Reference no: EM133289809

Leadership and Decision Making

The Tent City in Paradise

Motivation and Emotional Influences

Presentations in Class

Peter Morton is newly promoted as the City Manager for a fictitious coastal city of 700,000 people. The city attracts tourists from all over the world, is mild in temperature, and is considered a friendly place to live according to a recent tourism award. Despite the positives, this city also has an environmental issue to contend with. Due to the city's favorable weather, it also attracts people who are housing compromised who have set up tent cities all over the city. The city's mayor does not want to shut down the tent city because he feels that all people have a right to feel welcomed in this city. The mayor ran on that platform and feels if he shuts the tent cities down, he is going against his word. The city has also won awards for its inclusiveness. The many awards this city has won is a source of pride for the current mayor and the employees and residents of the city. As of late, there have been more and more complaints from residents, employee morale is low (20% down) since the last employee engagement survey and the overtime budgets for the police and fire departments have increased by 30% and do not show any signs of diminishing.

The fire and police chiefs see the problem a little differently. Crime is increasing and the officers are finding more and more deaths, assaults and fires at or near the tent city site, and they fear the problem could escalate as it has in Vancouver. The chiefs can't understand why the mayor is not making a rational decision which, in their opinion, is to shut down the tent city immediately. There have been protests by advocacy groups in support of the tent city which has increased the need for more officers and fire fighters. The mayor has refused to increase funding for either group which has escalated the problem.

This issue has been divisive for the city and the bureaucrats and has far reaching implications due all the emotions at play. Peter's predecessor refused to take a side and did nothing when a decision was required and left the job unexpectedly which led to Peter's promotion. Peter sees both sides but knows he must make a decision to present to both sides to fix this problem to return the city to what is previously was.

Before this problem, all parties were able to get along and spend their off time with each other. This pressure for a decision has been weighing on Peter because he is not sure what to do and doesn't want to make things worse by taking a side. In his previous role, Peter did see this problem grow and watched the trust between elected officials and paid bureaucrats continue to diminish. He remembers an verbal altercation between the parties (mayor, fire and police chiefs and the last city manager) at his son's hockey game because of a lack of decision around this problem. Peter knows each group (including himself) has their own bias and Peter needs some support in understanding where to start to address this problem.

As a colleague from your MBA program, Peter reaches out to your consulting firm to help him with this problem and a potential plan for him to move forward.

Peter thinks he understands the problem but wants your firm to help him identify the issues at play because he needs to understand the potential motivation and emotional influences facing this problem that could influence everyone's own bias. You will be required to do some research to help Peter looked deeper at his issue.

PART ONE
Based on your research (with sound peer reviewed articles), your presentation should include:
• An identification of what decisions need to be made.
• What decision making methods or tools would be appropriate?
• An explanation of how individuals come to have preferences that put them in disagreement with themselves? Please include citations within the presentation.
• Identify three biases that are surrounding this scenario. Back up your findings.

PART TWO
Due to your previous relationship, Peter wants complete honesty from your firm so please discuss the organizational implications that Peter could face if he continues to do nothing.
• Discuss how his own bias could influence organizational decisions (e.g., hiring, promotion, resource allocation, organizational strategy) and what would be the consequences?
• Suggest specific and practical steps to overcoming this bias so the organizational can improve the quality of important decisions. You can refer to Chapter 12 and search for scholarly references from the UCW library database for the most current research.

This scenario is fictionally based on a real-life problem, so please make assumptions where you see fit but please mention your assumptions and the research that lead you to make your assumption. You can also pick your own past business decision and answer the same questions above.

Requirements
- Clear, concise, comprehensive, and well researched presentation
- Refences: minimum 3-4 from peer-reviewed journals and the text. Please add to your references as an Appendix to your presentation.
- Be sure to include proper text citations and APA style references for all sources
a. Online articles from a simple Google search do not count. Google scholar is ok
b. All team members must participate in the presentation.
c. APA 7th Edition