FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Dr. Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

THE life of a manager is a perpetual choice-making activity. Decision-making permeates all management activities. At the heart of planning is decision- making-the selection of suitable course of action, which is accomplished on the basis of managerial talent. It is an important function of management. Management without decisions is like a man without backbone. In fact, nothing can be performed without decisions. Every aspect of management functions, such as, planning, organising, motivating and controlling is determined by decisions. It helps to set definite objectives, prepare plans of action, determine organisational structure, motivate personnel and introduce innovations.

Process

Decision-making is almost universally stated as choosing between alternatives. In organisational practice, when a manager plans, organises, and controls, he or she prolongs to making decisions. Particularly, decision-making, problem solving, and judgement imply both thought, and action. Decision-making can be understood as the process of thought and action that culminates in choice behavior. All these decisions are finalised within organisational environment.

Management expert, Edward, B.Flippo (1984) urges that scientific decision-making recognise and define a problem that calls for action, determines possible alternative solutions, collect and analyses facts bearing upon the problem, and decides on a solution.

The New Encyclopedia Britannica highlights that certain form of thinking call on one's abilities to assemble and organise information. The result of such thinking satisfies a defined goal in the achievement of an effective solution to a problem. A simple form of realistic thinking that lends itself well to controlled experimentation is inferred from information one's ability to discriminate discrete objects or items of information. The outcome is a judgement, and the process may be called decision-making.

The rational decision maker needs creativity. Creativity is the ability to combine the ideas in a unique way or to make unusual associations between ideas. Creativity allows the decision maker to more fully appraise and understand the problem. Psychologically, creative thinking is essential to meet the burning issue of the organisation. It helps the personnel to give the right decision pertaining to certain issue. The creative thinking process involves manipulation of both words and images. The right-brain governs the creative insights and images. On other hand knowledge and information are tackled through left-brain. Administration and Management Review (1998) focuses that leaders, administrators and managers who are at the helm of governance and national politics in Nepal can greatly contribute to the area of decision-making, policy making and implementation and remove what we call the impurities and dirt in politics and administration by being more creative, objective and innovative.
In Japanese organisational system, a decision maker arrives at decisions in consensus with others. This style is culturally oriented and makes implementation of the decision much easier, since every body participates in the decision making process.

Due to the individual differences, the men or women way of perception differs. Accordingly, their aptitude, attitude and interest vary. In the course of decision-making, some managers are logical and rational. They process information in sequence. Managers with a conceptual style tend to be very broad in their outlook and consider more alternatives. Their focus is long range and they are very efficient at finding creative solutions to problems. The analytic type of manager has a much greater tolerance as compared to the manager of directive decision maker.

Bureaucracy is a professional corps of officials organised in a pyramidal hierarchy and functioning under impersonal, uniform rules and procedures. In this context, Nepalese personnel management expert, Sharma, K.S. (1999) introduces paper on "System building for effective bureaucracy" in Administrative and Management Review. In that paper he highlights the major and challenging functions of Nepalese bureaucrats. He categories bureaucrat's functions into three groups: functions which need not be performed by the government and can be conveniently relinquished in favor of agencies other than the government; functions which should be performed under the present management structure and system; functions which can be performed under the present management structure but in an improved manner.

In the context of Nepalese bureaucracy, there is lack of open communication between the top-level executives and middle level managers. Consequently, Nepali bureaucracy faces problems in decision-making, agreement with donor agencies, programme formulation, negotiation, seminar and trade and treaty agreement. At the same time, in day-to-day official proceedings, there is also lack of teamwork, participation and computer-based information systems. Generally, there are some officers who usually say top-level officers make policies; they should not offer their sincere opinions until called for.

Making decisions is a routine work of every manager. The quality of decision-making affects the survival of the organisation. Nepalese Management expert, Upadhyay, M.P. (1982) researches in the context of six public corporations of Nepal. In conclusion he urges that negative approach is prevalent in Nepalese Corporations to a considerable extent. The employees are simply made to work without encouraging much to exercise their own imagination, ingenuity, creativity and so on. The managers generally avoid employee's participation in decision -making process. Most decisions are made at the top level and subordinates are simply made to follow them.

Spotlight, The National Magazine (2002) presents a cover story pertaining to "Administering a dose of efficiency". In that analytical story, Spotlight stresses that along with a strong institutional framework, effectiveness in the decision-making process depends on the efficiency and commitment of senior officers. In many offices of Nepal, a secretary who often participates in the decision-making process delivers quick result. In other cases, senior officials maintain a domineering approach, which invariably raises endless roadblocks. The decision-making process is always tedious and lengthy.

Goal

In conclusion, effective decision-making requires a rational selection of a course of action. Usually, people acting or deciding rationally are attempting to reach some goal that cannot be attained without positive action. They must have a clear understanding of alternative courses by which a goal can be reached under existing circumstances and limitations.

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