Assignment on Making Informed Decision


Abstract:
Decision making is a very important part of our life as we have to take decisions through every aspect of life. In one’s work place it is one of the key skills and it is mandatory for an effective leader. As a team member of TK Maxx, at times I have the opportunity to participate in decision making process. Here I will explain two such examples, describe decision making process, justify the effectiveness of the decision making process and will reflect on my own decision making process. This decision making process will help me to increase my effectiveness and leadership skills.
   

Introduction:
Decision making is a very essential quality of a leader. If one is not able to take decision on time, appropriately with deadline and situation, then they can’t lead their team to well-deserved success. Great leaders are great decision makers and to become a good leader, proper decision making is inevitable. Decision making is the mental processes which select the best option among the several choices. Every decision making process produces a final choice. Decision making is an emotional or reasoning process which can be irrational or rational it can be based on tactic assumptions or explicit assumptions. Most of the decisions are made unconsciously since based professions make logical decisions.  

T. K. MAXX, UK
TJX operates in Europe under two umbrella bodies: Homesense and TK Maxx. TK Maxx started its journey in 1994 in the UK as off-price retailer. It is offering top-brand family apparel and home fashions in the UK, Germany, Poland and Ireland with the network of 307 outlets including 237 outlets in the UK.
TK Maxx has two types of work associates: part time and full time. Full time work associates get associates discount, medical allowances, pension plans, 401k profit planning share. Part time work associates get competitive paid off time, optional 401k profit sharing plan etc depending on the length of employment and working hours. This organization provides excellent offers for attractive benefit package, flexible working hours, decent compensation, job security, and career advancement and growth opportunity. The workplace is equipped with favorable environment for employees to get the same feeling like staying and working at home. Flexible working hours and friendly environment make the working place more pleasant to work in. Employees are motivated regularly by management, senior employees, management offers regular training, reward through promotion and bonus scheme based on performance. They recruit highly motivated and energetic people who are very enthusiastic to learn and progress. TK Maxx ensures integrity, diversity and opportunity for employees. It provides various benefits and rewards (voluntary relief, private healthcare, pension scheme, season ticket loan, holiday etc.) to employees as employees are the most valuable assets for an organization and they are the key for their success.  (TJXAR, 2010)
Two decisions made by TK Maxx recently:
1.       T.K Maxx recruited 20 new staff for the new opening store at the Walthamstow centre in London. To train up the new staff they exchanged a group of 10 existing staff form Enfield Town branch to the new branch and vice versa.  This decision is sending new staff to old store and experienced staff to the new store to train-up new employees by providing on-job training.   

2.       They rearranged men and women departments as customers gave complaints about the displaying of clothes in both departments. Previously men and women clothing departments were in different floors but now both sections are on the second floor, kids and household (home) departments are on the 3rd floor.
These two decisions helped me to develop my leadership skills, increase my experience and knowledge. This resulted four new employees working under my supervision. As they are completely new, I teach them how to conduct a task and monitor their activities regularly. If they make any mistakes I rectify them professionally. Those decisions helped me to learn how to adapt myself in different situations at different time periods.

