Managerial Problem Solving

Decision making may imply that managers just sit and decide what to do about every problem that arises. However effective managers do not try to solve every problem that arises but rather they conserve their time and energy for those problems that really require their decision making ability. Managers should try to anticipate problems, decide how to prevent them or what to do if they occur and actively seek opportunities which they can exploit.

Since organizations face a great number of problems and opportunities a critically important skill for managers, is the ability to select the right problem or opportunity. The managers value and backgrounds will play an important role in selection of opportunities and handling of problems e.g. are the managers politically or theoretically oriented, or more economically oriented.

Managers from different departments will define the same problem in different ways. Departmental managers will tend to have a departmental approach to solving problems.