Creativity and Team Decision Making

CHAPTER 8

CREATIVITY AND TEAM DECISION MAKING

CONTENTS

1. Decision making defined
2. Rational Choice Paradigm of Decision Making
3. Rational Choice Decision Making Process
4. Problem Identification Process
5. Problem Identification Challenges
6. Identifying Problems Effectively
7. Making Choices: Rational VS OB views
8. Emotions and Making Choices
9. Intuitive Decision Making
10. Making Choices more effectively
11. Escalation of Commitment
12. Escalation of Commitment causes
13. Evaluating Decisions better
14. Employee Involvement Defined
15. Employee Involvement Process
16. Contingencies of Involvement
17. Creative Process Model
18. Characteristics of Creative model
19. Creative Work Environments
20. Creative Activities

1. Decision Making Defined

• Conscious process of making choices among the alternatives.
• Action or process of making important decisions.
• Process to arrive at a solution for a given problem.

Trewatha & Newport defines decision making process as follows: “Decision-making involves the selection of a course of action from among two or more possible alternatives in order to arrive at a solution for a given problem”.

1. Rational Choice Paradigm of Decision Making

• A decision making philosophy
• States that people should and typically do use logic and all available information to choose alternative with highest value
• Relies on subjective expected utility to identify the best choice
• Ultimate principle is to choose the alternative with highest satisfaction i.e. subjective expected utility.
• Follows logical process of decision making process as follows:

1. Rational Choice Decision Making Process

[pic 1]

1. Identify problem/ opportunity

• Problem = deviation between current and desired situation

- Identify what needs to be corrected

• Opportunity = deviation between current expectation and potentially better situation that was not previously expected

- Realize some decisions may produce results beyond current goals/expectation

1. Choose the best decision process

• Deciding how to decide
• Choosing among different alternatives
• To solve alone or to involve others
• Decision is programmed or non-programmed

- Programmed = follow standard operating procedures, similar problems that are resolved in the past, identified and documented

- Non-programmed = New/complex problems, so require all steps in decision making

1. Discover/ Develop alternatives

• List possible choices
• Search ready-made solutions, past solutions on similar problems

Or modify existing /design custom-made

1. Select the choice with highest value

• Select choice with highest subjective expected utility

i.e. that gives highest satisfaction/utility/payoff to stakeholders (maximization)

1. Implement the selected choice
2. Evaluate the selected choice

• Evaluate if the gap between current and desired situation has lessened
• This information should come from systematic benchmarks so that relevant feedback is objective and easily observed.

1. Problem Identification Process

• Identify and describe problems that are preventing the goals and objectives defined in the previous step from being achieved.
• Need to pay attention to but logic and emotional reaction in problem.
• It uses both logical analysis and unconscious emotional reaction.

1. Problem Identifying Challenges

1. Stakeholder framing

• Stakeholders tend to provide information to influence decision that may benefit them.
• so they FRAME  the information, so managers will be influenced to make decision that benefit them.
• Stakeholders shape or filter incoming information
  

1. Perceptual defense

• People sometimes reject or avoid bad news (negative info) as coping mechanism
• People tend to discarding danger signals when they have limited control over the situation

1. Mental models

• Mental models are frameworks consisting of our underlying assumptions from socialization; values, beliefs, education, and experience that help us organize information.
• Decision-maker’s perceived visual and regional images of the external world
• They blind decision maker from decision maker from seeing unique problems/opportunities
• If an idea doesn’t fit the decision maker’s mental model of how things work, it is dismissed as undesirable

1. Decisive leadership

• Decisive leaders make quick decision which limits careful analysis of facts and producing less effective decisions

1. Solution-focused problems

• Identifying what it would be like if a situation was solved, what would need to be different to get to that solution, and actions to take to get there.
• Then only focusing on that solution rather than on the problem itself or alternatives as it is comforting

1. Identifying Problems Effectively

• Becoming aware about above five problem identification biases
• Considerable willpower of the leader to resist temptation of looking decisive when a more thoughtful examination of situation should occur
• Leaders to create a norm of “divine discontent” i.e. never being satisfied if status-quo, which leads leaders to actively search for problems/opportunities
• Minimization of problem identification errors by discussing situation with colleagues

1. Making Choice: Rational VS OB Views

[pic 2]

1. Emotions and Making Choices

1. Emotions from Early Preferences

• Emotional marker process forms preferences before we consciously think about choices
• Brain attaches specific emotions to information about each alternative
• Even logical analysis depends on emotions
• Emotions, not rational logic, energize us to take the preferred choice

1. Emotions Change the Decision Evaluation Process

• Moods and emotions influence the decision process

- Affects vigilance, risk aversion, etc.

• Negative mood - signals something is wrong, requires attention in evaluating (non-programmed decision routine)
• Positive mood – we pay less attention to details and rely on a more programmed decision routine

1. Emotions serve as Information when we Evaluate Alternatives

• We ‘listen in’ on our emotions and use that information to make our choices
• Use of emotions as information
• People try to be more sensitive to their unconscious awareness
• Example: Gut feeling

1. Intuitive Decision Making

• Intuition= the ability to know when a problem or opportunity exists and to select the best course of action without conscious reasoning.
• The gut feelings we experience are emotional signals that have enough intensity to make us consciously aware of them.
• These signals warn us of impending danger, such as a dangerous mine wall, or motivate us to take advantage of an opportunity
• Some intuition also directs us to preferred choices relative to other alternatives in the situation
• Some emotional signals are not intuitions. Emotional responses are not always based on well-grounded mental models.

1. Making Choices more effectively

• Systematically evaluate alternatives

- Decisions tend to have higher failure rate when leaders are decisive rather than contemplative about the available option

- By systematically assessing alternatives against relevant factors, decision makers minimize the implicit-favourite and satisficing problems that occur when they rely on general subjective judgments.