but he instead postpones a problem with a feeling that a solution will be reached upon at a later time. As a leader the team members depend on you for guidance and direction and it is therefore imperative that Rifkin should start leading his team from the front and minimize the use of delegation.A leader should assess critically the strengths and weaknesses of his/her team members (Ettling et al.

1988) and try to maximize the members potential for the good of the company but in the case of Rifkin he seems not to know his team members very well and this was evidenced when he was choosing the sub-committee members, where one of those chosen who was new in the company and felt that it was a mistake for her to be chosen. Rifkin should lead the team in trying to prevent problems instead of waiting to solve the problems once they have occurred.He should have guided, Ford and his team in reviewing the toxicity studies and clinical trials on the product before it was dispatched to the market and this would have definitely prevented the problem in the first place. This should be a wake up call to Rifkin’s leadership style and he should change for the good for his character and the company at large.

A team leader should posses the powers of controlling the team and wherever one of the members is speaking one should not interrupt before completion (Fisher, Aubrey B. 1990).A leader should also allow equal participation of all team members but in the case of Rifkin, he has cultivated a culture where some members feel more important than others. It was evident during the meeting when deliberating on the chargeup product where one member shouted down others as well as trying to dominate the discussion thus not allowing enough brainstorming. Rifkin should promote a culture of free participation where he should discourage monopoly of ideas from some members but taking care not to embarrass them in front of others.

This will work well with the company since there would be generation of many ideas which would help in decision making as well as problem solving. Team members will also expose their strengths and weaknesses from which the team leader will utilize them for the betterment of the company. Chargeup was doing very well in the market before its supposed recall but the CEO never rewarded the company workers even when its recall was thwarted amid a lot of anxiety the leader never called the team members to celebrate over the success.This does not work well in a group since it de-motivates employees.

Rifkin should introduce a reward system to the members. This will help the top managers and other senior employees to spend a lot of time in their work and become passionate to the results resulting in improvement performance of the whole company. Rifkin should monitor his top managers, motivate them and give them feedback about their performance and actions and how the company fairs. He should make sure that the results are openly elaborated and that when failures occur everyone learns from them.

For Rifkin it is only failures that re put forward to the employees but the successes go unanswered. Decisions should be formed on the basis of precisely defined criteria that cover everything, including due diligence, strategic and operational aspects of the merger and clear exit strategy (Roberto. 2003, May). Rifkin should also set transparent rules, which will prevent the management from growing bullish, practicing selective hearing and ignoring risks.Transparent rules will also contribute to the establishment of trust since people will know what to expect and what they are responsible for. Rifkin should cultivate a culture that promotes an inclusive participation.

He should use small groups in data collection, analysis and interpretation from which they identify the pros and cons of a decision. This will promote healthy discussions, generation of good ideas which ease decision-making. This will also discourage monopoly and selective hearing and thus promote trust among members.