The essence of management is decision making.

Even though decision making is routinized,

it is also rationalized. Weber and Mannheim identified two types of rationality: Functional
and Substantive. The first type of rationality is planned and aimed to reach a certain goal,
the second type is analytic and tends to evaluate the goals themselves.

For most routine matters, decisions are taken based on a set of procedures. However,
managers’ perspectives change when some matters do not have detailed procedures to
follow. In certain situations where a critical decision must be taken, managers try to involve
different people in the process for support. Some managers exercise scapegoating, which is
the process of blaming someone else for their mistakes.

Decision making paralysis occurs when a person responsible is not able to take a decision
because he is afraid of the consequences.

Tracking responsibility is difficult because of lack of written records and changing

employees. In addition, some top managements prefer not to track responsibility because it
would limit their freedom. In Bureaucratic systems, more power is given to the higher
managers

A good manager must be able to defend himself when he is being blamed by pointing
fingers at others using his political skills. Managerial success requires managers to outrun
their mistakes and move quickly by not staying in one position for too long. It is argued that
outrunning mistakes is a key factor to a manager’s success. Managers at the top of the
hierarchy have never been long enough in one position.

Milking is the process of cutting costs. The ones closest to the hierarchy in the organization
are the ones to be blamed and removed from the company. Managers who are rewarded
for their high “return of assets” on the short run must have their performance monitored
for at least five years.

I worked as an IT manager in a multinational IT company that provides servers and

networking solutions to customers. I have been asked by the higher management to
propose a plan for a new office in a new location. The plan required me to define the set of
tools needed to provide IT services to potential number of customers. In order to gain
profit, the number of customers had to reach a minimum of 4 customers. Before taking the
decision to go on with the plan, I involved a team of consultants and engineers so
The aim of judgement is to simplify action that is usually followed by feedback. Acting
continuously based on that feedback leads to better response and eventually better
performance. Feedback increases the level of accuracy in dealing with complex
environments and allows one to acquire experience in judgement.

There are two types of feedback: Outcome feedback and process feedback. Outcome
feedback suggests that the outcome of a judgement is already known. Information about
criterion and cues are the process feedback.

Finding the best solution for a decision is impossible. However, an optimal answer for a
model of that situation can be found. With the use of probability, we can find optimal
solutions, as long as the parameters of the probabilistic model are stable. In other cases
where stability is not found, people must involve different procedures such as detecting
patters or observing changes across time.

Preferences change over time. They are created and modified via experience. People adapt
to changing preferences by not providing any definite preferences. Instead, to let them
adapt to the current situation.

Researches state that judgements and outcomes are conditionally objective of each other.
However, certain competitive and social situations are present during the process of
decision making and some dysfunctional responses can be useful in such cases. It is
beneficial in competitive situations to take random decisions. Providing the best solution is
not necessary rather than providing a better one than the competitors’.

Judgmental skills are affected by our abilities to adapt. When the human being first evolved,
he was learned to provide responses that are bias to his natural habitat to survive. That is
why similar responses might involve errors when processed outside that environment.

When I was a student at university studying for my Bachelor’s degree, I was working as an IT
consultant for a company specialized in online gaming. The company was facing some
internet connectivity issues and was losing customers. I was asked to provide a solution to
this issue. Being in a very competitive market, I was running out of time and I needed to
take a decision as to which internet service provider the company must switch to. The issue
was changing ISP was not an option as that could cause internet disconnection for 2 weeks.
Eventually I took the decision to change the type of internet connection instead. This was
not the best solution but it was enough to retain customers from falling over to our
competitors. A better solution was to provide two internet connections from two different
ISPs until the process of transferring to the new ISP is complete. The new ISP would have
provided us with better prices and connectivity.
Researchers agree that teamwork is a vital part of any work group’s effectiveness. However,
no clear definition has been provided to the term teamwork. A team suggests that the
members of a group must cooperate. They must have definitive goals that need to be
accomplished.

