Decision Making Skills

DECISION MAKING SKILLS

About 20 years ago, a man aged 94, on his death bed, confessed to more than 2 dozen murders committed by him. The police were summoned and details taken down which perfectly matched the gory incidents that had occurred years ago and had at that time baffled the caretakers of law and the public at large. Indeed, the confessions of the dying man were true. What was very horrifying was that 30 years prior to the confession, a very learned jury of 8 judges had found another man guilty of the same crimes and had sentenced him to death by hanging. Decisions range from critical ones like ‘Guilty or not guilty' or for the then President of the USA, whether to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima or not, for me, whether to read a book or nap. Decisions need to be made every moment of the day and this adds to the BEAUTY and COMPLEXITY of living a HUMAN life. It is the capacity to make a choice, that makes us as humans unique. It is the ability to make decisions of varying types, on varying subjects, on an increasing number of topics and perhaps simultaneously, that adds meaning and depth to our lives.

Definition – DECISION MAKING

Before we look at the skills involved in the process of decision making, let us look at what we mean by Decision making.

Decision making can be seen as a process of adjusting the self to a continuously unfolding set of events. As someone put it "Decision making is not a series of single linear acts like baking a pie. It is a process, a sequence behavior that stretches back into a murky past and forward into a murkier future. It is a turbulent stream rather than an assembly line operation….. a twisted, unshapely, halting flow".

Decision making should essentially be an orderly and rational process. It must be a careful definition and understanding of the problems, a near exhaustive search of information, generation of numerous alternatives and a calculated choice of one of the alternatives.

Keeping the above in mind, one would have to agree that DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING are like two sides of the same coin and that, every decision maker is only a part of the process. This can be seen on the following page. Before the decision maker has to sit and make his decision, numerous others have had their say in the matter.

Some decide to talk about

the need for a higher fuel

efficient engine.

Others propagate message

of the earlier speakers

Market Research Analysts

decide

...