Simple ten principles series of tkjain on how to achieve best environment for problem solving and decision making in an organisation. It is especially useful for administrators and public servants of government and semi-government organisations and NGOs. It is also useful for MBA, CA, CS, ICWA, FRM, BBA, MCOM, PHD AND BCOM students.

1. TKJAIN’S 10 SIMPLE PRINCIPLES
Problem Solving and
Decision Making
Techniques
RIPA’s Training Programme For Administrators
Professor Trilok Kumar Jain
12/10/2013
The ideas, views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this e-book are the personal views of the author.
The author is only responsible for any mistakes, errors and lapses with regard to facts and information in
this booklet. The purpose of this study material to help a proper discussion.

2. Approaches to Problem Solving
& Decision Making Strategies
by :
Trilok Kumar Jain
Dean, ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur, India
jain.tk@gmail.com
residence : Parakh Niwas, Sivakamu Veterinary Hospital Road, Gogagate
Circle, Bandrabas, Bikaner
Mobile : 9414430763
Story of the wood chopper : Once there was a wood chopper, he was so busy trying to chop down trees with
his very blunt axe, that he complained he could never manage the time to
sharpen his axe. Thus he was taking a long time to cut the wood. Someone
suggested him to sharpen the axe. This increased his effectively trmendously and
while he was taking a long time earlier, now it was taking a few minutes.
One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever
"Tell me, I'll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me, I'll understand"
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who
keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind
young.” - Henry Ford
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3. Every problem is an opportunity. It gives you the chance to prove that you are an
administrators. Great administrators are known by their decisions. The greater
your decision making skills, the great prestige and value you will have.
Administrators have to invest their time and energies in decision making. The
capability to take the best possible decision in the given situation will ensure that
you are able to perform your role and your appointment to the post is justified.
You can see that great administrators have transformed their organisation after
every problem. One executive transformed training academy, when it was
devastated by floods.
About Tkjain’s 10 Principle Series
As an author of management, I have identified 10 essential principles in each functional aspect
and have written e-books on those fundamental 10 principles – which are simple, easy to
remember, easy to understand and can reflect the most important aspects. These e-books are
freely available on internet. Some of these are as under: Entrepreneurs’ guide to Managing Human Resource
Entrepreneurs’ Guide to managing Marketing for Tomorrow
Entrepreneurs’ Guide to Managing Finance
Entrepreneurs’ Guide to Managing Business Negotiations
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Digital Marketing and Webpreneurship
Decision making depends on following factors : a. your understanding of the vision, mission, strategies, values and goals of the
organisation
b. your ability to collect facts, information, data, ideas, opinions and resources
c. your ability to create a participative decision making climate, which enable the
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4. organiational participants to own the decision
d. your ability to generate the required clarity, motivation, understanding, and
zeal for the implementation of the decision
e. your ability to break communication barriers and establish an environment of
trust, mutual support, coordination and collaboration, openness and
transparency, public accountability and commitment.
10 Fundamentals of decision making : a. convert the problem (challenge) into an opportunity
b. identify, evaluate and discuss alternatives
c. dig the facts beyond the surface and collect information beyond the
information available to everyone
d. visualise solution, simulate it, anticipate the problems in implementation
e. discuss, share and sell your decision so that you are able to convince everyone
about your decision
f. be flexible, be prepared to adapt as per situation
g. work as per guidelines of the higher authorities / take higher authorities in
confidence
h. acquire training, change mental horizon for enhancing your vision
i. empathise - develop understanding of others' perspectives and their problems
j. give credit to your team, own the mistakes and failures
10 Types of problems and their administrative management
1. Role Conflict
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5. 2. Resource Constraints
3. Emotional Outbursts, Prejudices etc.
4. Lack of Work Culture
5. Lack of Initiative
6. Administrative Poicies and Bureaucratic Structure
7. Resistance to Change
8. Conflicts
9. Lack of information and necessary guidelines
10.Lack of coordination and control
These points are discussed below : Role Conflict : You are asked to work on projects, where you are not clear about
your authority or you dont have required authority or you are working on a
project on which some other is also working and noone is sure about clarity of
roles or you have some project which is beyond your competency.
suggestions: As an administrator, organise role clarity sessions, coordination
sessions and become a great organiser. Organise role discussions, role clarity
sessions, have clarity regarding what others expect from you and how they wish
you to work. Two persons started working to promote family planning. One went
from home to home requesting for familly planning - but failed. The other went to
villagers to solve their problems and establish friendship with them without
talking about family planning and ultimately achieved his goals. A clarity of role
and clarity of goal helped the person.
Resource Constraints / organisational constraint / discriminatory system: There
are some resources, which are always in short supply. Some of these are : a. time
b. money c. manpower d. authority e. office equipments and tools f. wrong
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6. policies and practices. You will always find that you have to work with less
resources. You will always find some limitations in the systems and procedures.
Treat these as opportunities.
suggestions:
Prepare a strategy to demand for resources, project your resource requirements
clearly and properly and tell clearly what is the work to be done to the higher
authorities so that you may get the required resources. Clearly specify the
constraints under which you are working. Yet, prepare yourself to work under less
resources. Innovate, stretch and extend the existing resources and ensure that
you are able to outperform with less resources.
Because Nick Vujicic didnt have hands and legs, he emerged as the best motivator
and inspirational leader for masses. Because Jagdish Bhai Patel was a blind, he set
up Blind Mens' Association (now Blind People's Association) and transformed lives
of blind people all over the country. Because Gandhi ji was denied 1st class travel
in South Africa, he changed his path from being an advocate to being a human
right champion and ultimately as a freedom fighter.