Teamwork is a collection of complex behaviors that involves monitoring, feedback and

communication. Team members monitor each other’s performance to make sure everyone
is on track. After monitoring, team members provide feedback about the performance of
the team. It is noted that in high performing teams, rank should not be an obstacle when
providing feedback to one another. Closed loop communication is commenced after
feedback between the team members in order to exchange information.

Teamwork can also be defined according to its attitude. The first attitude is when individuals
in a group view themselves as effective team members. When that happens, members act
as they are part of the overall success of the team. Interdependence also affects team
performance. Team members must all be able to interact with each other and depend on
one another in order to success in team’s objectives.

For an effective team work, team members must have certain knowledge of the tasks they
are assigned for in advance. In addition, some team trainings do not build up individual
skills. That is why if a certain individual with superior skills is missing from a team, teamwork
performance can be affected. Every team member must be aware of the tasks of the other
members in order to be ready to continue in case a team members goes missing from the
group. The tasks of one team member depend on the tasks of the other team member so
that the individuals within a group can know what they are monitoring and providing
feedback for.

This is exactly what I experienced when I was working as a Managed Services Engineer in a
Telecommunications company. One of my coworkers was assigned a project to work on and
implement. The project involved a tool that backups up certain files and emails a summary
of the files that were backed up. After the project was implemented, the employee
resigned. When we decided, we modify the project implementation, we were not able to do
that because none of the employees of the IT department was following up with the
project. There was no communication between team members. Eventually, I had to work on
the project from scratch but I also wrote a complete documentation that involved detailed
procedures on how everything works so that other employees can follow through in case
they needed to troubleshoot or modify parts of the project. The management also decided
to involve more than one person to work on future project for better results.
There is a difference between what and how we are view things. Technology is deeply
embedded in our environments and are changing people’s lives. In this study, we view and
analyze sociotechnical systems and its technical, environmental, social, and organizational
aspects. How we view certain systems depends on the perspective we propose.
Perspectives define how and what we view.

There are different perspectives proposed. In a technical perspective, the organization can
be viewed as a hierarchy and analyzed scientifically. In an organizational perspective, the
strength of the organization is viewed in addition to the individuals running this
organization. From a personal perspective, an organization can be viewed as a place to find
a job or impose an authority.

Rarely individuals tend to have one defined perspective. They share the three different
perspectives in an unequal manner. When making a decision, we take into consideration
both the organizational and personal interests.

Individuals with a technical perspective usually do not rely on organizational and personal
perspectives when making a decision. That is why such individuals are advised to choose
their team wisely so that team members with different perspectives can come up with a
solution. Technical perspective individuals are able to provide long term solutions such as
strategical planning, unlike organizational or personal perspective individuals who excel at
providing short term plans. Modifying time horizons when using different perspectives is a
must. Always make changes in long term predictions.

Different modes of communication are essential to take place between organizational and
personal perspectives. While nurturing technical perspectives rely on research and field
analysis, understanding of other perspectives is gained by conducting interviews and
simulation.

Technology and science during the old times were nonexistent. Technical perspective only
evolved recently. That is why incorporating both organizational and personal perspectives
into studies is crucial to fill the gaps needed to reach a conclusive result.

Being a person with mere technical perspectives, has not helped me during my work as an IT
engineer. Although I was able to provide technical solutions, and to construct long term
plans from a technical perspective, I lacked the managerial skills that allowed me to view
systems from an organizational and personal perspectives. A customer asked us to provide
him with server equipment and a location to set up these equipment at. We have three
locations where we were allowed to build these servers. All three locations were adequate
enough to build and connect the server equipment. However, after consulting the project
manager and providing me with his organizational perspectives, I concluded that location #2
was more adequate. This is because the project manager was able to negotiate with the
data center sales department and gain extra benefits such as room to expand and for better
support.