CHAPTER 10

CREATIVITY AND TEAM DECISION MAKING

OUTLINE

I.                    THE CREATIVE PROCESS MODEL

A.      Creativity refers to developing an original product, service, or idea that makes a socially recognized contribution.

 

B.      Preparation

1.       An important condition for creativity.

2.       Is the person or group’s effort to acquire knowledge and skills regarding the problem or opportunity.

3.       Involves developing a clear understanding what you are trying to achieve through a novel solution

C.      Incubation

1.       Stage of reflective thought.

2.       Maintain a low-level awareness by frequently revisiting the problem.

3.       Assists divergent thinking which involves reframing the problem in a unique way and generating different approaches to the issue.

D.      Insight

1.       Insight refers to the experience of suddenly becoming aware of a unique idea.

2.       Fleeting and can be quickly lost if not documented.

E.       Verification

1.       Usefulness requires verification through conscious evaluation and experimentation.

2.       Verification is the beginning—not the ending—of creativity.

II.                  CONDITIONS FOR CREATIVITY

A.      Characteristics of Creative People

1.       Intellectual abilities to synthesize information, analyze ideas, as well as to apply their ideas.

2.       Relevant knowledge and experience are a good foundation for employees to be more creative.

 

3.       Strong motivation and persistence is the need for achievement and at least moderate degree of self-confidence.

4.       Inventive thinking style thinks about creating things rather than improving on them, creative people are risk-takers.

B.      Creative Work Environment

1.       Organizational support allows employees to make mistakes and encourages them to try out ideas where failure is more than a remote possibility and provides a reasonable level of job security.

2.       Intrinsically motivating work

a.       Employees tend to be more creative when they believe their work has a substantial impact on the organization and/or larger society.

b.       Creativity increases with autonomy.

c.        Creativity is an ongoing learning process.

d.       Creative productivity is also higher when people engage in self-set creativity goals, feedback, and other elements of self-leadership.

3.     Sufficient time and resources are needed to explore alternatives and test their ideas.

III.               CREATIVE PRACTICES

A.      Redefining the Problem

1.       Understand the problem in different ways.

2.       Discover unique solutions from a different perspective.

B.      Associative Play

1.       Associative playful activities can help the rest think more divergently.

2.       Object-oriented chain story gets everyone thinking differently while having fun.

3.       Art or some other creative non-work activity.

4.       Metaphors to compare the situation with something else.

5.       Morphological analysis involves listing different dimensions of a system and the elements of each dimension, then look at each combination.

C.      Cross-Pollination

1.       Ensure that employees work with different people on each project.

2.       Occurs through formal information sessions where people from different parts of the organization share their knowledge.

IV.                CONSTRAINTS ON TEAM DECISION MAKING AND CREATIVITY

A.      Time Constraints

1.       Teams take longer than individuals to make decisions

a.       Require extra time to organize, coordinate, and socialize.

b.       Need time to learn about each other and build a rapport.

c.        Need to manage an imperfect communication process.

d.       Need to coordinate roles and rules of order within the decision process.

2.       Production blocking caused participants to forget potentially creative ideas when it is their turn to speak, since only one person can speak at a time.

B.      Evaluation Apprehension

1.       Based on the individual’s desire to create a favorable self-presentation and their need for social esteem.

2.       Most common in meetings attended by people with different levels of status or expertise.

3.       Problem when the group wants to generate creative ideas

C.      Conformity to Peer Pressure

1.       Keeps the group organized around common goals, but it causes team members to suppress their dissenting opinions about discussion issues.

2.       Can be subtle, we depend on the opinions that others hold to validate our own views.

D.      Groupthink

1.       Groupthink is the tendency of highly cohesive groups to value consensus at the price of decision quality.

2.       Strong social pressures on individuals members to maintain harmony by avoiding conflict and disagreement.

3.       Suppress doubts about decision alternatives preferred by the majority or group leader.

4.       High cohesiveness is likely to occur when:

a.       the team is isolated from outsiders

b.       the team leader is opinionated

c.        the team is under stress due to an external threat

d.       the team has experienced recent failures

e.        the team lacks clear guidance from corporate policies or procedures

E.       Group Polarization

1.       Group polarization refers to the tendency of teams to make more extreme decisions than individuals working alone.

2.       Individuals feel less personally responsible for the decision consequences because the decision is made by the team.

 

V.                  TEAM STRUCTURES FOR CREATIVITY AND DECISION MAKING

A.      Constructive Controversy

1.       Constructive controversy occurs when team members debate their different perceptions about an issue in a way that keeps the conflict focused on the task rather than people.

2.       Is constructive because the discussion minimized negative conflict while discussing differences

3.       Generate constructive controversy by:

a.       decision making groups should be heterogeneous

b.       these groups should meet often enough to allow meaningful discussion over contentious issues

c.        individual members take on different discussion roles.

d.       team members thinking through the consequences of the preferred choice under several scenarios.

B.      Brainstorming

1.       Brainstorming requires team members to abide by the four rules:

a.       no criticism

b.       provide as many ideas as possible

c.        speak freely

d.       build on the ideas of others.

2.       Brainstorming is the most popular team structure for encouraging creative ideas.

 

C.      Electronic Brainstorming

1.       Electronic brainstorming lets participants share ideas while minimizing the team dynamics problems inherent in traditional brainstorming sessions

2.       Significantly reduces production blocking

3.       Generates more ideas than traditional brainstorming and participants seem to be more satisfied, motivated, and confident in the decision making exercise than in other team structures.

4.       Electronic brainstorming is perhaps too structured and technology-bound for most people.

D.      Delphi Technique

1.       Delphi technique systematically pools the collective knowledge of experts on a particular subject to make decisions, predict the future, or identify opposing views.

2.       Do not meet fact-to-face and are often located in different parts of the world and may not know each other’s identity.

3.       Submit possible solutions or comments regarding an issue to the central convener

E.       Nominal Group Technique

1.       Nominal group technique is a variation of traditional brainstorming and Delphi technique that tries to combine individual efficiencies with team dynamics.

2.       First involves the individual, then the group, and finally the individual again.

3.       Tends to produce more and better quality ideas than do traditional interacting groups.

4.       Usually maintains a high task orientation and relatively low potential for conflict within the team.

5.       Team cohesiveness is generally lower in nominal decisions because the structure minimizes social interaction.