\r\n| \r\n Non sequitur (does not follow)<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n The conclusion that is presented isn\u2019t a logical conclusion or isn\u2019t the only logical conclusion based on the argument(s).<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n Our biggest competitor is spending more on marketing than we are. They have a larger share of the market. Therefore, we should spend more on marketing.<\/p>\r\n The unspoken assumption:<\/em> They have a larger share of the market BECAUSE they spend more on marketing.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n\r\n\r\n \t- Examine all the arguments. Are they reasonable?<\/li>\r\n \t
- Look for any assumptions that are being made in the argument sequence. Are they reasonable?<\/li>\r\n \t
- Try to gather evidence that supports or refutes the arguments and\/or assumptions.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
In this example, you should ask:<\/em> Are there any other reasons, besides their spending on marketing, why our competitor has a larger share of the market?<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n\r\n| \r\n False cause<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n Assuming that because two things are related, one caused the other<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cOur employees get sick more when we close for holidays. So we should stop closing for holidays.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n This is similar to non sequitur; it makes an assumption in the argument sequence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n \t- Ask yourself whether the first thing really causes the second, or if something else may be the cause.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
In this case, most holidays for which businesses close are in the late fall and winter (Thanksgiving, Christmas), and there are more illnesses at this time of year because of the weather, not because of the business being closed.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n \r\n| \r\n Ad hominem (attack the man)<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n Redirects from the argument itself to attack the person making the argument<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cYou aren\u2019t really going to take John seriously, are you? I heard his biggest client just dropped him for another vendor because he\u2019s all talk and no substance.\u201d<\/p>\r\n The goal:<\/em> if you stop trusting the person, you\u2019ll discount their argument.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n\r\n\r\n \t- Does the second person have something to gain, a hidden agenda, in trying to make you distrust the first person?<\/li>\r\n \t
- If the first person\u2019s argument came from someone else, would it be persuasive?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
\r\n| \r\n Genetic fallacy<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n You can\u2019t trust something because of its origins.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cThis was made in China, so it must be low quality.\u201d<\/p>\r\n \u201cHe is a lawyer, so you can\u2019t trust anything he says.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n This fallacy is based on stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations; some are grossly inaccurate, and even those that are accurate in SOME cases are never accurate in ALL cases. Recognize this for what it is\u2014an attempt to prey on existing biases.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n | \r\n| \r\n Appeal to tradition<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n If we have always done it one particular way, that must be the right or best way.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always done it this way.\u201d<\/p>\r\n \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t change this; it works fine the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n\r\n \t- Consider whether the situation has changed, calling for a change in the way things are being done.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Consider whether new information suggests that the traditional viewpoint is incorrect. Remember, we used to think that the earth was flat.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
\r\n| \r\n Bandwagon approach<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n If the majority of people are doing it, it must be good.<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cEverybody does it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n \u201cOur customers don\u2019t want to be served by people like that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n\r\n \t- Remember that the majority is sometimes wrong, and what is popular isn\u2019t always what is right.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Ask yourself whether \u201cfollowing the pack\u201d is going to get you where you want to be.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Remember that organizations are usually successful by being better than their competitors at something . . . so following the crowd might not be the best approach to success.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
\r\n| \r\n Appeal to emotion<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n Redirects the argument from logic to emotion<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n \u201cWe should do it for [recently deceased] Steve; it\u2019s what he would have wanted.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n | \r\n\r\n \t- Develop your awareness of your own emotions, and recognize when someone is trying to use them.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Ask yourself whether the argument stands on its own without the appeal to your emotions.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n Have you considered the long-term implications?<\/h5>\r\nA focus on immediate, short-term outcomes\u2014with little consideration for the future\u2014can cause problems. For example, imagine that a manager must decide whether to issue dividends to investors or put that money into research and development to maintain a pipeline of innovative products. It\u2019s tempting to just focus on the short-term: providing dividends to investors tends to be good for stock prices. But failing to invest in research and development might mean that in five years the company is unable to compete effectively in the marketplace, and as a result the business closes. Paying attention to the possible long-term outcomes is a crucial part of analyzing alternatives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n Are there ethical implications?