Barriers to Effective Decision Making

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BARRIERS TO DECISION MAKING: An in-depth analysis BARRIERS TO DECISION MAKING: An in-depth analysis 30-Nov-12 30-Nov-12 XXX Executives typically have to make tens of decisions a day. However, it is not as easy as it sounds; various barriers may be experienced and these have to be overcome. Through this paper I try to explain what these barriers are and what you can do to get the better of them. XXX Executives typically have to make tens of decisions a day. However, it is not as easy as it sounds; various barriers may be experienced and these have to be overcome. Through this paper I try to explain what these barriers are and what you can do to get the better of them. BARRIERS TO DECISION MAKING: An in-depth analysis According to James Reason, in his book “Human Error”, by Ashgate Publications (1990), decision making is defined as “the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios”. This means that there are several alternatives available from which a decision maker has to make a single choice that will affect him as well as others around him. Through this, we can safely define a decision maker as one who has the authority as well as responsibility when it comes down to making a selection. We are expected to make various choices in our daily lives, starting from when we wake up, until we go back to sleep. We decide what time to wake up, what to wear, what to eat, what to do during the day and so on. Now, most of the decisions we make with regard to our personal lives are mostly trivial. However, when we shift our focus to our professional lives, is when “problems” begin to arise. Most of these “problems” when it comes to decision making are, in effect, barriers. This begs the question, what is considered a barrier. The Merriam Webster
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