Critical Thinking Qn 2 by Shao Shiuan

1. The colleague recommends the rational choice paradigm of decision making.

2. It is generally a good recommendation in this situation, but there are some flaws in the information processing and compiling part.

3. Firstly, the decision maker cannot possibly look through all the different factors for so many travel agencies. There will be information overflow and it is hard to classify the points into a set of ideas, since decision makers themselves have a limited information processing ability. Therefore encoding too much varying information may cause confusion to the decision maker, which in turns affect the decision made to the organization.

Secondly, the decision maker may have the tendency to take a bias stand towards the decision made. For example, the decision maker may not like travel agency A because there is probably some conflicts between the manager of the agency and him in past experiences. Or probably the decision maker may tend to choose travel agency B between B and C, even though agency B and C may provide the same quality and attractive travel packages, but perhaps because agency B gave the decision maker a good impression before.

But there are also several positive aspects for this thought process too.

Since most of the problems lie on the negative assumptions we predict towards the decision maker (subject), most of the advantages actually lie on the solution itself (object).

With all the different minds gathered together, all the factors gathered will be able to allow room for the expansion of ideas, and the solution can be seen from a wider scope to consider more and make a better decision.

U see, in rational choice paradigm, we can also weight out the positive and the negative aspect of the solution, and thus through the well-planned concept in mind, it is easier for the decision maker to choose the solution with the highest payoff while not regretting the final decision made, this include not just the decision maker, but also the team members.

Ending off, i think it is always nessessary for us to consider both the pros and cons while deciding on a solution. In this case, human emotion can be controlled, and mistakes made due to emotion can be resolved if paid more attention to. Overall, this is a good thinking pattern, but incoparate some other thinking process, such as breaking down and classifying the factors into categories, is a good way for a better decision making =)

signing off....
shao shiuan the fine young man :X