Global Challenge: The Capacity to Decide - Research Paper

Introduction

A United Nation think tank report on "the capacity to decide" was named as one of the fifteen global challenges facing individuals and corporations in the contemporary world. It is hard to accept that a list that contains issues like energy, clean drinking water, and food security would include decision making. Bad decision-making results are not desirable. It develops a vicious cycle that intensifies the already existing anxiety surrounding decision making (Baker, n.d.). Indeed, individuals waste a lot of time trying to correct, justify, or even undo these poor decisions. As a result, the workers become less likely to share transformative ideas, step up, or solve problems (Baker, n.d.). This paper will review some of the ways that lead to poor judgment resulting in poor decisions and various ways in which the same can be addressed.

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One of the leading factors to poor judgment is bias. Bias usually filters individual's daily experience, and it affects the way they view things surrounding individual everyday life. Bias only permit people to view items the way they want to see and interpret them. It limits the individual a chance to listens to other individuals' views. Humans tend to ignore all the available evidence surrounding a phenomenon and draw conclusions based on their limited view (Why Do Good Employees Make Bad Decisions? n.d.). As people gather knowledge, experience, and information, their mind naturally references their memories and the facts and interpret it based on what they already know. The issue with this is, the information individuals are exposed to is rarely complete, unbiased, and accurate. When applied to judgment, without a review of the alternatives, the inferences reflect those inaccuracies leading to poor decision making in an organization (Why Do Good Employees Make Bad Decisions? n.d.).

The second way that people in the workplace make poor judgment is divided attention (Baker, n.d.). Workplaces and individual daily life can be demanding due to everything that requires our attention. Thus, individuals are tempted to handle everything at the same time. Though multitasking is an excellent trait if mastered, it often slow individuals down, thus affecting the organizational output (Baker, n.d.). The human brain performs optimally when centered on one task every single period. Any attempt to divide the focus to numerous duties, the mind, and overall body energy is drained leaving little energy to the more significant tasks.

The third way that leads to poor judgment is fear and organizational noise. Fear of making the wrong decision, failure, and fear of self-inadequacy are some of the contributing factors. Concern, especially from the junior staff, can also be brought about by intimidation top management (Moran, 2014). If the management frequents in questioning and criticizing the little efforts of the junior staff, it leads to the development of the thought inadequacy in making any sound decision. Hence, when required to decide on their own, the individuals will question their ability and make a weaker decision or fail eventually to make any decision (Baker, n.d.).

Lastly, an individual's judgment may be affected by the choices presented. Though many choices are better based on the fact that there are many options to be reviewed, many of them leads to tiredness and affect the effectiveness negatively (Baker, n.d.). During the active time of the day, individuals are presented with so many choices that require decisions. Some instant and others can be suspended. It is worth noting that every choice presented to an individual will draw a significant percentage of mental energy. When approaching the decisions that are significant to the organizational objectives, the mind might be drained and emotionally depleted. This can lead to the path of least resistance, thus leading to poor judgment (Baker, n.d.).

Ways to Minimize Poor Judgement in the Workplace

As discussed above; bias is one of the leading causes of poor judgment. The overconfidence in self is not a good trait. To tackle bias, an individual should realize that, as humans, our brains are prone to making mistakes. Being aware of the unconscious bias can be a good start to minimize the reliance of generalization and stereotyping (Why Do Good Employees Make Bad Decisions? n.d.). Additionally, it would be necessary to establish a clear criterion before the decision-making process commence. This will, in-turn, void poor judgment in the inferences (5 Steps to Reduce Bias in the Workplace | HireVue, 2018). The organization should also hold the decision-makers accountable for every of their decision. Their decisions should be scrutinized; the criterion used questioned constructively and iron out all the setbacks that might affect the final output.

Secondly, when presented with all the daily choices, an individual should not get caught up in the small irrelevant stuff (Moran, 2014). Instead, the individual should analyze the options carefully, identify the irrelevant ones, suspend the ones that are not urgent, and focus on the most significant to the core of the organization. A similar approach may be used to avoid divided attention. To reduce poor judgment, the human mind requires a quality and clear thought; the quality decision also requires quality thoughts (Moran, 2014). Individuals should, therefore, pay the most attention to the current task. An individual should improve their focus by turning off any distractions like phone notifications, emails, social media, and anything else that might divert their attention.

Fear forms one of the most significant contributors to poor judgment. To remedy anxiety in decision making, everyone's input should be considered and supported as opposed to being criticized (Moran, 2014). Th e net effect of this is, the individual develops their confidence over time and eventually make them great contributors to the organization's objectives. People should be encouraged to regularly take breaks and engage in physical exercises as well as meditation since these are the factors that are tied to boosting an individual's self-esteem leading to confidence.

Conclusion

Despite being one the biggest challenge facing humanity in the contemporary world, the positive news is, it can be tackled. Though it is almost impossible to train an individual to become better, avoid poor judgment by providing strict schedules, checklists, and punishing the failures, the organizations and individuals can focus on a few human features to aid in better decision-making processes.

References

Baker, L. (n.d.). The Psychology of Making Bad Decisions at Work. Blog.Clearcompany.Com. https://blog.clearcompany.com/the-psychology-of-making-bad-decisions-at-work

5 Steps to Reduce Bias in the Workplace | HireVue. (2018). Hirevue.Com. https://www.hirevue.com/blog/5-steps-to-mitigating-bias-in-the-workplace

Moran, G. (2014, March 4). 7 Ways to Stop Making Bad Decisions. Fast Company; Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3027160/7-ways-to-stop-making-bad-decisions

Why Do Good Employees Make Bad Decisions? (n.d.). Psychology Today. Retrieved February 18, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/habits-not-hacks/201411/why-do-good-employees-make-bad-decisions