Decison-Making

Chief Executive Officer Take Charge

One of the traits of a good leader according to Michele Erina Doyle & Mark K Smith is to "Express self fully." Prior to the recent conversation the CEO had with his leadership staff, it was unclear what he expected of them. Did he want them to empower to make decisions, or did he want them to follow his directive and execute his decisions without question? The group could have been under the impression that they were meeting the CEO's expectations.

The dictatorship mentality forced the group to look at the CEO as the most qualified and felt his decisions and judgment best represented the organization. This apparently gave everyone a sense of complacency. Overtime this led to social loafing.

Because the CEO never expressed his expectations to his leadership staff, they all went with the status quo, thus making it the "acceptable practice." His apparent dissatisfaction was brought on by the fact that he was the only one making any decisions. The stress caused by being overworked led to his outburst. By allowing the social loafing behavior to continue for so long, the CEO was sending the wrong message.

When he finally confronts the group, he adds more confusion as to his expectations. Clearly, ground rules in this organization were not defined. The group was finally forced to measure their performance against each other, referred to as "social comparison theory."

There comes a time when those in charge must provide leadership and show concern for task and provide clear objectives says Doyle & Smith (Infed, 2005). Without clear goals and expectations from leadership, over time you will see a diffusion of responsibility, which often leads to social loafing, which is the case in this specific situation. Then how can we avoid groupthink or deindividuation?

There are many ways to avoid groupthink or deindividuation phenomenon. For example during the groupthink process one of the outcome is members usually want to be "team players," they may not want to undermine the group's consensus or challenge the group's leader. (Kendall. p141) This was the case in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger - in 1986.

I agree with the presidential commission that this tragedy could have been avoided, if only NASA executives would have listened to their engineers. The executives were so impatient due to earlier delays that they completely ignored the recommendations from the engineers. (Kendall, 2000) Communication, as well as combustion, was responsible for the tragedy. Thus, seven outstanding crewmembers died. What can we do to avoid this?

Let us try to look at some suggestions that could have been use from the following list:

1. Establish small groups to work simultaneously on the same issue where all members give their input and seek the expertise of trusted subordinates. In other words, go outside the managerial staff and collect opinions of those that are not in leadership. Encourage them to give their advice without fear of reprimand. (Janis, 1982)

2. Have the CEO leave the group during their meetings so that members will feel free to express their personal views. Some people in a group setting are fearful of being thought as contradicting the CEO and seeing their ideas shredded into pieces. (Griffin, 1997)

3. Use a Multi-Attribution Utility worksheet to discuss the different solutions and alternatives. Each member of the group proposes a different solution to the problem. Encourage all members to participate in offering different alternatives. Have members examine the possible outcomes of each solution or consideration. Pass out paper to have all members vote on the best solution. (Plous, 1993)

4. Set up a suggestion box to get feedback from other employees and managers alike, after posting the next meeting's agenda. In this way, you can gather ideas without having any group member identified as having lodged a critique. (Griffin, 1997)

5. Pre-select an individual who will take the role of disagreeing with any suggestion presented. In so doing, other individual are more likely to present their own ideas and point out flaws of others. This also reduces the stigma associated with being the first to take negative stances. (Janis, 1982)

It is clear that the managers of the organization are experiencing the so-called "Status Quo Trap." (Hammond, 2001) They do not seem to be able to break from the status quo, because they are fearful that if they take too much action then they will also take the responsibility for the consequences of their action. It makes them feel more vulnerable to criticism. The CEO wants more initiative from the organization managers, however it appears that the managers do not know their standing in the big picture of the organization. They act like robots and do not add new ideas and/or suggestions to the functioning of the company.

Therefore, the first step to improve the managers' performances in the work place would be to let them know exactly what is expected from them, as well as keeping them informed periodically on the status of their progress in the projects they are responsible to complete. The organization must implement a Performance Evaluation Report for their managers, basing their evaluation on concrete results of the tasks they commanded. The implementation of such a program would be an effective way to clarify what are the objectives of the company and, more importantly, how they are contributing to achieve these goals. (Oberg, n.d.)

Assuming that the problem of knowing what is expected of the managers has been overcome. The second step would be to develop a Leader-Manager mentality as opposed to a commander one. Organizations have an extreme need for building synergy in the work environment. By synergy, I mean an interaction in the organization in which a group of individuals working together would create an effect greater than the sum of the effects each is able to create independently. (Wikipedia, 2006) In order to achieve that goal, groups must be in synchrony with other groups and, more importantly, in synchrony within themselves.

A Leader-Manager mentality would train people to take responsibility for the problems they solve and decisions they make, as well as self-management, both as individuals and collective as a team. The manager would have to make sure that each individual of the group understand their roles and the key point is agreeing on these roles and not imposing