Leadership

Should managers be ethical in their decision making? If so, how should ethics be used in decision making?
A:
Complete the Self Assessment on "Using the Six Step Decision Process" (pp. 84–87) from the Lussier & Kimball textbook and discuss the results in the Leadership Assignments Journal. As a wrap-up to the exercise, take a few minutes to answer: what did you learn from this experience, and how will you use this knowledge?
A:
From the reading in Chapter 3 of Kouzes & Posner, how would you build credibility in your relationships with others?

DEVELOPING YOUR SKILLS The decisions you make will affect your sport management career. Problem solving and decision making are crucial skills of effective managers. By following the six steps in the decision-making model presented in this chapter, you can improve your ability to solve prob-lems and make decisions. REVIEWING THEIR GAME PLAN Evaluating Adidas’ Decision to Acquire Reebok—Seven Years Later For the past 80 years, legendary soccer players trotted around playing fields all over the world, from Seoul to Manchester to Sao Paulo to Kabul, sporting the three-stripe Adidas logo on their footwear. Yet, caught in the downdraft that swept through the athletic footwear industry in the 1990s, Adidas—the original sport brand—somehow lost its firm footing on the bottom line. By 1993 Adidas was losing roughly U.S.$100 million per year. Company man-agement realized that “the original authentic sport brand” was looking a wee bit tired and, well, dowdy. Dowdy doesn’t make it in the sport brand market, so Adidas set about putting the buzz back into its products, status and personality back into its advertising (witness its blanket coverage in the World Cup), and good business practices back into its distribution systems. It also moved boldly into new industries. Adidas merged with Salomon, purchased TaylorMade, and strode confidently into the ski, golf, and bike markets.

An Overview of Problem Solving and Decision Making Problem solving and decision making are important skills. 5 In fact, decision making is one of the five important management skills (chapter 1), and conceptual skills aid in decision making. 6 Top management decisions have a direct effect on the success of the organization. 7 Sport managers need to make decisions about large-scale mega-events, such as the Olym-pics. Important decisions require comprehensive knowledge about the economic impact on the host community and whether it is realistic to expect that objectives can be met. 8 We all make decisions in our personal and professional lives. As coaches and managers we teach and encourage our players and employees to make good decisions because the success of the individual, team, and organization is based on the decisions we make. Clearly, team performance is based on the selection decisions of the coaches and athletes and the decisions they make on and off the field. 9 The good news is that—as with all management skills—you can develop your problem-solving and decision-making abilities. The sport industry does make some poor decisions. The New England Patriots have been known to be very well managed during the Bill Belichick era. However, there has been a high level of volatility of the team's decision making in the defensive secondary since 2007. The Patriots spent a lot of money acquiring defensive secondary players with a low ratio of success. They had some success with players such as draft pick Patrick Chung, but they made poor deci-sions in acquiring expensive players such as Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden. 10 We just explained the importance of problem solving and decision making. Now let’s continue this section and discuss the relationships among objectives, problem solving, and decision making; the relationships among the management functions, decision making, and problem solving; and the six steps of the decision-making model that will help you make better decisions. You will also learn about your own decision-making style and understand the need to use the ethical guidelines from the previous chapter when making decisions.

Objectives, Problem Solving, and Decision Making You and your boss will sometimes set objectives together, and your boss will sometimes assign objectives for you and your team to achieve. When you don’t meet your objectives, you have a problem. When you have problems, you must make decisions. The better you can develop plans that prevent problems before they occur, the fewer problems you will encounter and the more you will be able to take advantage of opportunities. A problem exists when objectives are not being met. In other words, you have a problem when a difference exists between what is happening and what you and your team want to happen. Problem solving is the process of taking corrective action to meet objectives. Decision making is the process of selecting a course of action that will solve a problem. Your first decision concerns whether to take corrective action. Some problems cannot be solved, and others do not deserve the time and effort it would take to solve them. Therefore, you will sometimes accept the problem or change the objective. However, it’s your job to achieve organizational objectives, so to be successful, you must figure out how.

Management Functions, Decision Making, and Problem Solving In chapter 1 you learned that all managers perform the same four functions—they plan, organize, lead, and control. To perform each of these functions, managers must make decisions. Keep in mind that every action is preceded by a decision. As planners, managers decide on the objectives they want to pursue and when, where, and how the objectives will be met. As organizers, managers decide what to delegate and how to coordinate the department’s resources, including whom to hire and how to train and evaluate them (staffing). As leaders, managers must decide how best to influence employees to meet objectives. As controllers, managers assess whether—and how well—objectives are being met and how to take corrective action. Also, recall that management has the systems effect because the decisions made in each functional area also affect other areas. Adidas saw opportunity in new markets. Its objective? Provide a broader selection of sporting goods than its competitors. Its decision? Enter the skiing, golf, and cycling markets. However, Adidas’ decision to diversify has not been without problems. Adidas thus faces important decisions—how best to share skills, abilities, and resources.

Decision-Making Model To navigate important decisions, managers are often taught to follow the steps of the classical decision-making model. 11 The model consists of six steps (see figure 3.1). Each step is presented in detail in separate sections after this overview section. In the real world, you will not always proceed in the conveniently sequenced manner implied in figure 3.1. At any step in the process you may find yourself returning to a prior step to make changes. Let’s say you have gotten to implementation, but it isn’t going well. Perhaps this time you simply need to tweak the implementation plan, but other times you will need to backtrack and select a new alternative or even change your original objective. A problematic implementation may reveal that you haven’t defined the problem precisely enough, and you may have to return to square one. The Dallas Cowboys believe they have a shorter decision-making process within their football team. The club owner, Jerry Jones, does not hire a general manager. This means the Cowboys can eliminate the step in a normal decision-making process in which a general manager has to get per-mission to sign or drop a player. Fewer people in the decision-making process should mean that decisions are made faster. However, not having an experienced general manager can prove costly if the owner does not have the experience to draft or trade for the correct players the club needs in order to improve. 12 Following the steps laid out in figure 3.1 will not guarantee that you make good decisions. How-ever, using these steps increases your chances of success. Think of it like this: Using the model will not result in a goal every time, but it will increase the number of goals you achieve during the season. Consciously use these six steps for important decisions in your daily life, and you will improve your ability to make effective decisions.