Decision Making Within an Organization

Collaborative Decision Making Through Share Governance

I attended a committee meeting at a local school. The committee was formed in order to come up with a proposal on how they could improve the performance of the school. Those who attended the meeting were supposed to see to it that they come up with a proposal on how the performance of the students could be improved. I was quite keen on how the committee members interacted and the process the committee used to arrive at their decisions.

I observed that the committee used both managerial level and group levels in the decision making process. First of all I observe that there were proposals from the management that were forwarded to the committee members. The management of the school had come up with their own measures that would be taken to ensure that the performance of the school would be improved. This had been arrived at after consultations were done in various departments and closed door meetings of the management. These proposals were brought before the committee for their approval. The second thing I observed in the meeting was group decision making. This was a participatory process whereby the different members of the committee collectively brought forward their suggestions, analyzed them and came up with a decision together. They used various techniques in their decision making process (Chand, 2010).

They used brainstorming sessions whereby the committee members verbally gave their suggestions of what they thought would help in the improvement of the performance of the students. This session was not structured and the chair of the committee was charged with the duty of soliciting ideas from those in attendance. The chair carefully noted these ideas down until they had fully exhausted them.

I observed that all the members of the committee gave their suggestions. This was an orderly process and everyone was given the opportunity of bringing forward their suggestion. Everyone was given equal amount of time to bring forth their ideas as the rest listened carefully. Once they had exhausted their ideas the committee members began the process of evaluating the different suggestions that had been brought forward.

The process of evaluating these ideas was very interesting as I got to hear the members argue out the proposals that had been given out. Each of the committee members was keen to make sure that they defended the idea they had brought forward. The committee members made sure that they gave reasons why they thought their suggestion was the best. After the intense evolution process the members of the committee collectively agreed on some of the proposals that the committee members had suggested (MountHolyoke, 2009).