<\/h5>\r\nIt\u2019s important to think about whether the various alternatives available to you are better or worse from an ethical perspective, as well. Sometimes managers make unethical choices because they haven\u2019t considered the ethical implications of their actions. In the 1970s, Ford manufactured the Pinto, which had an unfortunate flaw: the car would easily burst into flames when rear-ended. The company did not initially recall the vehicle because they viewed the problem from a financial perspective, without considering the ethical implications.<\/p>\r\n\r\n Linda K. Trevino & Michael E. Brown. 2004. Managing to be ethical: Debunking five business ethics myths. Academy of Management Executive<\/em>, 18: 69-81.<\/div>\r\nPeople died as a result of the company\u2019s inaction. Unfortunately, these unethical decisions continue to occur\u2014and cause harm\u2014on a regular basis in our society. Effective managers strive to avoid these situations by thinking through the possible ethical implications of their decisions. The decision tree in (Figure)<\/a><\/strong> is a great example of a way to make managerial decisions while also taking ethical issues into account.\r\n\r\n Ethical Decision Tree<\/div>\r\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220422.171947\/resources\/569638d38bdcef4b72be6bbb557a84fe4ac51967\") <\/div>\r\n (Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC-BY 4.0 license)<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n Thinking through the steps of ethical decision-making may also be helpful as you strive to make good decisions. James Rest\u2019s ethical decision-making model<\/p>\r\n\r\n James R. Rest. 1986. Moral development: Advances in research and theory<\/em>. Praeger Publishers.<\/div>\r\nidentifies four components to ethical decision-making:\r\n\r\n \t- Moral sensitivity\u2014recognizing that the issue has a moral component;<\/li>\r\n \t
- Moral judgment\u2014determining which actions are right vs. wrong;<\/li>\r\n \t
- Moral motivation\/intention\u2014deciding to do the right thing; and<\/li>\r\n \t
- Moral character\/action\u2014actually doing what is right.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n
Note that a failure at any point in the chain can lead to unethical actions! Taking the time to identify possible ethical implications will help you develop moral sensitivity, which is a critical first step to ensuring that you are making ethical decisions.<\/p>\r\n Once you have determined that a decision has ethical implications, you must consider whether your various alternatives are right or wrong\u2014whether or not they will cause harm, and if so, how much and to whom. This is the moral judgment component. If you aren\u2019t sure about whether something is right or wrong, think about how you would feel if that decision ended up on the front page of a major newspaper. If you would feel guilty or ashamed, don\u2019t do it! Pay attention to those emotional cues\u2014they are providing important information about the option that you are contemplating.<\/p>\r\n The third step in the ethical decision-making model involves making a decision to do what is right, and the fourth step involves following through on that decision. These may sound, but consider a situation in which your boss tells you to do something that you know to be wrong. When you push back, your boss makes it clear that you will lose your job if you don\u2019t do what you\u2019ve been told to do. Now, consider that you have family at home who rely on your income. Making the decision to do what you know is right could come at a substantial cost to you personally. In these situations, your best course of action is to find a way to persuade your boss that the unethical action will cause greater harm to the organization in the long-term.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n Step 4: Selecting an Alternative<\/h4>\r\nOnce alternative options have been generated and analyzed, the decision maker must select one of the options. Sometimes this is easy\u2014one option is clearly superior to the others. Often, however, this is a challenge because there is not a clear \u201cwinner\u201d in terms of the best alternative. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, there may be multiple good options, and which one will be best is unclear even after gathering all available evidence. There may not be a single option that doesn\u2019t upset some stakeholder group, so you will make someone unhappy no matter what you choose. A weak decision maker may become paralyzed in this situation, unable to select among the various alternatives for lack of a clearly \u201cbest\u201d option. They may decide to keep gathering additional information in hopes of making their decision easier. As a manager, it\u2019s important to think about whether the benefit of gathering additional information will outweigh the cost of waiting. If there are time pressures, waiting may not be possible.<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n Recognize that perfection is unattainable<\/h5>\r\nEffective managers recognize that they will not always make optimal (best possible) decisions because they don\u2019t have complete information and\/or don\u2019t have the time or resources to gather and process all the possible information. They accept that their decision-making will not be perfect and strive to make good decisions overall. Recognizing that perfection is impossible will also help managers to adjust and change if they realize later on that the selected alternative was not the best option.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n Talk to other people<\/h5>\r\nThis is another point in the process at which talking to others can be helpful. Selecting one of the alternatives will ultimately be your responsibility, but when faced with a difficult decision, talking through your choice with someone else may help you clarify that you are indeed making the best possible decision from among the available options. Sharing information verbally also causes our brains to process that information differently, which can provide new insights and bring greater clarity to our decision-making.