The decision making process:
There are many processes of decision making but the most prominent process is identifying the problem, determine the requirements to solve the problem, set goals to solve the problem, determine other alternatives to solve the problem, evaluate the options and choose the best one, select decision making tools, apply the tool to select a preferred alternatives and review the system. Here TJX trained their new employees in most effective and optimum ways and rearrange their store to meet customer demand and desire to satisfy their customers. TJX followed the below decision making process. As they opened a new store where they recruit new staffs but they need to train the new staffs. They can arrange induction and some extra training for the new staffs. Instead of doing so, they exchange their employees (old employees to new store and half new employees to old stores) and trained them for 1 months which is most effective way to teach them about in store duties. Similarly for the second choice they identify the problem first, and then identify different options to solve the problem and then select the best option and then evaluate the decision.
Both the decision follow the below processes:
• Define the problem
• Determine the requirements that the solution to the problem must meet
• Establish goals that solving the problem should accomplish
• Identify alternatives that will solve the problem
• Develop valuation criteria based on the goals
• Select decision making tool
• Apply the tool to select a preferred alternative
• Check the answer to make sure it solves the problem
For the first decision, many of the renowned organigations follow this process to train-up their new employees and increase leadership skills among the experienced employees. Instead of arranging special training they provide on-job training which is more effective and has long lasting effect on employees. New employees get introduce with working environment and take part in activities. On the other hand, old employees give trainings and instructions to the new employees that increase their confidence to lead a team and decision making. In second decision, management collects information from customers and work associates. Normally customers give complains to the work associates and work associates pass that information to the superior managers or management.  
Some factors are used to determine the decisions. For the first decision- there are some internal and external factors which influence the decision making. This training system is beneficial for both old and new employees. It is time and cost effective as well. New employees are able to gather hand of experience and old employees are able to improve or build their leadership skills. TK Maxx doesn’t need to arrange extra training or doesn’t need to spend money for improving the skills of the employees. This process helps to create friendly environment in the working place as new employees always try to learn from experienced employees and old employees help the new comers as much as they can. Some other modern organizations like M&S, Tesco, Asda etc. also follow this process; for competing with those organizations TK Maxx decides to take this decision. Here employees are accustomed with all kind of activities and products which help them to handle customers or promote products to customers. New employees need less time to get the knowledge and skills. Experienced employees motivate new employees and give direction and teach them which increase their managerial skills. Competitors of TJX also follow this process and getting the competitiveness it is very essential to have highly trained and skilled employees.
 In second decision- context and external factors have great influence. Normally men and women like to do shopping together. Before men and women clothing departments were in different floors but they feel problem in doing shopping. If both sections are in same floor they can do their shopping separately but in trial room (man and woman trail rooms are separate but close to each other) they can observe each other. Then they can share their opinions but if the departments are in different floors they can’t do it. It is very essential for an apparel retailer to put man and woman clothing department separate but near to each other; otherwise it looks very odd or disorder. This decision reduced hassles and time to the customers. For an example previously when new customers especially the foreigners visited this shop for the first time, most of the time they didn’t visit first floor as they think this shop has only women and children clothing on the ground floor. Sometime foreign customers feel shy to ask questions but now it is easily visible of man department. Now all kind of customers especially couples feel comfortable to do shopping in TK Maxx.    
For the first decision, authoritarian approach was followed as senior management made the decision to send the some experienced employees to the new stores and transferred some new employees to the old stores. In authoritarian approach the business owners or major stakeholders or senior management take the decisions for important aspects. Here the top managements are responsible for taking decision to exchange employees. They took this decision as it is very much cost and time effective and new employees get proper training and old employees get the chance to build and improve their managerial and leadership skills. For the second decision, consultative approach was followed as management consult with employees about the customer complain and demands and take the decision according to the employee’s suggestions. In consultative approach top managements discuss with other employees and ask for suggestion from the employees. Here employee’s opinions get valued and employees become satisfied. 
Both the decisions are market led decisions as the impacts of those decisions are optimal. For the first decision authoritarian approach is followed and for the second decision consultative approach is followed. For the first decision it is management choice how to train-up their employees or how to increase the effectiveness and leadership skills of their employees. The process is the most effective ways to train-up new employees as they are getting hand on experience for a month and experienced employees are able to share their experience and knowledge among the new employees and increase their leadership and managerial skills. This process doesn’t cost extra money so the output is optimum. For the second decision it is needed to know the opinions of employees who directly involved in customer dealing and handling. Staffs are very much known about customer demand and needs. By rearranging the clothing departments, management fulfill the customer demands and needs. The outputs are maximized and both the decisions have great impact on the activities of the employees and customer satisfaction. 
When TK Maxx opens a new store, they recruit new employees whom need training. Then management took the decision to provide training in above mentioned way. They decided to change the interior decoration of the shop when a lot of customers gave complains against the previous interior decoration. In first decision, management chosen authoritarian approach and this approach is very suitable for that case where manager is only responsible for making decision. This approach is very suitable for small organization where owner is the only responsible for making decision and employees have no power in taking part of decision making. Consultative approach is very familiar and most of the modern organizations follow this process where decision was taken on basis on employers and employees opinions. For making the both decisions management do the market research and gather information. For making the first decision, management does the SWOT analysis and find of the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Management knew that this branch has some skilled and experienced employees and they are capable to teach new staffs properly. The strength of this decision is that it is very much time and cost effective; don’t need any extra training; experienced employees get the opportunity to show and improve their skills. The weakness of this decision is that sometimes new employees don’t get precise information from the experienced employees as experienced employees like to work in shortcut ways. Similarly in second decision making they gather the information from staffs about customer complains.

