Try to look at yourself objectively (as if you were assessing someone else), and
ID: 394788 • Letter: T
Question
Try to look at yourself objectively (as if you were assessing someone else), and use the terminology in the readings to characterize how you make professional (work-related) decisions.Conclude your post by offering an assessment of whether you think the “garbage can model” accurately describes decision making in the organization you know best. This might be where you work now or have worked, or could be an organization of which you are a member, such as a church or social club. Try to look at yourself objectively (as if you were assessing someone else), and use the terminology in the readings to characterize how you make professional (work-related) decisions.
Conclude your post by offering an assessment of whether you think the “garbage can model” accurately describes decision making in the organization you know best. This might be where you work now or have worked, or could be an organization of which you are a member, such as a church or social club.
Explanation / Answer
As an organizational leader of an active duty U.S. Army Infantry Company, I am in a unique position where I have to make two distinctly different types of decisions. Decisions that are tied to a militarized order or a mission to conduct an operation or training event, and decisions that tied to the management of personnel in the company. For decisions that are relative to a militarized order, we use The Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) is a United States Army seven-step process for military decision-making in both tactical and garrison environments. It is indelibly linked to Troop Leading Procedures and Operations orders. The military decision-making process (MDMP) is a single, established and proven analytical process. The MDMP is an adaptation of the Army’s analytical approach to problem-solving. The MDMP is a tool that assists the commander and staff in developing estimates and a plan.
This the military comparison to The Six Phases of Decision Making : (1) Identify and diagnose the problem, (2) generate alternative solutions, (3) evaluate alternatives, (4) make the choice, (5) implement the decision, (6) evaluate the decision(Bateman-Snell p83). As an organizational leader, I most frequently use The Six Phases of Decision Making, especially when it involves managing personnel and their abilities, qualifications, and personalities.
In a garbage can process, there are a large number of problems, choices, solutions and participants—are intertwined (Cohen, March, Olsen p1). There is not (in a garbage can environment) a “clean” decision-making process with circumscribed issues to be decided by a well-defined set of participants with clear, independent choices. Instead, it’s all jumbled up. This not the case in most military organizations. Time is a valuable commodity. Organizational leaders develop succinct meeting agendas and do not deviate. Conversely, when developing courses of action and other problem-solving scenarios leaders give detailed guidance in order to keep the development conversation in a certain parameter while allowing subordinate leaders to voice their input.