自考英語(yǔ)（二）閱讀輔導(dǎo)（1）

　What Is a Decision?

　　
A decision is a choice made from among alternative courses of action that are available. The purpose of making a decision is to establish and achieve organizational goals and objectives. The reason for making a decision is that a problem exists, goals or objectives are wrong, or something is standing in the way of accomplishing them.

　　Thus the decision-making process is fundamental to management. Almost everything a manager does involves decisions, indeed, some suggest that the management process is decision making. Although managers cannot predict the future, many of their decisions require that they consider possible future events. Often managers must make a best guess at that the future will be and try to leave as little as possible to chance, but since uncertainty is always there, risk accompanies decisions. Sometimes the consequences of a poor decision are slight; at other times they are serious.Choice is the opportunity to select among alternatives. If there is no choice, there is no decision to be made. Decision making is the process of choosing, and many decisions have a broad range of choice.

　　For example, a student may be able to choose among a number of different courses in order to implement the decision to obtain a college degree. Fox managers, every decision has constraints based on policies, procedures, laws, precedents, and the like. These constraints exist at all levels of the organization.

　　Alternatives are the possible courses of action from which choices can be made. If there are no alternatives, there is no choice and, therefore, no decision. If no alternatives are seen, often it means that a thorough job of examining the problems has not been done.

　　For example, managers sometimes treat problems in an eigher/or fashion; this is their way of simplifying complex problems. But the tendency to simplify blinds them to other alternatives.

　　At the managerial level, decision making includes limiting alternatives as well as identifying them, and the range is from highly limited to practically unlimited.

　　Decision makers must have some way of determining which of several alternatives is best - that is, which contributes the most to the achievement of organizational goals. An organizational goal is an end or a state of affairs the organization seeks to reach. Because individuals (and organizations) frequently have different ideas about how to attain the goals, the best choice may depend on who makes the decision. Frequently, departments or units within an organization make decisions that are good for them individually but that are less than optimal for the larger organization. Called suboptimization, this is a trade-off that increases the advantages to one unit or function but decreases the advantages to another unit or function. For example, the marketing manager may argue effectively for an increased advertising budget. In the larger scheme of things, however, increased funding for research to improve the products might be more beneficial to the organization.

　　These trade-offs occur because there are many objectives that organizations wish to attain simultaneously. Some of these objectives are more important than others, but the order and degree of importance often vary from person to person and from department to department.

　　Different managers define the same problem in different terms. When presented with a common case, sales managers tend to see sales problems, production managers see production problems, and so on.

　　The ordering and importance of multiple objectives is also based, in part, on the values of the decision maker. Such values are personal; they are hard to understand, even by the individual, because they are so dynamic and complex. In many business situations different people's values about acceptable degrees of risk and profitability cause disagreement about the correctness of decisions.

　　People often assume that a decision is an isolated phenomenon. But from a systems point of view, problems have multiple causes, and decisions have intended and unintended consequences. An organization is an ongoing entity, and a decision made today may have consequences far into the future. Thus the skilled manager looks toward the future

　　consequences of current decisions.

　　
什么是決策？

　　決策是從可供挑選的行動(dòng)方向中作選擇。決策的目的是建立并實(shí)現(xiàn)一個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)的目的和目標(biāo)。之所以要決策是因?yàn)橛袉?wèn)題存在，目標(biāo)或目的的不適當(dāng)，或者有某種東西妨礙了目標(biāo)或目的的實(shí)現(xiàn)。

　　因此，決策過(guò)程對(duì)于管理非常重要。一個(gè)管理者做的差不多所有事情都離不開(kāi)決策。有人甚至提出管理就是決策。雖然管理者不能預(yù)見(jiàn)未來(lái)，但是他們要做的很多決策需要他們考慮將來(lái)可能發(fā)生的情況。管理者常常必須對(duì)未來(lái)的情況作出最佳的猜測(cè)，使偶然性盡可能少地發(fā)生。但是因?yàn)榭偸窃诓淮_定的因素，所以決策往往伴隨著風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。一個(gè)不當(dāng)?shù)臎Q策的后果有時(shí)不嚴(yán)重而有時(shí)嚴(yán)重。

