The Outstanding Faculty Award
The committee on outstanding faculty awards has been established in the college of business to resolve on the best candidate suited for the award. From the Outstanding Faculty Award case detail, it is evident such committees face several hurdles while settling for best decision-making criteria, which may hamper the attainment of an informed decision. The illustration depicts how teamwork dynamics can influence a decision-making strategy and their final decisions. This paper discusses my diagnosis of the Outstanding Faculty Award case file using various theories such as Simon’s bounded rationality theory and Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s judgmental heuristic and cognitive biases concepts. The article will delve deeper into exploring the group-making process of the committee and offer recommendations and issues to be improved to attain better decision outcomes.
Diagnosis of the Situation
David J. Cherrington, a committee member in awarding the outstanding faculty honor, presents the case study in his perspective. The committee constituted of several decision-makers accountable for deciding on the best candidate to take home the exceptional faculty honor at a particular reception party. The committee used the traditional practice to invite nominations for the award from three college’s department heads, two colleagues proposed by the faculty, and one student obtained from a group of other sixteen students. Three meetings were scheduled and conducted to ascertain the correct decision for deciding the best candidate for the award. However, in the last committee gathering, the group clashed on ideas leading to the choices they would live to regret later. According to Simon’s bounded rationality theory, humans are sometimes limited in their decision-making abilities to make informed decisions (Turpin & Marais, 2004). Due to time constraints, the committee settled on agreeing to the final winner on the average of all scores encompassing various individual competencies. Because of time limitations, poor decisions, and weak links, the committee still ended up choosing a wrong winner. Tversky and Kahneman’s judgmental heuristic and cognitive biases are observed in the case study’s committee decision-making process. Tversky and Kahneman’s concepts assert that committees are usually coerced to rely on mental shortcuts and senior figures assessments to make decisions (Turpin & Marais, 2004). The associate dean compelled other committee members to harmoniously settle for Dr. H, despite him not attaining the correct criteria for the award. According to rational or classical theory, the committee members did not anticipate the consequences their decision will yield. The committee members only voted in favor of Dr. H without considering individuals who might oppose the decision like Cherrington. Because of the hasty and uninformed decision, the whole committee was embarrassed in the special ceremony when Dr. H gave a worse 45-minute acceptance speech.
Groupthink Theory Application in the Committee Decision-making Process
According to Rose (2011), committees can serve to bring out the best as well as the worst. Groupthink theory illustrates a committee where “loyalty needs each committee member to desist proposing any controversial or complicated issue. Therefore, groupthink is a concept that occurs within a committee in which the aspiration for cohesiveness and harmony for the sake of the group leads to uninformed or irrational decision-making result (Rose, 2011). From the case study, the committee member initially did not decide on the ranking criteria. According to Cherrington, the group maybe assumed they shared a common interpretation of the term “outstanding.” Because no committee member raised a concern about the ranking criteria to conform to other members consensus. It resulted to a polite debate to decide what the term ‘outstanding’ means, and whether it applies to an award for tutoring, service to society, research, among others.
Another instance of groupthink theory exhibited in the outstanding faculty award is the decision making process leading to awarding Dr. H the award. According to Henningsen et al. (2006), the indicators of group think typically have been seen as segment of a single activity that relates to poor or uninformed decision making in committees. The author carried out a study to explore the symptoms of groupthink and its relations to retrospective sense making that usually occurs in groups or committees (Henningsen et al., 2006). From the study, the group think may produce retrospective sense making when individuals ascertain they settled on the bad decision. From the case study, Cherrington admits they made a decision on choosing Dr. H for the faculty award, evident in the embarrassment the whole group got from Dr. H acceptance speech that was awful in all aspects to deserve the award.
Besides, the majority of the group members concurred with associate professor sentiments and decisions to award Dr. H the faculty award. Dolan and other committee members accepted the decision to avoid raising ‘controversial issues,’ despite them being aware of Dr. H inferiority for the award. For instance, Dolan said, “I’m sure he would feel much honored by this award,” referring to Dr. H, while he did not qualify for the ranking criteria. The other committee members agreed to the decision to award Dr. H without raising any concern on Dr. H weaknesses and even went ahead to vote only in favor of him, without no alternate vote to oppose the decision. Because of the decision attained, all the committee members were punished by Dr. H poor acceptance speech, and they realized they had made a terrible decision.
Motivational Theories in Analyzing the Committee’s Decision
Making decisions is an integral activity of our daily live. In committees and groups, attaining good or bad decisions is usually related with the motivating factors of the decision makers, making them mutually influencing. Motivation significantly plays a role on the final wording of any group or individual decision. According to Dietrich (2010), several theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and theory of two factors significantly affects the decision-making activity.
Abraham Maslow, through his hierarchy of needs theory, asserted that humans or some members of a group would always hold on to their five levels of needs to satisfy their unmet desires. From the case study, the associate dean tried to motivate other committee members such as Dolan to accept the decision to settle for Dr. H. The group’s decisions was entirely arrived at because of the desire to appreciate Dr. H since he was retiring instead of following the ranking system in place. In an effort to satisfy their needs, as per hierarchy of needs theory, the committee ended up settling for a wrong decision.
Hertzberg’s two-factor theory is also evident in the committee’s decision-making process. According to this theory, motivation to make a decision is based on two factors, i.e. the motivators that includes performance, recognition, job status, and dissatisfies such as working conditions and work relationships (Dietrich, 2010). The committee was coerced to award Dr. H simply because of his service to the society performance, as well as his incoming retirement status to make a decision. To maintain good relations factor with Dr. H, the committee decided to improve on dissatisfies, but the decision did not work out on them.
Key Issues and Recommendations
The case study presents various issues that could have been addressed to produce a better outcome. First, the leadership role assignment to any member absence was the issue that significantly affected the decision’s outcome. The members did not have the same consensus about the interpretation of ‘outstanding.’ Moreover, the group did not settle or have systematic criteria to choose a winner, bringing about a sense of biasness among the committee selection. Good leadership in place would have resulted to a positive outcome. Secondly, the committee had no team norms detailed. Team norms usually influence the collective expectations and informal duties settled by the committee to regulate effectively behavior. Apparently, from the case study, there was a bunch of confusion on the correct route to advance in selecting a best candidate for the award. Lastly, team cohesion was an apparent issue. Members had their own motives and interests that were not shared by other members of the committee.
Conclusively, decision-making is crucial in any team and organizations in our contemporary society. Basing on the case study, several recommendations can be adopted to prevent groups from bad decisions. First, all group members should engage in brainstorming over the pertinent issue with creative thinking to solve the issue. Secondly, effective communication should be a priority to improve teamwork. Lack of proper communication usually leads to confusion and debates as each member has their conflicting ideas, leading to loss of time and resources. Lastly, groups should encourage constructive conflict that harbor positive ideas and recommendations, as well as respecting each other members ideas or availing better proposals.