Give a brief synopsis of a time you made a business decision that did not have a favorable outcome. 1 answer below »
Some stumbling blocks to responsible action are cognitive or intellectual. Asthe model of ethical decision making outlined above suggests, a certain type ofignorance can account for bad ethical choices. Sometimes that ignorance can bealmost willful and intentional. After you discover a lost iPod, you might rationalizeto yourself that no one will ever know, that no one is really going to be hurt,that an owner who is so careless deserves to lose the iPod. You might try to justifythe decision by telling yourself that you are only doing what anyone else woulddo in this circumstance. You might even choose not to think about it and try to putany guilty feelings out of your mind.Another cognitive barrier is that we sometimes only consider limited alternatives.When faced with a situation that suggests two clear alternative resolutions,we often consider only those two clear paths, missing the fact that other alternativesmight be possible. Upon discovering a lost iPod, you might conclude that ifyou don’t take it, someone else will. Because the original owner will lose out inboth cases, it is better that you benefit from the loss than someone else. Responsibledecision making would require that we discipline ourselves to explore additionalmethods of resolution.We also generally feel most comfortable with simplified decision rules. Havinga simple rule to follow can be reassuring to many decision makers. For example,assume you are a business manager who needs to terminate a worker in order tocut costs. Of course, your first thought may be to uncover alternative means bywhich to cut costs instead of firing someone, but assume for the moment thatcutting the workforce is the only viable possibility. It may be easiest and mostcomfortable to terminate the last person you hired, explaining, “I can’t help it; itmust be done, last in/first out, I have no choice….” Or, in the iPod case, “finderskeepers, losers weepers” might be an attractive rule to follow. Using a simpledecision rule might appear to relieve us of accountability for the decision, even ifit may not be the best possible decision.We also often select the alternative that satisfies minimum decision criteria,otherwise known as “satisficing.” We select the option that suffices, the one thatpeople can live with, even if it might not be the best. Imagine a committee at workthat needs to make a decision. They spend hours arriving at a result and finallyreach agreement. At that point it is unlikely that someone will stand up and say,“Whoa, wait a minute, let’s spend another couple of hours and figure out a betteranswer!” The very fact that a decision was reached by consensus can convinceeveryone involved that is must be the most reasonable decision.Other stumbling blocks are less intellectual or cognitive than they are a questionof motivation and willpower. As author John Grisham explained in his bookRainmaker, “Every (lawyer), at least once in every case, feels himself crossing aline he doesn’t really mean to cross. It just happens.” Sometimes it is simply easierto do the wrong thing. After all, who wants to go through all the trouble of findingthe lost and found office and walking across campus to return the iPod? Considerhow you would answer the questions asked in the following Reality Check.