　　選擇就是從多個(gè)選項(xiàng)中進(jìn)行挑選的機(jī)會(huì)。沒(méi)有選擇就沒(méi)有決策。決策本身就是一個(gè)選擇的過(guò)程。很多決策有很寬的選擇范圍。例如，一個(gè)學(xué)生為了自己獲得學(xué)位的志向，可以在許多不同的課程里作選擇。對(duì)管理者來(lái)說(shuō)，每一個(gè)決策都受著政策、程序、法律、先例等方面的制約。這些制約在一個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)的各個(gè)階層都存在。選擇項(xiàng)就是可供選擇、可能的行動(dòng)方向；沒(méi)有選擇項(xiàng)，就沒(méi)有選擇，也就沒(méi)有了決策。如果看不到有不同的選擇項(xiàng)，說(shuō)明對(duì)問(wèn)題還沒(méi)有進(jìn)行全面的研究。一些管理者有時(shí)用非此即彼的方式處理問(wèn)題，這雖然是他們簡(jiǎn)化復(fù)雜問(wèn)題的方法，但是習(xí)慣了簡(jiǎn)化常使他們看不到別的解決辦法。在管理這個(gè)層次上，決策包括識(shí)別選擇項(xiàng)和減少選擇項(xiàng)兩個(gè)步驟；其范圍可以從極為有限的幾個(gè)選擇項(xiàng)到幾乎無(wú)限多的選擇項(xiàng)。

　　決策者必須有辦法能從多種選擇里確定一種為最佳，也就是說(shuō)哪個(gè)對(duì)實(shí)現(xiàn)機(jī)構(gòu)目標(biāo)幫助最大，機(jī)構(gòu)的目標(biāo)也就是此機(jī)構(gòu)所尋求的事態(tài)的結(jié)果。如何實(shí)現(xiàn)目標(biāo)，個(gè)人和組織都有不同的看法。因此，最佳選擇可能就取決于決策人了。通常一個(gè)組織內(nèi)的單位或部門作出的決策可能有利于本部門、本單位，但對(duì)比它們大的機(jī)構(gòu)來(lái)說(shuō)就不是最佳選擇了。這就是所謂的局部?jī)?yōu)化：增加對(duì)一單位或部門的便利同時(shí)減少對(duì)另一個(gè)單位或部門的便利，這是在兩利不能兼顧的情況下所做的取舍。例如，經(jīng)理可以把增加廣告預(yù)算的必要性講得頭頭是道，但是從總的布局看，增加改進(jìn)產(chǎn)品的科研費(fèi)用也許對(duì)這個(gè)組織更有好處。

　　因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)組織希望同時(shí)達(dá)到的目標(biāo)很多，所以就要進(jìn)行權(quán)衡，雖然有些目標(biāo)比另一些重要，但重要程度和次序則常常因人而異，因部門而異。管理者不同對(duì)同一問(wèn)題所做的解說(shuō)也是不同的。把同樣一種情況擺在他們面前，銷售經(jīng)理看的是銷售問(wèn)題，生產(chǎn)經(jīng)理看的是生產(chǎn)問(wèn)題，如此等等。

　　多個(gè)目標(biāo)的排序和重要性在某種程度上是以決策者的價(jià)值觀為依據(jù)的。這些價(jià)值觀念是個(gè)性的，很難捉摸，甚至抱有這種觀念的人自己也很難弄清楚；這是因?yàn)閮r(jià)值觀不斷變化，也很復(fù)雜。很多商業(yè)活動(dòng)中，不同的人對(duì)于風(fēng)險(xiǎn)和收益的可接受程度的價(jià)值觀不一樣，這就導(dǎo)致了他們對(duì)決策正確與否的看法也不同。

　　人們常以為決策是一個(gè)孤立的現(xiàn)象，但從系統(tǒng)的觀念看，問(wèn)題的產(chǎn)生有多種原因，所以決策既有意料中的結(jié)果，又有意料外的結(jié)果。一個(gè)組織是一個(gè)發(fā)展的實(shí)體，所以今天所做的決策對(duì)未來(lái)可能產(chǎn)生意義深遠(yuǎn)的影響。因此一個(gè)老練的管理者常要考慮當(dāng)前決策在將來(lái)產(chǎn)生的結(jié)果。

　Secrets of Success at an Interview

　　The subject of today's talk is interviews.

　　The key words here are preparation and confidence, which will carry you far.

　　Do your homework first.

　　Find out all you can about the job you are applying for and the organization you hope to work for.

　　Many of the employers I interviewed made the same criticism of candidates. "They have no idea what the day to day work of the job brings about. They have vague notions of 'furthering the company's prospects' or of 'serving the community', but have never taken the trouble to find out the actual tasks they will be required to do."

　　Do not let this be said of you. It shows an unattractive indifference to your employer