Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Chapter 5 – Decision Making
Slide 1 – Opening
Slide 2 – Chapter Objectives
• List the types of decisions made at difference levels of organizations
• Understand ethical decision making
• Define the different models of decision making
• Understand decision making process
• Understand how to use different decision making techniques
Slide 3 – Organizational Decision Making
• When a person in authority identifies an important issue and carries out a process to make a
choice that produces outcomes with consequences (Nutt, 2005)
• Sequence of actions:
– Intelligence gathering, direction setting, regeneration of ideas, selection of a solution,
implementation
Slide 4 – Types
•Nonprogrammed decisions are more likely to be found at the higher levels of the organization,
and programmed decisions are more likely to be found at the lower levels.
Slide 5 – Types
• Top Management
• Middle Management
• Lower Management
Slide 6 – Unique Problems?
•Decisions often can be avoided if problems are properly identified.
•The prospect of scrutiny increases as decision making moves from private to public
organizations.
Slide 7 – Bottlenecks
•For the public manager, the last three are particularly relevant; why?
Slide 8 – Decision Driven Organizations
•Six-steps for decision driven organizations.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 9 – Decision Debacles
•Decisions that go so wrong that they are reported by the media.
Slide 10 – Good Decisions
•Public manager need to identify which problems are in need of and within the scope of
managerial decision making and then make ethical and responsible decisions.
Slide 11 – Ethical Influences
•In order for us to act on our values, we need skills with which to approach our decisions. When
faced with many activities and counter pressures, the public manager needs to be able to think
Slide 12 – Generating Alternatives
•Why is a choice necessary? Needing to choose implies that a gap exists between what is
happening and what you would like to see occur. What alternatives exist in the situation that you
are experiencing? The variations to the decision gap might look something like this:
Slide 13 – High Performing Organizations
•The defining characteristic of a high-performing organization is its ability to make good decisions
in a timely manner.
Slide 14 – Initial Steps
•As a public or nonprofit manager, you must be aware of two initial steps in the decision-making
process. First, you must identify the problem and its elements. In the problem-identification
phase, you might ask questions such as the following. Is the problem easy to deal with? Might the
Slide 15 – Decision Making Models
Slide 16 – Rational
•Decision making can be expressed as a course of action chosen from among alternatives in
pursuit of personal goals. Basically, when we think of decision making, we tend to think of a
process involving five phases:
•Simon (1976) suggested that, as humans, we have cognitive limits. Because we cannot deal with
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 17 – Organizational Process
•An alternative to the rational model sees government as composed of many loosely allied
organizations, each with its own set of leaders. One individual leader rarely can control the
behavior of so many different organizations. To accomplish the necessary complex tasks, the
behavior of a large number of individuals must be coordinated.
Slide 18 – Organizational Process
•Incrementalism, an alternative to the rational model Lindblom offered, is the key to the
organizational process model. Lindblom rejected the notion that most decisions are made by
rational processes. Instead, he found that decisions are dependent on small incremental choices
made in response to short-term conditions. According to Lindblom, the bargaining process
Slide 19 – Governmental Politics
•The governmental politics model is most readily understood by defining what it is not. First, it is
not a model with a single unitary decision maker; rather, it involves a number of actors with their
own agendas, priorities, and timetables. Second, this model does not focus on single strategic
issues at stake in a decision but rather recognizes complex multilevel issues being considered by
groups of actors with multiple interests and agendas and operating in different social spheres
simultaneously. Third, this model does not describe a single rational choice; instead, it offers “the
pulling and hauling that is politics”
Slide 20 – Governmental Politics
Slide 21 – Governmental Politics
•Choice opportunities are occasions when organizations are expected to produce decisions.
Participants are characterized in terms of the energy they have available for problem solving.
