I can't decide Most of the articles in this section deal with making your own decisions. This article discusses the need to evaluate and make decisions for others.
You may make a positive or negative impression on an administrator. That impression does not necessarily match the one that you make on your target audience. For example, a good teacher may not get along with a principal, even though she is doing an excellent job in the classroom.
Nonetheless, administrators, supervisors, or human resources personnel are required to to make decisions that affect the future of people on their staff. Are they qualified to evaluate others?
Some institutions or organizations initiate peer evaluations. This procedure may overcome some of the limitations of the decision-making process. However, the system is far from perfect. Some people use these forms to get back at unpopular but ineffective people in an organization.
Furthermore, children are now asked to evaluate their teachers. It is questionable whether they can evaluate them properly. They are likely to evaluate the teachers based upon their sense of humor, friendliness, amount of homework, or other non-academic issues. They are not likely to score a teacher highly because she teaches well. Teachers who are stern or strict in order to be teach a class would cause them to be less popular. The students would evaluate the teacher accordingly.
Our discussions about dating present another case in which people have to evaluate important situations.
Elections present a similar issue. We don't really know what goes on behind the scenes in the offices of senior officials. Do we base our vote on the right issues? Are we really in a position to select the most effective leaders?
Clearly, it is nearly impossible for people to evaluate others. Perhaps it is ess of a science and more of an art. It is even less clear whether we are in a position to locate the person who is equipped with the proper tools, knowledge, or abilities to make these evaluations.
Can these skills be quantified or organized into a syllabus, so that officials can be taught the right way to make decisions?
These issues and difficulties are addressed in the various sections and websites listed above. Each field has its own method of assigning people to make decisions. In each case, there is a method for handling the problem successfully. In each case, it is possible to reduce the risk of error or minimize the problem of a lack of specific, directed knowledge.
if indecision is good or bad
- Russell Causey
Art or science?
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