Assignment: Decision Making Gone Awry

Sometimes social influences and societal pressures can influence decision making for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition to these pressures, there are risks that need to be evaluated and measured when making decisions. In this assignment, you will reflect on decisions you made using social influence, persuasion, and risk taking that went awry.

Examine a time when you were involved in decision making that went awry as a result of protocols, social norms, or persuasive techniques. If you do not want to use an example from your business or personal experience, you can select a journal article on which you can base your assignment. Here are some key words to help you find an article for this assignment:

• Decision making
• Risk taking
• Persuasion
• Social heuristics

Write a 3 page paper in Word format that addresses the following:

1. Describe a decision-making scenario using your business experience, personal decision making or cited journal article; include an example of the decision-making process, describe the risk, and whether persuasion was used. What were the social heuristics?

2. Explain the incentives in this scenario. Were they effective?

3. Identify the risks and the potential decision biases in your scenario. Propose the corrective steps that should have been taken to overcome these biases. If a risk assessment was conducted how did this affect the decision-making process?

4. Analyze your scenario for what happened in terms of social heuristics. Explain how decisions were made and the social factors that shaped the decision-making environment.

5. Discuss the greatest challenges to sound decision-making in your scenario.

6. Critique the decision-making process used by the sponsor(s) and leader(s) of the decision. Identify the mistakes made by the sponsor(s), leader(s), and team members or others impacted by the decision during the implementation of the decision.