Decision-Making Process for Employees with Two Different Strengths
Decision-making is a challenging process, especially when one is working as a member of a team. It is always challenging to the leader to get an agreement from all the members of the team. It can be tedious and emotionally draining, seeking to agree on the best course of action. At the same time, there is pressure from the management to deliver results. The decision-making process can proceed more effectively with team of empowered employees (Wong, Ormiston, and Tetlock 1208). The employees need to feel important and valued in the decision process to work for results. However, this is not easy because diverse people bring into the team different strengths. Understanding how the members of the team differ in terms of strengths plays an important part when engaging and allowing them to make independent decisions for the greater good of the team.
Working with an individual who can make decisions under pressure can have a positive impact on the team. This is a person who is known to make hasty decisions even when there are inadequate resources (Wong, Ormiston, and Tetlock 1227). The person does not need time to research and gather information to make the decision and uses the information available to make the decision. The person is good at working amid tight deadlines and can be resourceful in making time-sensitive decisions. The person can save the team when there is no adequate time to make long-term decisions. For instance, when the team needs to make a decision on how to address a customer grievance, this kind of an individual is critical. The customer is already at the company complaining, and hence there is no time to think about the decision. This is the team member who can help the company in such a matter.
There is another person whose strength is bringing the members of the team to work together. The individual motivates other members of the team, especially when making collective decisions (Wong, Ormiston, and Tetlock 1227). This is a person who can facilitate team decision-making processes. There are things that the people cannot achieve separately. This is the point at which the person comes in handy. The company seeks to develop a new product and the team is mandated with the role of finding the most effective way of launching the product to the market. This is a decision that the whole team is expected to do in order to get the best results. The person will be given the role of organizing the members of the team to make the decisions. This person will not only bring them together but also lead them in making workable decisions.
Developing Employees with Different Strengths
The leader has an important role in training and developing the employees. However, he/she should take into consideration the strengths that each of the employees is bringing to the team. Having a single approach for the members of the team cannot work. It is important to understand the differences and hence customize the training and development to the needs and strengths of the members. To achieve positive results, the leader should be able to focus on the different strengths inherent in the team. This will be important in coming up with different strategies to develop the different members (Avey et al. 166). It is only when the members of the team are allowed to develop and use their strengths that they are most likely to work together to garner positive results.
One of the best strategies is to help the employees understand the strengths they bring into the team and to use the approaches that will develop them in the line of their strength (Avey et al. 166). For example, there could be a member of the team who specializes in serving the needs of the customer. Hence, the manager should focus on training the member on customer relationship management. It will be a waste of resources to train the member on launching new products. Therefore, to get good results, the person should be trained in areas of interest and concentrate on training another person who is good in other areas such as launching new products. The employees will bring in the different areas developed to gain good results for the team.
In developing the members of the team, the leader should know the different strategies to use for the different employees (Avey et al. 167). Some employees should be trained in practical knowledge, while for others, researching will be more effective. For example, for the employee who is good at customer service, he/she should be trained using practical knowledge. For that person, use of technology such as use of customer relations information system will come in handy. For a person who is good at proposing novel products, he/she can be trained on how to concentrate on workable research on the most innovative products. The different approaches will develop the different strengths for the overall benefit of the team and the company.