La Consolacion University Philippines

(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)

Catmon, City of Malolos

HARD PROBLEMS:
A WAY TO
SIMPLIFY
in fulfillment in Educ 221: Decision Making

submitted by:

Submitted to:

Doc. Cynthia Briones

April 2021
 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

INTRODUCTION

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

Decision making is the essence of management. It’s what managers do

(or try to avoid). All managers would like to make good decisions because their

judge on the outcomes of those decision1. (Robbins & Coutler, 2012)

Leaders often have to make challenging decisions, such as what direction

to move their company in; whether to keep an employee, reposition them or let

them go; whether or not to share “bad news” with stockholders, and many other

such challenges2. (Kase, 2010). Decision making should reconsider whatever the

complexity of the problem it may be.

The researchers will conduct a study in 14 schools in Balagtas District to

determine what are common problems/issues encountered by the school leader;

and the effectiveness of strategic decision-making style to make hard decisions

become simple. The Balagtas District have two (2) Senior-Junior High School and

twelve (12) Elementary Schools governed by Principal IV (2), Principal III (1),

Principal II (6), Principal I (2) and Head Teacher (3) respectively.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Following are the objectives of the study:

1. To determine what are the common organizational problem in school setting;

2. To identify ways on how school leaders, address the problem/issues in their

organization.
 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

3. To recognize the skills and characters that a manager/ leader should possess

in order give solution to organization’s problem.

4. The effectiveness of the strategic planning/decision-making in solving school

managerial problems/issues to simplify hard decisions.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In this study, the researchers are trying to answer the following problems:

a. Define what is an organizational problem;

b. What are the common problems existing in a school setting/ workplace?

c. How to school leaders address existing problem/s?

d. What is the characteristic and skills that a school leader must possess in

order to give solution in their organizational problem?

e. How effective is the use of strategic planning/ decision making in solving

school managerial problems/ issues in simplifying hard decision?

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

THEORETICAL / CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Experienced-Based decision

Values or Ethics-based
decision Intuition Affecte-initiated decision

Subconsious Mental
Figure Cognitive-based
1. Making Decision: The Role
Processing of Intuition 3 Decision

Founder, Todd Moses used a more intuitive decision approach to come up with his

line of unique PaperPro staplers. 4 Managers often use their intuition to help their

decision making. Intuitive decision making is making decisions that are based from the

experience, feelings and accumulated judgement. Researcher’s studying manager’s

use of intuitive decision making have identified five different aspects of intuition as

exhibited in figure 1.5 Intuitive decision making can complement both rational and

bounded rational decision making 6. Managers who has had experience with similar type

of problem or situation often can act quickly with what appears to be limited information

because of that past experiences. In addition, a recent study found that individuals who

experienced intense feelings and emotions when making decisions actually achieved

higher decision-making performance, especially when they understood their feelings as

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

they were making decisions. The old belief that managers should ignore emotions when

making decisions may not be the best advice.7

On the other hand, any decision-making process is likely to be enhanced through

the use of relevant and reliable evidence. 8 The premise behind the evident-based

management is the systematic use of the best available evidence to improve

management practice.9 It is quite important to managerial decision-making.

Sometimes, the decision maker’s perspective (judgement) might be given greater

emphasis in the decision –making process, other times it might be the stakeholder’s

opinion and on occasion it might be ethical consideration (organizational context).

Overconfidence
Immediate
Handsight
Gratification

Self-serving Anchoring
effect

Decision Selective
Sunk Cost Making Errors & Perception
Biases

Randomness Confirmation

Representati
Framing
on
Availabiality

Figure 2. Decision-Making Errors and Biases10

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

When do managers think that their decisions are correct? When

managers make decision, they not only use their own particular style, they may

use “rules of thumbs”, or heuristics, to simplify their decision making. Rules of

thumb can be useful because they help make sense of complex, uncertain and
11
ambiguous information. Even though managers may use the rule of thumb, that

doesn’t mean that rules are reliable. Why? Because they may lead to errors and

biases in processing and evaluating information. 12 Without proper and strategic

decision, manager might lead into a complex problem, risk and uncertain results.

Figure 3. Strategic Decision-Making Process13

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

Strategic decision making requires a trigger to start the process, in a

school organization there are lot of triggering problems and issues that requires

strategic intervention and decision making. The ever-changing and turbulent

internal and external environment of an organization demands extreme sensitivity

from the management in their reaction toward change. This often requires rapid

response and the consequences of one of the courses of action could be

dramatically different from an alternative course of action. The successful solution

of a single problem can be achieved by variety of approaches. However, the

complex nature of today’s managerial decision, at the executive level, demands

high quality of information and the use of decision-making tools. 14 As suggested in

figure 3, for the manager be able to solve managerial problems and issues,

strategic decision-making process is given to simplify hard decisions by means of

organizing possible outputs.

RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

The instrument to be use by the researcher was a self-made questionnaire

checklist to gather the needed data collaborated by the group. It was draft from the

researcher’s previous readings, previous studies, from published and unpublished

thesis relative to the study. The data collection, includes the anonymity of the

respondents and the personal information was taken into consideration as much as

possible researchers will avoid obtaining personal information of the respondents.

The questionnaire was provided an open-ended question to accommodate free

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

formatted views related to the topics or issues. The researcher will distribute the

questionnaire via google forms to adhere in the IATF health protocols.

RESPONDENTS OF THE STUDY

The respondents of the study will be the school heads itself and or head

teacher in the fourteen respective school of Balagtas District. If not, available

master teachers can answer the questionnaire.

DATA ANALYSIS AND STATISTICAL INSTRUMENT

Responses from the research instrument shall be collected and tallied.

Descriptive statistical data will be considered and answers shall be summarized to

gather relevant data.

ETHICAL COMPLIANCE

In accordance to the ethical compliance, the researcher will give its full

pledge to respect and take all the information as classified to prevent harm.

Respondents shall be treated as autonomous individuals, and person with

diminished autonomy are entitle to protection. The researcher will exercise the

beneficence in assessing the risk of harm and potential benefits to participant, be

sensitive to the rights and interest of people involved in the research, and reflect on

the social and cultural implications of the research.

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

Participants will not be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to

the subjects in any reports produced by the study. Personal data will not be used

for personal advantage or that of a third party. Consent letter shall be given ahead

of time to the respondents before answering the questionnaire.

 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

RELATED LITERATURE

Today’s school administrators are confronted, on a daily basis, with a variety of

issues from how to implement the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), to

handling irate parents, to supporting overwhelmed teachers. How they react to these

issues, to a great extent, determines their success or failure as school administrators.

Building principals are charged with being the instructional and visionary leaders that

every community wants and with successfully managing the day-to-day happenings that

occur in every schoolnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

nnn hnhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

Why do leaders have tough time in solving complex problems? What are the

problems commonly arise in an organization? How do managers meet the various

demands in a complex action situation? Complex problem are typically defined as

those that include the ability to approach them from multiple, sometimes

competing, perspectives and which may have multiple possible solutions. As

organization continue to expand, intense of problems may also arise.

I.
 La Consolacion University Philippines
(formerly University of Regina Carmeli)
Catmon, City of Malolos

https://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/10/great-leaders-are-great-decision-makers/

REFERENCES
1
Robbins, S.P. & Coutler, M.,”Management 11th Edition”., 2012, p182.
2
https://getlighthouse.com/blog/organizational-problems-root-cause-fix
3
Source: L.A. Burke and M.K. Miller, “Taking Mystery Out of Intuitive Decision Making”, Academy of
Management Executive, October 1991, pp 91-99.
4
W.Cole, “The Stapler Wars,” Time Inside Business, April 2005, p. Ar 5.
5
C.C. Miller and R.D. Ireland, “Intuition in Strategic Decision Making: Friend or Foe,” p.20.
6
E. Sadler-Smith and E. Shefy, “Developing Intuitive Awareness in Management Education,” Academy of
Management Learning & Education, June 2007, p.186-205.
7
M.G. Seo and L. Feldman Barrett, “Being Emotional During Decision Making—Good or Bad? An Empirical
Investigation,” Academy of Management Journal, August 2007, pp 923-940.
8
R.B. Briner, D. Denyer, and D.M. Rousseau, “Evidence-Based Management: Concept Cleanup Time?
Academy of Management Perspective, November 2009, p.22
9
T.Reay, W. Berta, M. K. Kohn, “What’s the Evidence of the Evidence-Based Management?”, Academy of
Management, November 2009, p.5.
10
Source: S.P. Robbins & M. Coutler, Decision-Making Biases and Errors, “Management 11th Edition”, 2012,
pp 190-191.
11
E. Teach, “Avoiding Decision Traps”, CFO, June 2004, pp97-99 and E. Kahneman and A. Traversky,
“Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristic and Biases,” Science 185, pp 1124-1131.
12
S.P. Robbins, Decide and Conquer, (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall, 2004.
13
T.L. Wheelen and J.D. Hunger, Strategic Decision Making Process, Copyright 1994 and 1997.
14
G. Aouad, A. Lee and S. Wu, A Framework for Stategic Decision-Making Based on Hybrid Decision Support
Tools., May 2005