Thinking Critically

We have covered many topics during the last five weeks, including decision-making models, fallacies and their significance to critical thinking, analyzing work-related situations, and tools and techniques that we can use to solve, fix and head off problems. I would like to sum up the course reviewing how ethics influence our daily decision-making as well as touching on the impact technology has had on work-related stress.

The Influence of Ethics on Decision-Making

Most businesses that offer leadership-training courses stress the need for human skills throughout all managerial levels. One of these skills is the ability to successfully deal with conflicts and disagreements that occur within departments. Many companies, like Daslos Inc., who have a large numbers of employees, are moving more towards the trend of having employees working in smaller subcultures, or departments. With this trend also comes a higher occurrence of conflicts and disagreements among workers.

There are many causes for conflicts among coworkers, as was witnessed in previous writings from Team A’s assignment “Problem Analysis Summary” paper. Some of these causes can come from within the organization through unethical or unprofessional behavior among management, or outside environments, such as clients or vendors. When the problem arises from management, a subordinate may feel helpless in dealing with conflicts and disagreement. For this reason, it is important to have a bipartisan resolution team in place. Daslos Inc. has a free 1-800 employee dispute resolution hot line set up for employees. The employee is guaranteed anatomy and will have a dispute resolution team assigned to work on resolving the problems employees are experiencing with management or coworkers. Daslos Inc. also has an Ethics Hotline set up for all employees to report unethical behavior. The following is found on our intranet under Code of Ethics and is available to all employees:

• Ethics Helpline

To report violations of the law or the Code of Business Conduct you may call the Daslos Inc. Ethics Helpline. The Helpline is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is operated by an independent company. You may remain anonymous and translators are available. (Daslos Inc., 2006)

The Ethics Helpline lists phone numbers in the US, the UK, Indonesia as well as including a number that be used for all countries. (Daslos Inc. Intranet)

Previous to the problems that the Houston department experienced, this company’s management team as well as the entire organization, has provided a friendly, upbeat, and positive atmosphere and continue to do so today. Departments are dealing with human beings and with that said, no specific area is going to remain a perfect working environment. I give the department credit in seeing the problem and working quickly to get it resolved. Everyone has his or her own ideas on how conflicts should be resolved, and I think that is a good thing. Group think tanks can have a positive outcome on sticky situations within the workplace and it is to their advantage to incorporate this type of problem-solving. It can be an excellent way to police the situation and to ensure that the problems are being resolved ethically.

I believe that because of the observations seen within Daslos Inc.’s’ organization, I view them as an extremely work friendly environment. Loyalty within the organization is high and employee turnover is low. Employees are capable of working in a highly diversified culture and respect among peers is healthy. I would say that the leadership from Daslos Inc. s’ CEO is one of the main ingredients for such success. The management team is well trained and unethical behavior has zero tolerance. I give them high marks for a well-organized and tightly managed organization.

Technology is a powerful tool and companies who do not embrace it eventually will be left behind and die out. However, along with technology comes work-related stress directly tied to the usage of technical appliances like computer programs and on-line technical databases. Many companies are downsizing and this is leaving employees having to take on multiple added responsibilities. They are required to learn programs they previously had no need to use, like SAP, Office Project, Excel and so on.