Working And Learning With Others Commerce Essay



In this assessment we are going to see about decision making process, personal strengths and weakness, how the conflicts can occur on the work place and how we can understand to take action against that.

Decision making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the preferences and values of the decision maker. Making a decision implies that there are choosing best alternative choice, and just identifying the alternative choice is not enough but also to choose the best one from that alternative choices like has the highest probability of effectiveness or success and best fits with the goals, lifestyle, desires, values, and so on.

In other words decision making is the process of reducing uncertainty and doubt about alternatives to allow a reasonable choice to take from among them. In decision making process this definition will stress the information gathering. The uncertainty should be reduce rather than eliminated.

Decision is made within a decision environment, which is defined as the collection of information, preferences, values and alternatives available at the time of the decision. Both alternative and information are constrained because the time and effort to identify alternatives or gain information are limited. The decision must be made by a certain time this is simply known as time constraint. The effort constraint reflects the limits of money, priorities and manpower. Within the constrained environment the decision must be made. The major challenge of decision making is uncertainty, and the major goal of decision analysis should be in order to reduce uncertainty.

b) Delaying a decision involves several risks:

1. As the decision environment continues to grow, the decision maker might become overwhelmed with too much information and either makes a poorer decision or else face decision paralysis.

2. Some alternatives might become unavailable because of events occurring during the delay. In a few cases, where the decision was between two alternatives both alternatives might become unavailable, leaving the decision maker with nothing. And we have all had the experience of seeing some amazing bargain only to hesitate and find that when we go back to buy the item, it is sold out.

3. In a competitive environment, a faster rival might make the decision and gain advantage. Another manufacturer might bring a similar product to market before you or the opposing army might have seized the pass while the other army was letting the decision environment grow.

Decisions have the following consequences.

c) Concepts and Definitions:

1. Information:

Information is knowledge about the decisions, the probability of each alternative and the effects of its alternatives, and so forth.

2. Alternatives:

Alternatives are the possibilities one has to choose from. Alternatives can be identified or even developed. Alternatives will result in less effective decision making.

3. Criteria:

These are the characteristics that each alternative must possess to a lesser or grater extent. Usually the alternatives are rated on how well they possess each criterion.

4. Goals:

In every instance of decision analysis the important component is goal identification.

5. Value:

Value refers to how desirable a particular outcome is, satisfaction, the value of the alternative, whether in dollars, or other benefit.

6. Decision Quality:

Decision quality is a rating of whether a decision is good or bad. A good decision is a logical one based on the available information.

7. Acceptance:

Those who must implement the decision or who will be affected by it must accept it both emotionally and intellectually.

2. A difficult decision typically involves the following issues:

Interpersonal issues


High-risk consequences



A Systematic Approach to Decision Making:

To address the critical elements of good decision a logical and systematic decision-making process is used.

The followings are steps to making an effective decision:

Create a constructive environment to an organization.

Create good alternatives.

Then explore these alternatives.

Choose the best alternative from the set of alternatives.

Check the decision.

Communicate decision taken with others, and take action.

Above stated steps are detailed below.

1. Create a constructive environment:

Make sure the following things to create a constructive environment for successful decision making:

Establish the objective: It defines what have to achieve.

Agree on the process: It helps to know how the final decision will be made, and whether it will be an individual or a team-based decision.

Allow opinions to be heard: Encourage participants to contribute to the debates, analysis and discussions without any fear of rejection from the group. This is one of the best ways to encourage organization's member only.

Use creativity tools from the start: Thinking of different perspective is the basic creativity.

2. Generate good alternatives:

Generate good alternatives is still critical to make an effective decision.

When generate good alternatives look at the problem from different angles.

The followings are the some of the key tools and techniques to develop good alternatives.

a) Generating ideas:

The most popular method of generating idea is brainstorming..

For gathering and developing the ideas from many stakeholders, the charette procedure is used.

To generate ideas from a large number of people, the Crawford Slip Writing Technique is used. This is an extremely effective way to make sure that everyone's ideas are heard and given equal position.

b) Considering different perspectives:

For gathering different perspectives the Reframing Matrix uses the 4Ps. The 4Ps are Planning, Product, People and Potential.

Concept fan is used to take the steps back from the problem, if have very few options, or an unsatisfactory alternative, and approach it from a wider perspective.

To find the right and wrong thing which is going based on problem, the Appreciative Inquiry method is used.

c) Organizing ideas:

To combine the number of ideas into a comprehensive alternative, the organizing ideas have been used. The Affinity Diagrams are used to organize ideas into common themes and groupings.

