Mr. Nadkarni, an executive from the ‘Management Support Division’ of BELCO is in a dilemma for defining his exact role in the organization. The other day he was fired by the General Manager – Marketing, for not providing adequate information about the factory supplies and inventory levels. The G.M. also blamed Mr. Nadkarni for not maintaining ‘Active files on division co-ordination’.
Although he was working for 8 to 9 hours a day and almost 7 days a week, the firing made him frustrated. Mr. Nadkarni started feeling that his was a thankless job.
He did not know the degree of his overall participation in the ‘divisional decision making’. He was under the impression that the role assigned to him was limited to ‘Information collection and transformation’.
His work depended on the overall cooperation from the concerned divisions. His experience about the division cooperation was not very encouraging. He believed that his department got too many bosses to dictate and no specific role to play.
Mr. Nadkarni is now confused between ‘Decision Support’ and ‘Decision Participation’. He cannot decide upon the thin line difference between his staff function and line function.
Absence of formal status and a well-organized structure in his department are perhaps the possible reasons for the existing confusion. Couple of times Mr. Nadkarni felt that he would not be able to ‘act’ unless he could ‘decide’ clearly the priorities and respective action plans. He would be interested in defining an ideal as well as pragmatic ‘decision-making process’. Knowing beforehand the decision process of different departments and their inter-relations, he believes that clarity and scope for his department’s role would enhance.
Q.
1) Define Decision-making process.
2) Co-relate staff and line functions in relation to decision making and decision participation.
3) Discuss and decide the exact role for ‘management support division’ for effective decision making.
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