Perception and decision making are both very important aspects of organizational management. “Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment,” (Robbins, 2005, p. 134). According to Robbins (2005) decision making is when one has to decide something based on two or more options. Something anyone in management has to do on a daily basis. The process of decision making is largely based on the perception of the person making the decision. For example, one manager may make a totally different decision based on different rationale than another manager faced with the exact same criteria depending on their perception of the item at hand.
The perception of a one person can greatly affect the organization behavior. Robbins (2005) tells that perception is based on ones perception of reality, not on reality itself. If a manager sees a behavior that they believe is under personal control of the individual exhibiting that behavior, it is said to be an internally caused behavior according to Robbins (2005). If a manager perceives that someone has been forced into a behavior or it was caused by forces outside of the individual’s control Robbins (2005) tells that this is known as an externally caused behavior. From the interactive exercise that goes along with this area of study, one can see that the perception of management may have a huge impact on the organizations behavior. If someone is late and it is perceived to be an internally caused behavior, management may be more likely to reprimand the person for being late. If management perceives the same behavior to be externally caused, then they may feel it a more appropriate route to coach the employee and let them know they need to try to rectify the situation as soon as possible.
According to Robbins (2005) perceptive shortcuts are often used in decision making. This can be a positive and valuable tool when used correctly as it can help make tasks more manageable, as Robbins (2005) tells, and it can help an individual make an accurate decision more rapidly. It also helps provide valid data for making predictions based on one perception and the shortcuts they learn to use. There are some drawbacks to using perceptive shortcuts and they can cause significant distortion according to Robbins (2005) in the decision making process. The author of this piece believes that stereotyping is the worst perceptive shortcut one can make as a manager. For example, if one looks to hire individuals with former military experience because they believe all military people are hard working, intelligent, and disciplined, the person doing the hiring has allowed their perception to be distorted. The author of this piece does believe that many individuals with military experience will exhibit these positive traits, but it is obvious that each person must still be evaluated as an individual because not everyone in the military will share the same positive traits. So how does one make a decision in real world organizations?
Decisions in real world organizations are made in a variety of ways. One way of making decisions in real world organizations is by using bounded rationality, according to Robbins (2005). Bounded rationality is when an individual reduces a complex problem to one that can be easily understood and acted upon. This, as told by Robbins (2005), causes many decisions to be made in a manner that is only satisficing, rather than decisions which are optimal. When a manager looks down their list of criterion when making a decision, typically they will choose the idea or individual that is “good enough”. Biases and errors are also factors that affect the decision making process in real world organization according to Robbins (2005). These biases and errors can cause a distortion in the decision making process and may lead one to make an incorrect or non-optimal decision. In the author of this papers work life, the author has to make a plethora of decisions each day based on bounded reality. Each player at the casino at which the author works has a chance to earn rewards based on his or her play and the more someone spends, the easier it is to let biases and errors make the decision making process of what someone has actually earned harder. If a person typically spends very little but has a really good night with a high theoretical win for the casino, they are given rewards based on their play for that day. If a person typically spends a lot of money at the casino and has a low theoretical win for the casino for the day, he or she will typically get what they ask for based on the decision maker’s (the author of this piece) perception of their past play and predicted future play. This is a very big bias and borders on stereotyping as the individual may be rewarded and never set foot in the organization again. This decision making process has arose out of a necessity to use perceptive shortcuts though based on the shear volume of decisions to be made on a daily basis.
Ethical and moral decisions can be greatly affected by an individual’s perception of reality. Something that may seem unethical or immoral to an individual due to their perception may seem ethical and moral to another individual based on their perception of reality. For example, the author of this piece does not view it as unethical to offer rewards to an individual in order to get them to perform better at work or to a guest in order to coerce him or her to spend more money at the organization. Another individual may not agree with the author and may feel the total opposite. If the author of this work can offer the organizations guests a spa package in order to get them to frequent the authors property as opposed to a competitors property, it is within the author’s power to do so, even though a competitor may find this underhanded. People in the same position at competitor’s properties do not always have the ability or the funds to offer their guests the items that the author of this piece can offer, such as really great seats at a concert, or tickets to a local football or baseball game, so the competitors employees may see it as unethical when the author is able to “one up” them. The author’s perception of reality allows the author to see this as ethical because the organization has a lot of pull with local entertainment and sports venues and this is a tool offered by the organization to help the author do his job.
Reference:
- Robbins, Stephen P. (2005). Organizational behavior (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