Problems are characterized by how much energy will be required to make a choice. Solutions
recognize the potential energy that is necessary to solve a problem.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 22 – Who Should Be Involved
•A second major area of decision making addresses the question of who should be involved in the
decision process. In this regard, there are three basic methods of decision making: (1)
Authoritative decisions are those an individual makes alone or on behalf of the group. (2)
Consultative decisions also are decisions an individual makes, but in this case they are made
after seeking input from or consulting with members of the group. (3) Group decisions are those
all members of the group make, ideally through consensus.
Slide 23 – Groupthink
Slide 24 – Groupthink Rx
•A prescription for the prevention of groupthink: Requires critical thinking on the part of individuals
Slide 25 – Groupthink Rx
Slide 26 – Groupthink Rx
Slide 27 – Groupthink Rx
Slide 28 – Diversity
•The focus on diversity in the workplace results in part from demographic shifts of racial and ethnic
minorities, women, and older workers in the domestic workforce, and pressures of globalization.
Slide 29 Techniques
•There are a variety of techniques to assist you in various aspects of the decision-making process.
•RAPID: Recommend. The responsibility of the person in this role is to make a proposal by
gathering input and providing the right evidence and analysis to make a timely decision.
Recommenders must have analytical skills, common sense, and organizational smarts. Agree.
The Recommender has veto power over recommendations. In the event that agreement or
consensus cannot be reached, the Recommender may need to go to the Decider. Input. People
that are involved in the implementation are sought for recommendations. Successful
implementation requires Input although the Recommender is not bound by the recommendations.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
information gathered during the focus group is finally analyzed and reported so that it can be
used in the decision-making process.
•Brainstorming works best when the following guidelines are followed: 1. State the problem clearly
and neutrally. It can be helpful to restate the problem using the phrase “How can I/we . . . ?” Post
the stated problem where it can be easily seen. 2. Generate ideas using ground rules. Rules may
include the following: There is no judgment made about the ideas as they are being generated,
the objective is to generate the greatest quantity (not quality) of ideas, all ideas (even wild ones)
are welcomed, and it is appropriate to embellish, or “piggyback,” on ideas.
•Cost-benefit analysis. Government agencies use this technique to plan programs, allocate
resources, evaluate outcomes, and assess the efficiency of organizational processes. Identify
and quantify both negative impacts (costs) and positive impacts (benefits) of a proposed project
and then to subtract one from the other to determine the net benefit. Cost-effectiveness analysis.
This technique is used to compare the program’s output to the costs encountered. Costs consist
of expenditures of money and other resources (e.g., personnel, facilities, equipment) to maintain
a program. (Again, some of the “cost” measures might be qualitative.) The costs are then
compared with how the program is meeting the goals and objectives that have been established.
•The process for the nominal group technique is as follows. First, each participant, working alone,
writes down his or her ideas on the problem to be discussed. Second, the group conducts a
Slide 30 – Building Blocks
•Building Block 1 is to smoke out the issue. Ask yourself why a decision is necessary. Recognizing
and defining a problem is an important first step in problem solving and decision making.
•Building Block 2 is to state your purpose. The statement of purpose is the most critical step in the
decision-making process, yet it is a step that often is neglected.
•Building Block 3 is to set your criteria. Setting criteria requires answers to the following three
questions, which will be used to judge possible solutions: (1) What do you want to achieve by any
decision you make? (2) What do you want to preserve by any decision you make? (3) What do
you want to avoid by any decision you make?
•Building Block 4 is to establish your priorities. This step requires that you refine your criteria by
setting your priorities.
•Building Block 5 is to search for solutions. After determining your purpose and defining your
criteria and priorities, you begin your search for solutions by asking the following questions: How
can you meet the criteria you have set? What are the possible courses of action?
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
•Building Block 6 is to test the alternatives. Testing the alternatives requires answering the
question, how well do the alternatives meet each criterion? Each alternative is matched against
Slide 31 – Ways of Acting
•Define and verify the problem
•Use the problem to generate solutions
•Prevent premature evaluations
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