3. Explore the Alternatives:

After the selection of realistic alternatives, then have to evaluate the risk, feasibility, and implications of each choice into the correct action. The followings are some of the most popular and effective analytical tools.


Usually there is some degree of uncertainty in decision making, which inevitably leads to risk. By using the Risk Analysis we can evaluate the risk involved with various options, and can determine whether the risk is manageable or not.


To determine if the solution matches to our objectives, if the resources are adequate and if the decision will likely to work in the long term.

4. Choose the best alternative:

After evaluated the alternatives, choose the best alternative between them. The choice will may be obvious. If isn't like that, these tools will help: Grid Analysis, Paired Comparison analysis and Decision trees are used to bring the project to success.

Check the decision:

With all of the hard work and effort that goes into evaluating alternatives, and deciding the best ways to forward, it's easy to 'sense check' the decisions taken. To make sure that the process has been thorough, and to ensure that common errors haven't crept into the decision-making process, this will enable the decision which is taken is best.

The first part of this check decision is an intuitive step, which involves methodically and quietly testing the decisions we have made against our own experience, thoroughly exploring and reviewing any doubts that might have.

A second part of this check decision involves using a technique like Blindspot Analysis to review whether common decision-making problems like escalating commitment, over confidence may have undermined the decision-making process.

A third part of this check decision involves using a technique like the Ladder of Inference to check through the logical structure of the decision with a view to ensuring that a well consistent decision emerges at the end of decision making process.The given figure shows that the process of decision making;

3. Personal strengths and weakness:

By using SWOT analysis we can examine our current situation like, our strengths and weaknesses for our career planning. And it helps to capitalize on our strengths and overcome our weaknesses. And also by using this analysis technique we can identify what are the external opportunities and threats is in our chosen career field. Â 

Recognise strengths:

The following internal positive aspects are used to recognise our strengths and capitalize in planning

Our work experience related to the field

Our education history, including some value-added features

Strong technical skills within our field like hardware and software.

Skills on communication, teamwork, leadership

Our own characteristics like self-discipline, strong work ethic, optimism, ability to work under pressure, creativity.

Our good contacts with successful networking

Recognise weakness:

The followings are the internal negative aspects that are under our control. And these are all should improve.

Lack of work experience on related field.

Lack of self-knowledge, lack of goals and lack of specific job knowledge

Lack of technical skills or knowledge

Lack of interpersonal skills like communication, leadership, teamwork.

Negative personal characteristics like shyness, poor work ethic, lack of motivation, lack of discipline, indecisiveness, too emotional

After explored our own self-perception of our strengths, put ourselves inside a prospective employer's head as we consider our strong points. One of our greatest strengths can love the work we do. Learning to "follow our bliss" should be a critical component of managing our career. In assessing our weaknesses, think about what prospective employers might consider to be the areas we could improve upon. Facing our frailties now can give us a huge head start in career planning.Â 

As humans, to identify the areas where we are weak is difficult. But this assessment can help to identify the areas where we weak and where we may need to improve. If we identify a skill that we know is in our chosen field, but we are weak in that skill area, we need to improve that skill. Past performance appraisals and comments from others provide valuable feedback to us.

After we have analyzed our strengths and weaknesses we can use that information to plan how to market ourselves and use that to a planning process of marketing in an organization.Â 

There are three steps entails in the marketing planning process:

Determine objectives of an organization.

Develop the marketing strategies and

Strategize an action program of an organization.Â 

4. Human behavior in conflict or negotiation situation:

The term conflict refers to friction or opposition resulting from perceived differences or incompatibilities. Conflict may have positive as well as negative positive characteristics. The conflict management is the strategies to correct these perceived differences or incompatibilities in a positive manner.

Sources of conflict:

The followings are the some of organizational conflict, according to both Daft and Terry.

Scarce Resources: Resources may include supplies, money, information, or people.

Jurisdictional Ambiguities: Conflicts may also surface when task responsibilities and job boundaries and are unclear. Individuals may disagree about who has the responsibility for resources and tasks.

Personality Clashes: A personality conflict emerges when two or more people simply do not view things similarly. Personality tensions are caused by differences in personality, values, beliefs and attitudes.

Status and Power differences: Status and Power conflict may occur when one individual has questionable influence over another person.

Goal differences: Because the people are pursuing different goals the conflict may occur.

Communication breakdown: Communication based barriers may be derived from differences in nonverbal communication styles, speaking styles and writing styles.