Emotional Outburst, Prejudices etc : handing emotional issues is a difficult task.
Organisations are not just bundle of people. To develop great teams, you have to
have a motivated teams and therefore handling emotional issues with care is very
important.
suggestions:
Prepare your strategy to handle emotional issues. Stick to your goal and achieve
it. Kabir Khan in Chak De film faces prejudice of people, but proves himself by
performance and ensures that with his dedicated performance, he is able to bring
victory for India.
Lack of Work Culture : there are some organisations, where people dont wish to
work. You may try hard, yet, you will notice that they are there just to kill time.
They fail to realise the immense joy of doing honest and committed work. They
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7. fail to enjoy the satisfaction of achievements. They lack achievement motivation
and any willingness to perform.
Dr. Mahendra Khadgawat, the Director of Rajasthan Archieves completed
digitalised over 35 lakh documents including over 1000 years old documents
relating to princely states and old documents relating to land records in a very
short span of time inspite of resistence, and hurdles that he faced in the process.
While there was no work culture earlier, Dr. Khadgawat hired some people on
contract basis for the project. Soon the existing employees also started working
and the organisation was completely transformed. For details, please read the
case study on Dr. Mahendra Khadgawat by clicking here.
In the film Lagaan, we find that when there is a super-ordinate goal, a very
important cause, everyone joins and supports the cause. Those who were
considered insignificant, small and otherwise incapable, became instrumental in
achieving success. Once there is a great work culture, everyone becomes the
winner. We can learn from the leadership style of Bhuvan in Lagaan.
Lack of Initiative : Organisations can grow only if employees are proactive and
take initiatives to solve problems, however, most employees dont do it. You have
to create a culture for initiative and innovations and ensure that those who fail to
take required initiatives are given proper orientation / training / motivation for
this.
Administrative Poicies and Bureaucratic Structure : most organisations create
policies for the development of organisations, however, these same policies later
become hurdles as these policies become bureaucratic. Policies, procedures,
practices and structure give stability, order, discipline to the organisations. But
over a period of time, these can convert organisation into a bureaucratic
organisation and it may completely mar the performance of the organisation.
Resistance to Change : People resist change. Technological issues, chaning
cirmustances, changing habits, changing life style, changing political philosophy,
increasing competition and other factors force organisations to change and adapt
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8. to the situations. However, employees do resist to changes due to many reasons
like their own working habits, their vested interests, their own unrational
projections of future, fear and peer pressure. There is a need of managing change
properly. The administrators must learn the art of strengtheneing the forces in
favour of change and minimise the forces against change. The executives must try
to create an environment in favour of change management.
Conflicts : conflicts are natural to the organisations, however, there are always
situations when these conflicts become too difficult to handle. These issues must
be handled carefully and try to ensure that there are mechanisms to manage
conflicts.
Lack of information and necessary guidelines : there may be situations when you
have to take a decision, for which you dont have any helping information /
guidelines / procedure / instructions. You may find yourself perplexed. It is
necessary to seek guidelines of higher authorities in such situations. However,
when there is an emergency, you cant postpone. You have to take a decision. The
decision must reflect your capability. The quality of decision must prove that you
understand the vision, mission, strategies, values, and goals of the organisation
and all your decisions are in line with these.
Lack of coordination and control : you can control yourself, but cant control
others. You have to careate controls for others (controls = standards, guidelines,
set of expectations etc.). Create controls and parameters that can ensure that you
are able to handle potential problems.
10
Problem Solving and Decision Making Techniques
1. Learn and practice Japanese Management including JIT (just in time
inventory management), TQM (total quality management) , Kanban, TPM,
Kaizen (small improvement), Ringiseido (proposal approved by higher
authorities discussed for implementation), Genchi Genbutsu (dirty your
hand in factory to understand it), quality forum / quality circle (voluntary
group to monitory quality and improve it)
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9. 2. Learn and Practice Chinese Management systems including SUE (Chinese
organisation system to equate to family management system) and Guanxi
(informal relation management)
3. Learn from Indian leaders: - Learn and practice Birla's Management style
of devotion to the God, a holy work place, and creating residential facilities
before factories. Learn and practice Bajaj's management style of
contributing for the cause of the nation, promoting and advocating national
values. Learn and practice Tata's management style of employee welfare
and employee involvement.
4. OCTAPACE (create a work culture based on the values of : - openness,
collaboration, trust, autonomy, proaction, authenticity, creativity,
experimentation)
5. Create SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound)
Goals
6. learn from the Indian family management system (joint food taking, joint
responsibilites, joint discussions and respect to elders) Read case studies on
Family Business Management. For your reference one such case study is as
follows : - Family Business Management Case Study
7. learn from anecdotes, culture, and rituals (Learn from Ganesha : - keep a
head like an elephant - large enough to accomodate ideas, think deep and
meditate, keep a long nose to collect every information from ground, keep
a large stomoch to digest every information, insult and even humiliation
etc)
8. learn positive techniques from nature, animals and surroundings (eagle focus on goals, geese & Honey bee - amazing team work etc.)
9. MBO(management by objectives), MBWA (management by wandering
about), Balanced Scorecard (financial perspective, customer perspective,
learning and growth perspective and business process perspective), 360
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10. appraisal system (involve colleagues, subordinates and stakeholders in
appraisal system besides the superiors)
10.Learn positive techniques from Meister system of Germany, Gurukul, Marja
and Munim systems of India and ,
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