Decision Games as an Element of Managerial Improvement in Crisis Management

Abstract

In order to ensure effective counteraction to contemporary security threats, maximum limitation of human losses, property and natural environment losses, a multi-level and multi-element system of crisis management has been organized in Poland, covering all levels of government and local government administration as well as specialist services, guards, separate inspections and non-governmental organisations. The effectiveness of this system, most of whose participants are not full-time employees, depends, among other things, on proper training and preparation of managerial staff. One of the most important contemporary methods of training and improvement of managerial staff is the method of “decision games”, which should be aimed at training the managers of crisis management systems in solving complex problems and shaping intellectual features that affect the efficiency of action and creative thinking of decision-makers, especially during the search for rational solutions to problems, in conditions of difficult to determine risk. This method has many advantages, including the possibility of implementing theoretical knowledge about crisis management into practical solutions, practising in conditions which decision-makers may encounter in reality, the coverage of practically the whole area of decision-making in crisis management, or the implementation of the acquired knowledge and skills into practical actions but on “paper” in conditions free from the risk of human losses or property or natural environment losses due to wrong decisions.