5 Important Lessons from Roberto’s article

The article, “What You Don’t Know About Decision Making” by, David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto looks at the decision making process those managers/supervisors have to go through and provide an in-depth look on how decision making will benefit the organization.

The five important lessons to take from the article are how Garvin and Roberto explain the differences between “Inquiry” and “Advocacy” approaches to decision making.

1. The “Inquiry” approach to decision making values an open exchange of ideas, allowing for multiple solutions to a problem to be proposed and eventually leading to a critiqued solution that was reached by a group or committee.

2. The “Advocacy” approach to decision making is a competitive process where each group member competes for their proposal to be accepted by the other members. Alternative solutions are not proposed as much and there is competitive dissention amongst the members

Also, Garvin and Roberto discuss what they call the “3 C’s of effective decision making”: Conflict, Consideration, and Closure.

3. Conflict is awkward, but constructive conflict can actually benefit the decision making process. If people are encouraged to debate ideas and mediated a fully thought out solution to a problem will occur, since everyone in the group has worked challenge it as much as possible.

4. Consideration is a key part in maintaining employee moral and spirits. The authors reported studies show that employees will be supportive of a new company policy or decision if they feel that their input was valued and considered. This will help supervisors/managers to foster moral by listening to and considering the input of employees.

5. Last lesson is the importance of timely closure in the decision making process. If a decision is made either too early or too late, a manager/supervisor risks credibility with employees as to their decisiveness.