Every body takes decision in life. You have to take admission in B.Com programme. For this purpose. You have to decide that which courses are to be taken, in which University/College to be admitted, what profession do you want to pursue, etc. Smilarly a manager has to take decision in all functional areas of management like planning, organising, directing, coordinating, controlling, etc. The success of business depends on the quality of right decision taken by the manager.
The leading management expert Peter Drucker has defined decision as “A decision is a choice whereby a person performs a conclusion about a situation. This represents a course of behaviour about what must or what must not be done”. Mc Farland has defined decision as “A decision is an act of choice where in an executive forms a conclusion about what must be done in a given situation, A decision represents behaviour chosen from a number of possible alternatives”.
The above definitions show that:
i) Decision making is an act/choice: This means that there may be an issue or problem to be resolved. As a manager, you are supposed to take an action considering various activities related to the decision.
ii) Possible alternatives: There may be various ways of finding a solution to the problem. You have to explore and examine the possible ways to take a decision.
iii) Conclusion: You have to select the best possible alternative. Thus, you conclude the decision by selecting the best alternative.
Therefore, the central theme in decision making is to select among the possible alternatives.