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n Step 5: Implementing the Selected Alternative<\/h4>\r\nAfter selecting an alternative, you must implement it. This may seem too obvious to even mention, but implementation can sometimes be a challenge, particularly if the decision is going to create conflict or dissatisfaction among some stakeholders. Sometimes we know what we need to do but still try to avoid actually doing it because we know others in the organization will be upset\u2014even if it\u2019s the best solution. Follow-through is a necessity, however, to be effective as a manager. If you are not willing to implement a decision, it\u2019s a good idea to engage in some self-reflection to understand why. If you know that the decision is going to create conflict, try to think about how you\u2019ll address that conflict in a productive way. It\u2019s also possible that we feel that there is no good alternative, or we are feeling pressured to make a decision that we know deep down is not right from an ethical perspective. These can be among the most difficult of decisions. You should always strive to make decisions that you feel good about\u2014which means doing the right thing, even in the face of pressures to do wrong.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n Step 6: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Decision<\/h4>\r\nManagers sometimes skip the last step in the decision-making process because evaluating the effectiveness of a decision takes time, and managers, who are generally busy, may have already moved on to other projects. Yet evaluating effectiveness is important. When we fail to evaluate our own performance and the outcomes of our decisions, we cannot learn from the experience in a way that enables us to improve the quality of our future decisions.<\/p>\r\n Attending fully to each step in the decision-making process improves the quality of decision-making and, as we\u2019ve seen, managers can engage in a number of tactics to help them make good decisions. Take a look at the Ethics in Practice<\/em> box to see an example of how one particular manager puts these techniques into practice to make good decisions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n \r\n Ethics in Practice<\/h3>\r\nRob Ault, Project Manager, Bayside Community Church<\/div>\r\n Bradenton, Florida<\/span><\/p>\r\nWhen it comes to decision-making, ethical dilemmas require particular care. Because managers make many decisions, it should not be surprising that some of those decisions will have ethical implications. With multiple stakeholders to consider, sometimes what is best for one group of stakeholders is not what is best for others. I talked to Rob Ault about his experiences with ethical dilemmas over the course of his career. Rob has been in managerial roles for over 25 years, since he was 19 years old. He told me that he had experienced a number of ethical dilemmas in that time.\r\nRob has spent most of his career working for for-profit organizations, and for about half of that time he has worked in a union environment. What he has found most frustrating, regardless of environment, was when it was clear to him what was right, but what was right conflicted with what his boss was telling him to do. This included a situation in which he felt an employee should be fired for misbehavior (but wasn\u2019t), as well as situation in which he was asked to fire someone undeservedly. What we mostly talked about, though, was his process. How did he go about making decisions in these challenging situations?<\/p>\r\n Rob clearly stated that his approach to these situations has changed with experience. What he did early in his career is not necessarily what he would do now. He said that it takes experience and some maturity to recognize that, as a leader, the decisions you make affect other people\u2019s lives. He also explained that a starting point for the decision-making process is always a recognition of the fact that you have been hired to generate a benefit for your company. So a manager\u2019s decisions need to come from the perspective of what is going to be in the best long-term interest of the organization (in addition to what is morally right). This isn\u2019t always easy, because short-term consequences are much easier to observe and predict.<\/p>\r\n I asked Rob who he talked to prior to making decisions in situations with an ethical component. Rob told me that he felt one of the most important things you should do as a leader is to intentionally create and build relationships with people you trust in the organization. That way you have people you know you can talk to when difficult situations come up. He was very clear that you should always talk to your boss, who will tend to have a broader understanding of what is going on in the context of the larger organization. He also told me that he liked to talk to his father, who happened to work in human resource management for a large Fortune 500 organization. His father was always helpful in providing the perspective of how things were likely to play out long-term if one person was allowed to bend the rules. Rob realized eventually that the long-term consequences of this were almost always negative: once one person is allowed to misbehave, others find out about it and realize that they can do the same thing without repercussions. Rob also seeks out the opinions of other individuals in the organization before reaching decisions with an ethical component; he told me that when he worked in a union environment, he tried to make sure he had a good relationship with the union steward, because it was helpful to get the perspective of someone who was committed to the side of the employee.<\/p>\r\n The biggest ethical dilemma Rob faced was one that he actually couldn\u2019t talk to me about. He disagreed with what he was being asked to do, and when it was clear that he had no other choice in the matter, he quit his job rather than do something he felt wasn\u2019t right. He accepted a severance package in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, which is why he can\u2019t share any details... but it was clear from our conversation that he feels he made the right choice. That particular ethical dilemma makes it clear how challenging managerial decision-making can sometimes be.<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n Discussion Questions<\/span><\/div>\r\n\r\n \t- If you were faced with an ethical dilemma, from whom would you seek advice?<\/li>\r\n \t
- Describe some decisions that might be good for an organization\u2019s profitability in the short-term, but bad for the organization in the long-term.<\/li>\r\n \t
- What factors would you take into consideration if you were thinking about leaving your job rather than do something unethical?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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