We’ve all had experiences where we have been
frustrated by a decision that our supervisor made. You have probably
blamed this decision on your boss being “closed-minded,” “stubborn,” or
“pigheaded.” But after reading the background materials you should be
able to more precisely examine and define the precise decision-making
biases or pitfalls that your supervisor made.
For this assignment,
think of three bad decisions that your current or past supervisors
made. For each decision, explain what bias discussed in the background
materials likely led to this bad decision. You must use biases
specifically discussed in Bolland and Fletcher (2012); Kourdi (2003); or
Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (2008). For each of the three decisions,
include:
A) A brief description of the decision and why you think it was a bad one
B) What kind of bias you think lead to this decision, and why
C) A reference to one of the background readings from this module
Finally,
conclude your paper with a discussion about which of the three readings
from the background materials would be most useful for your supervisor
to read in order to help make better decisions and avoid biases. Explain
why you think this reading would be more useful than the other two
readings.
The paper should be 2–3 pages in length.
Bolland,
E., & Fletcher, F. (Eds.). (2012). Chapter 2: Optimizing decision
making and avoiding pitfalls. Solutions: Business Problem Solving.
Abingdon, GBR: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., pp. 19-25 [Ebrary. Note: you
only need to read the first seven pages in this chapter. The rest of the
chapter will be covered in Module 3]
Kourdi, J. (2003). Chapter
3: Pitfalls. Business Strategy: A Guide to Effective Decision
Making.Princeton, NJ, USA: Bloomberg Press. [Ebrary]
Hammond, J.
S., Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1998). The hidden traps in
decision-making. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 47-58. [Business Source
Complete]
When you are done reading the above chapters and
articles, review and test your knowledge with the following interactive
tutorial which includes a quiz on decision-making biases
