GMAT Essays (AWA)

All groups and organizations should function as teams in which everyone makes decisions and shares responsibilities and duties. Giving one person central authority and responsibility for a project or task is not an effective way to get work done.”
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above? Support your views with reasons and/or specific examples drawn from your own work or school experiences, your observations, or your reading.

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Author's view that all organisations and groups should invlove every member in its decesion making process and sharing of duties is flawed due to the fact that it is impractical and unimplementable. Therefore it is required that one person becomes the incharge of the team and takes the responsibility to succeed. This will not only decrease the possibility of conflicts between members but also bring regulation and dicipline in the team.

Let us consider the example of Organisation like Indian Railways which employs over two hundread thousand people. If a decision needs to be taken for implementing a new technology for railway traffic contol, it would be a sheer waste of time in considering opinions of all the employees. Firstly taking opinion of as many people would be time consuming. Secondly, a lot of people are not qualified enough to understand the technology and then give opinion about it. Instead of wasting time and resources in involving irrelavant people in decesion making, these could well be utilised for further growth and training of employees.

However there could be obvious discomforts amongst the team members when there is monopoly of a person making decesion. Such a team would not only be less productive but also lead to conflicts between team member and team incharge. A simple solution to this would be 'election of team incharge'. Consider the example of democartic country like India - A home for more than one billion people. People in India have the right to cast their vote for anyone they wish to. The people of the coutry elect their leader and believe that the decesions taken by this person would be for their well being.

In conclusion, a better way to get the work done in harmony would be by electing a leader who would be responsible for assigning and delegating duties to the members and incharge of taking the decesions.

I accidently hit "2" when grading this one - I'll give it a 4.

This one isn't as good as the other. First, make sure you clearly state your position. From your first paragraph, it's not clear what side you're on. Make it obvious.

Next, your first example was great. However, your second example was general/hypothetical - these types of examples are weaker than specific, real world examples.

Still, good work. Keep it up!

Thanks Jim. The comments really help.

Are 2 examples generally enough or you should put in 3?

Two examples are okay - you can certainly still get a 5 or a 6 with two examples. However, three examples are better.