5. Methodologies:

Management theorists have suggested and developed a range of options for handling organizational conflict.

A) Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode theory:

Based on two dimensions he developed five conflict management styles conflict management styles. The two dimensions are assertiveness and cooperativeness.

1. Avoiding conflict resolution Style:

The avoiding style is low on both cooperativeness and assertiveness. In other words, the person who is not cooperative in helping the other individuals to achieve their goals, but neither is she/he aggressively pursuing her/his own preferred outcomes in the situation. The original conflict or situation is never directly resolved.

2. Competing conflict resolution style:

It is also known as the win-lose approach. A manager using this style, characterized by low cooperativeness and high assertiveness, seeks to reach them own preferred outcomes at the expense of other individuals.

3. Accommodating Conflict Resolution Style:

It reflects a high degree of cooperativeness. A manager using this style subjugates them own objectives, goals and desired outcomes to allow other individuals to achieve their outcomes.

4. Compromising conflict resolution style:

This style is characterized by moderate levels of both cooperativeness and assertiveness. Compromise can also be referred to as trading or bargaining.

5. Collaborating conflict resolution style:

Creatively work towards achieving the desired goals of all parties involved. When the concerns are complex and a creative of ideas is required, the collaboration style is appropriate.

B) The Five A's Technique:

Borisoff and Victor, introduced five steps in the conflict management process, so that the five steps are called as "five A's" of conflict management. The five A's are




Action and


a) Assessment:

The parties involved collect appropriate information regarding the problem in assessment step. The parties involved also choose which one of the conflict-handling modes is best for the conflict situation. The parties collect the information to decide what is and what is not central to the problems occurred.

b) Acknowledgement:

It allows both parties to build the empathy needed for the motivation of a synergistic solution to the problems occurred in the organization. It gives the feedback to the other party and it demonstrates that one party understands the other party's position. Acknowledgement also involves actively encouraging the other party to communicate its concerns.

c) Attitude:

To remove the foundation for pseudo-conflict, the attitude step is used.

d) Action:

To implement the chosen conflict-handling mode the action step is used. If the selected mode is the problem-solving approach, the manager conveys the opportunity for a conflict resolution based on ongoing feedback on those points on which the parties have agreed. Finally, all parties must stay alert to new issues that are raised.

e) Analysis:

The participants decide on what they do, and then summarize what they have agreed upon. It is to ascertain whether every participant's requirements have been addressed or not. Finally, the analysis step initiates the impetus, the conflict management as an ongoing process. Analysis enables participants to monitor the long term and short term results of the conflict resolution.

Real case example of conflict situation and actions against that situation:


Imagine this: it appears have an easy day ahead of our workplace. Our schedule is not overbooked and the thing seems to be running as planned. When arrival at work place, however, we discover our department's budget has been reduced. And new objectives, which we find questionable, have been identified. Our colleagues do not share our point of view. To make matters worse, a report we need within three hours will not be available until the last minute. Let see how we should handle this situation.

Understanding the conflict and how it can be used for effective resolution is important for effective communication in the workplace.

Impact of Conflict at Workplace:

Webster's Dictionary (1983) defines conflict as sharp opposition of ideas or interests. The following things will be create when conflict occurs in the workplace,

1. Reducing morale

2. Work productivity will low

3. Increasing absenteeism and

4. It will lead to make serious and violent crimes.

Conflict is a challenge facing for employers. This paper will explore the type of conflict most managers and associates would likely suffer on a day-to-day basis.

Causes of Conflict:

The first logical steps in resolving conflict is to identify the problems occurred and then identify what was made that conflict. Art Bell (2002) suggests six reasons for conflict occur in the workplace: they are listed below:

1. Conflicting needs

2. Conflicting styles

3. Conflicting perceptions

4. Conflicting goals

5. Conflicting pressures and

6. Conflicting roles.

By analyzing the above reasons of conflicts we can take the actions against it.

Conclusion on case example:

The following questions will give the right solution to the above stated example. And these questions would ask by ourselves.

What may be the cause of conflict occurred?

Is it because by us or someone needs a resource?

Is someone's style different than our own?

How do others perceive this situation?

Are goal and action-plan priorities in correct order?

Is there any conflicting pressure?

Is there a clear company policy about this situation?

After cause is established, then it is easy to choose the best strategy to resolve the conflict occurred.

6. Conclusion:

This assessment shown the knowledge about the decision making and how the conflict is occur on the organization workplace and how it could analyzed. And also this essay gave the details about personal strengths weakness of workers and what are the steps should do, if the conflicts occurred.

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