The effectiveness of the decision making process:
Optimizing approach:
Optimizing approach is the most or best effective use of resource, opportunity or a situation. It takes into account all kinds of cost related to decision making process. It ensures all possible variables and aspects in the decision making process. The aim of this approach is to ensure most perfect outcome. This approach is best suited in scientific methods where information is very accurate and output is optimal. This approach is time and money consuming.
Strengths:
-Ensures accuracy
- Provides the most perfect solution
Weaknesses:
-Can go on unbounded to the nth level
-Can become very costly
-Time consuming
Non-optimizing or satisficing approach:
This approach not fulfills all the demands needed for a decision to be made. It attempts to meet criteria for adequacy. It finds a solution which is good enough but not the best one. This approach is just to suffice or satisfy to a minimum the requirement.  This approach is less good than the very best outcomes. Most of decisions of our life follow non-optimizing approach. There is no additional cost of finding this approach. 
Strengths:
-Relatively easy to achieve
-Sometimes the best decision that can be achieved
-Can be time efficient
Weaknesses:
-Not the best solution
-May not take all factors into consideration
-Can become unconstrained almost anything could possibly be justified as satisficing.
The effectiveness of first decision making: the decision was very effective and successful as the output is very immense. Both employers and old and new employees are benefited from this decision. This decision saved money and time of the employers as they did not have to provide any kind of extra training and employed any expertise to teach new employees. In this process employees are able to learn operational activities very quickly. Similarly new employees are also benefited as they got friendly working environment and cooperation from experienced employees. They are able to know the rules and regulation properly by following the senior members. Old or senior employees are also benefited as this decision helps to increase their leadership and management skills. When they are working with new employees they are giving their full effort to make the balance- which augments their management skills. They help new employees; give direction and monitor their activities. They inspired new employees to give their full efforts in work. They act like a leader. The first decision is very much effective as it optimizes employee’s skills and knowledge as well as cost effective.      
The effectiveness of second decision: the output of second decision is tremendous. Now customers feel comfortable to do shopping in this store. Now there is synchronization in the display. Display is looking outstanding. Now customers have no complained regarding display. Man and woman can do shopping easily. This decision has a psychological effect on customers as customers are happy; they like to spend more money in shopping. Now this store is three-storied but most of the customers like to do shopping in one-storied building. After implementing this decision, sells increases as well as profit increases. There is good arrangement for recognizing different departments. Previously sometimes customers ask to staffs for similar products for his/her partner and staffs need to either contact with other staffs with relevant department or he/she needs to visit the department personally. After the implementation now staffs move less and face less hassle which create customer and employee satisfaction.        
Conclusion: Reflect on my decision making practices:
In my life I follow different decision making approaches on the basis of situation, location and time. The decisions at home and in the workplace are not always the same. For serious life situation matters I consult with my parents, relatives and friends. In a more subtle situation I make decisions by following my ethos without discussion approach. At the workplace, on a normal basis I follow consultative approach applying code of conduct appropriately which is very effective. A workplace can create a friendly environment when all the employees work together as a team, help and co-operate each other, and share their views.
From this assignment I learned few things and those are:
1.  What is called effective decision making
2. How to make effective decision
3. The impact of effective decision making
4. What things I need to consider in decision making
5. How can I improve my decision making skills
Effective decision making is very important for our personal and work life, so it needs to improve. For improving my decision making skills I will follow the following process:
1. Whenever possible, consider alternatives
2. Reframe the question
3. Correlation doesn’t equal causation
4. Never forget the sample size
5. Anticipate my impulsivity
6. Make contingency plans
7. Make important decisions when relaxed and rested
8. Weigh costs against benefits
9. Imagine my decision will be spot-checked
10. Distance myself
11. Beware the vivid, personal and anecdotal
12. All decisions are not equal
13.Be rational
There are six steps to making an effective decision:
1. Create a constructive environment. (establish the objectives, agree on the process, involve the right people, allow opinions to be heard, make sure of asking right questions, use creativity tools from the start)
2. Generate good alternatives. (generating ideas, considering different perspectives, organizing ideas)
3. Explore these alternatives. (risks, implications, validation)
4. Choose the best alternative. (by suing grid analysis, paired comparison analysis, decision trees,
  nominal group techniques, multi-voting, Delphi technique)
5. Check your decision.
6. Communicate your decision, and take action.
Decision making is very important part of our life. Most of the time we take decision unconsciously but getting the best output there is no other option to make decision consciously. We need to invest few times prior to make a decision. Managers are the leaders of organizations. They lead teams and if they take any kind of wrong decisions it will affect the whole organizations. Managers must give importance in effective decision making otherwise it hampers the harmony. After implementing those two decisions, effectiveness of employees increases and they need less time to give a decision. Previously I felt little bit confusion about arranging the products on shelves and most of the time I asked my manager or supervisors but now I can do it by myself and my manager and supervisors admire my decision. Now I am capable to handle any kind of tough situation. In case of very tough condition I asked help from my manager.    

Reference:
TK Maxx website, Available from: http://www.tjx.com/businesses_tkmaxx.asp [Accessed: 2/1/13]
PSYBLOG, 13 ways to quickly improve your decision-making, 15th May 2008, Retrieve on: 2/1/13, Available from: http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/05/13-ways-to-improve-your-decision-making.php [Accessed: 2/1/13]
MindTools web site, Decision making skills-start here!, Available from: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_00.htm [Accessed: 2/1/13]


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