Self-reflection about my decision making skills

This report will talk about the analysis of myself and then be mostly divided into two parts: self-reflection and plan. In the first part: self-reflection, I will analyze my deficiencies about the decision making for the first five weeks with some personal examples to put it more clearly. And then in the second part of plan, I will use the methods of the smart goal to make some plans and actions about how to improve my decision-making skills in the next five weeks on the basis of result of the first part.

Self-reflection

For me, making decisions is really a hard work. My result of the self-assessments of decision-making shows I have a behavioral style which indicates vague options cannot be tolerated for me and I may pay more attention to the people and social concern. With this style, I will accept others’ suggestions easily and can avoid the conflict but it is hard for me to make a difficult decision. When I am doing a decision for myself, I will make many options and then try to weight them up to choose the best one. However, I do not know how to rank these options as I always do not know how to identify the pro and cons of each choice. Thus, I always ask others for advices, which sometimes makes me more confusing. Otherwise, when I am doing group decision making, it is still a problem. In a group, every member has their own ideas and they may disagree with others. As a result, there may be conflict between the members. In this situation, many members will be annoyed and blindly agree with others’ opinions. These reflect the disadvantages of the group decision making. It shows that group are less efficient and when group members blindly agree with others’ opinions in order to reach consensus, group thinking will be generated, thus avoiding the accurate assessment of making decision.

For me, I will say my ideas in a group firstly. However, if others have different ideas, I may agree them in order to avoid conflict. Reflecting on my group decision-making, I can take an example. In the first tutorial class of the MGMT1001, my tutor asked us to do the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment which uses 20 pieces of spaghetti and some tape to make a highest free-standing building and put marshmallow in the top within about 20 minutes. When I first heard the request, I have an idea in my mind. I told my partners that we can start with the base of the triangle because the triangle is the strongest shape. And then we’re going to build up the triangle from there. Finally, use the tape to make the remaining spaghetti as high as possible. But they have some totally different ideas. One person said the pasta was too thin to stick and the other person said we’re going to get a quadrilateral base which was more solid. In this case, I did not argue with them but they still discuss. Therefore, we spent most of our time talking about different methods and then we did not finish the experiment on time. This is a proof of what I said before.

Plan

In the next five weeks I will make some change with the decision-making skill. In order to achieve the goal, I will make two smart goals with clear action to help me improve my decision-making skills efficiently. Smart goals are different from the normal goals. A goal refers to the more specific sub-goal or a general objective that is directed. Goals and objectives are very different concepts, whereas sub-goals and objectives are basically the same things. SMART goals actually refer more to sub-goals and objectives than it does to the much broader term, goals.

Smart goals must have five features with the initial letters of smart: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bounds. I will write two smart goals included all these features. It can be separately targeted at individuals and groups. For individual, I will focus on finding the pros and cons of each option to improve the skills. In order to solve my own problems efficiently, I will try to search as much information as possible before making decision in order to help me make at least three appropriate options related to the problems. After that, list the pros and cons of each option on both sides which can ask me have to decide in ten minutes. I wish to reach this level in the next five weeks. For group decision making, we should reduce conflicts caused by the differences of opinions to increase the efficiency and harmony. To achieve the goal, me and my group members can try to know each other through work for the Gamulation in the next few weeks. As we become more familiar with each other, a compromise can be found Rather than blindly agree with others when there is conflict caused by the different ideas and try to reach a consensus in fifteen minutes mostly. For the example in the self-reflection, we can be divided into two parts with the two different ways and then choose the better one when both were finished.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this report emphatically discusses my weakness of the individual and group decision making and a little strength. In order to overcome my shortcomings, I write two smart goals which aim at them. Some action will be made for myself to improve my decision-making skills in the next few weeks with the plan I made. I know the importance of this skill and I believe it will be better if I can carry out my plan correctly.