answer in your own words1.You provided a strong example concerning prevalent decision-making techniques, sometimes the facts surrounding the circumstance are more important than past decisions. Have you come across any technology based decision making tools? There are several risk analysis tools out there which certainly make life easier for individuals in industries requiring the effort. For example, I recently acquired a new insurance policy and they put my information into a risk analysis program. It calculated the chances that I would get into accident or have another problem based on my past behavior.However, it cannot predict what I might do in a new situation, therefore it is somewhat unreliable. What are the risks involved in using technology to make critical thinking based decisions?2.Good post, you mentioned a variety of issues that can occur as a result of not aligning critical thinking efforts with ethics in an organization. Health care coverage has been a hot topic since Affordable care act was put in place as many employers do not feel it is their responsibility to provide health insurance. Yet, healthy workers are more productive so from a critical thinking perspective an investment in the health of the workers may result in higher level of productivity yielding a strong ROI. If it costs me $100 to invest in healthcare, and I get $200 of productivity from the person, then I have made a correct choice. However, not many organizations think critically about this area and simply feel it is a drain on their resources. How can we as an employee influence our leaders to view some of these decisions as not only ethically right, but also they may produce a financial benefit?3.What about social responsibility in organizations, is critical thinking involved in this activity? There are areas where a lack of ethics could harm an external environment which might lead to an adverse effect the business, even though they are trying to engage in social responsibility. Taking this a step further do companies have an ethical obligation to help out the area where they are based? Some would say that by providing jobs, and paying taxes they already meet the requirements and obligations of the community. However, when a business that is supported by the community is doing well do they have a responsibility to ‘give back’ or make decisions with a positive impact on the area in mind?The typical business analyst might say no, however if a company is involved in good will efforts this could yield a more positive impact that influences customer to use their service or product. What are your thoughts concerning organizational goodwill?4.An organization may succeed by emulating certain features of another business related to their own service or industry,a manager might use the same process concerning ethics. Sometimes, organizations emulate organizations which are not in their field. Many companies have tried to benchmark the human resources area from companies like Google and Facebook, where employees have many benefits. Have you ever been on a interview where a person said (or heard a manager state) ‘we have a google like culture’? The organization has viewed the benefits of a ‘google like culture’ on employee performance and productivity, they assume benchmarking it will increase their own outcomes. So, the manager may consider the same process but on a smaller, personal scale.However, it is sometimes not that simple, some organizations simply do not have the resources to provide employee benefits like lunches, dry-cleaning, and other perks enjoyed by most workers at the big silicon valley company’s. How might a manager or leader find a ‘happy medium’ with a benchmarking strategy? Are there any concerns will not fully benchmarking a department or process to ensure strong ethics?5.One person’s ethical perspective can effect many other people on the job. When a person misses a lot of time at work it can cause many problems for other individuals who rely on them for their own job duties. We had a situation where our HR Director took two weeks off for her honeymoon, and while it was approved time those two weeks without the person who can sign off on all hires delayed us months in accomplishing some of out goals. We lost a few candidates who found other jobs and it really caused quite a mess. Of course, we do not want to limit a person’s time off, however from a decision making perspective it would have been beneficial for her to use critical thinking and provide us with some solutions. Do you feel it is just one person’s responsibility for time off issues or can we take a team approach?