Decision Making in Management the Case of Gore & Associates, Research Paper Example

Marketing Management: Decision Making

The approach of granting the employees freedom and allowing them plenty of space in decision making is gradually becoming popular in various organisations. The main purpose of promoting this is to increase employee satisfaction as well as raise the employee’s awareness of their responsibility. The general focus of this change in management strategy is to increase employee retention, talent management as well as improving the output. While this system has taken time to pick up popularity it has its own advantages. Gore & Associates is using a strange structure called lattice structure which could be likened to a shamrock structure. The structure depends heavily on the associates being given a free reign on how the do their work making them highly flexible. The approach has its strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths of the Approach

The first strength of the approach is the enhancement of employee retention. Most employees are most comfortable if their management if they are granted an opportunity to freely air their views as well as give input to the decisions that are being made. This way the employees get to own and identify with the organization as well as the strategic goals that are generally being pursued by the organization. The employees end up getting more job satisfaction and the employee turnover is highly reduced. International thought leaders that rely on highly skilled manpower such as PricewaterhouseCoopers have been known to have what is called an open door policy. In PWC, the employees are encouraged to participate in the decision making as well as implementation of the decisions. This has seen them develop into thought leaders in the industry since they are able to retain their most skilled personnel. This system is very much in practice at the Gore and Associates where they have a lattice structure. In their set up, they allow the various employees to have a free reign and control of their planning. Once an employee has been trained, they are allowed to choose how to execute their various tasks. This makes the employees feel more at ease and hence increasing their loyalty.

The second strength of this management method is synergy in ideas. The companies having this management method enjoys. This calls the leaders who lead these teams to practice high level of team work and enhance communication between the team members. This is especially the case where teams comprise of creative types. In the case of Gore & Associates, the history of the company speaks volumes about the success of the structure less organization. The very manner in which the organization started was from a family setup where highly structured system could not be practiced. The father (Mr Gore) acted as the president and provided the sense of direction that was required by the organization.  It is also a very important tool in team building for the leader to function as a motivator as well as boosting the general morale of the team (Bass 1994). Such a team is hinged on the ability of the figurehead to provide leadership. Transformational leadership plays a major role in that the leader serves as a motivation as well as a guiding light in setting pace as well as direction in which all members of the teams as well as the organization moves.   Transformational leaderships ensure high performance and sustain it through a change in the management style and this is achieved through the bosses turning to servants or what is called servant leadership (Greenleaf R, & Spears L, 2002. This means that transformational leadership is a key way to promote team motivation. It is only in a devolved environment here there is no strict hierarchy that this kind of transformational leadership can be implemented. This means that all the knowledge in a team is well harnessed to give out the best possible output.

The third strength of this management approach is ease of decision making. In multinationals and other big organisations that are spread over a wide geographical area, the process of decision making as well as management is more challenging. In organizations that the employees are encouraged to be free and to make decisions, the speed at which key decisions are made is quite fast since there is no much time wasted in unnecessary consultations as well as in seeking approvals. The organizations are therefore able to tap into the employees varied skills by looking at how the best performers approach decision making as well as how the handle various scenarios at work. The organization is also able to demonstrate the best in the employees as well as benefit from maximum creativity of the employees. These benefits therefore make this management approach very attractive especially for the new age type of organisations that are technology intensive.

Most important is the devolution process is the use of 360 degrees feedback as a tool of communication in passing forth information in an organization. This method ensures that information flows up and down the hierarchical ladder of the organization. Holding regular meetings with personnel of all cadres helps in ensuring that all information is passed ford between the different levels of management as well as the implementing arm (McNamara 2008). This ensures that there is no feeling of exclusion among any members of the organization and therefore forestalling the possibility that a wide philosophical gap will develop between the employees. This kind of an organizational structure can only be implemented if there is sufficient devolution in the organisation.  At Gore & Associates, they lattice structure assists in that information spreads vey fast through informal channels as well as through the peers. This way there are no protocol barriers to be surmounted in arriving at a decision hence making decision making very fast.

Weaknesses of the System

One of the major disadvantages of this style of management is lack of uniformity on decision making as well as in output. Where different people have the licence to design, make and alter products, the ability to maintain uniformity within the product or brand is highly impaired. The main challenge is brought about by the varied preferences and personal likes of the various people making these decisions (revisionguru). For example people buying Burgers at McDonald for example expect the same type of a product every time the visit the store. In the case of Gore & Associates, the problem of decision making for example became evident when they were contacted for the first major order and there were no people holding managerial positions to be contacted, this is a common occurrences in the organization practising such managerial strategies. However due to the various differences in the people delivering this service, this expectation might not be met. This problem has since been so acute that some of the organisations that practice highly devolved management styles are forced to lay down specific styles to be used in determining the decisions to be made. These organisations are compelled to have tailor made templates for decision making as well as implementation. Those in processing or manufacturing businesses are forced to have standard operating procedures that have to be adhered to in product development. This makes the freedom rather restricted since the employees cannot move out of the norm which ends up restricting their freedom all the same.

The freedom accorded to the employees of the organization might act as an impediment to the top level management’s ability to restrict the organization expenditure as well as determine the uniformity of the decisions so made to the mission and vision of the organization. The employees might as well end up creating disharmony to the general direction of the company. The likely success of the entire organization is highly dependent on the uniformity of the decisions they make. The highly devolved organizations therefore pose a challenge since management gives the employees plenty of time and space to wiggle and give direction to the matters of the team. The best effort made towards managing these cases is by using formal team building sessions. If well utilised these sessions’ help improve the cohesiveness of thought as well as the general cooperation between the various members. Other organisations take their employees for cross function training to impart into them the necessary skills as well as knowledge on the organisations culture.

The other disadvantage of this system is the inability of management to implement changes. The system involves the various people at decision making levels being responsible for their various sections. If the management decides to make any major changes in the organization structure they need to do intensive consultation as well as sensitization to their employees to improve their adaptability to the change. This makes such organizations rather inflexible thus interfering with their adaptability.

Organizations Where the Approach Might Not Be Very Effective

One of the organizations where this approach is not likely to work is in government agencies. These are such agencies like the various security outfits. The security agencies are responsible for highly sensitive information and weapons. If the various people are left to make decisions on the deployment and use of such weapons like atomic bombs, they are likely to cause a catastrophe. Due to this consideration, the decision making in the military is quite streamlined and the pecking order is clearly defined. Similarly other government agencies like those charged with the responsibilities of management of intelligence information cannot practice this type of management.

Other organisations that this approach cannot succeed are those in the construction industry. In construction, the architects design the structure to be followed and this has to be adhered to if the projected structure has to be achieved. This imposes restrictions on how much the various employees can wiggle or change the design of the structure. Other such organisations that require a strict regulation in decision making are educational institutions. These institutions use a set curriculum to impart knowledge and other such information to the students. Any departure from the set syllabus is not acceptable as this would interfere with the student development.

References

Bass, B. M. (1998). Transformational leadership: Industrial, military, and educational impact. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bass, B.M. & Avolio, B.J. (Eds.). (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Greenleaf, R.  & Spears, L. (2002). Servant Leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. New York: Paulist Press.

Centralisation and Decentralisation. Retreived 25 march 2010. Available. www.revisionguru.co.uk/business.