CREATIVE DECISION MAKING IN THE ORGANIZATION

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the role of creativity in the decision making process for the promotion of organization. The creativity of an individual is a rational factor to decision making in an organization which contributes the success of organization. Therefore, it is essential to ensure creative environment in the organization promoting creative freedom to support the overall decision making system. By following different strategies, it is possible to create such environment from which the organization can take benefit by utilizing the creativity of every person in the organization. The paper defines decision making and creativity and attempts to explore some strategies for making creative decisions ensuring the participation of the individuals working in the organization.

Key Words:  Creative decision making; promotion of organization; creative environment; motivation

Background

Decision making plays the vital role in every affair of organization. How to take a decision in a particular affair is a big challenge to every organizational leader /manager in an organization. This act of taking decision is regarded as a heart of management.  Decision making can be defined as the conscious process of making choices among alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affair. (Mc Shaine & Mary Anne, 2010, p.198) A manager continuously evolves in the decision making process while setting goals, determining plans, and taking courses of action, formulating strategies and policies, assigning jobs to subordinates, and evaluating their performance. (Paudyal, Pradhan & Bhandari, 2013).  Hence, all the managerial functions are determined by the decision making, it is a bench mark of all operation of activities.

In this regard, role of creativity on how to take decision becomes more significant. Then, what is creativity? a question arises. Simonton (2001) believes that creativity enables a person to adjust to novel circumstances and to solve problems that unexpectedly arise. Obviously, such a capacity is often very valuable in everyday life. If so, creativity is the capacity of mind that produces the original ideas and responds the new situations with tactfully.  It is the process of creating novel products, ideas, or procedures that are potentially relevant or useful to an organization. On this regard Vaezipour (2013) goes a step ahead and claims that ‘a well informed intuitive mind can act creatively in dealing with the most complicated decision-making scenarios leading to the novel-nonlinear approaches, fast decisions and speedy reaction to the changes.’ Obviously, the rhetoric of the literature suggests that creativity and decision making process become inseparable and complementary to each other.

Process of Creativity

Creative people often claim that ideas come to them ‘in a flash’ but Moorhead and Griffin (2009) claim that creativity tends to progress through a series of four stages: preparation, incubation, insight and verification. Here it is relevant to describe how the creativity evolves through these four stages. According to the authors, the first stage of creativity begins with preparation which includes the creative process of education and training. It is the state of gaining knowledge from education and training. Likewise, Incubation, the second phase of creativity, enables the maturity of gained knowledge and ideas acquired during the preparation. Similarly, the third stage of creativity, insight, through which the creative person achieves a new understanding of the problems and situations. The last stage of creative process is Verification in which the creative person goes through for the validity. What is achieved or flashed in the mind as new ideas require scientific experiment to confirm whether they are applicable. Definitely, the person may feel it is like a flashing ideas but it goes through these stages (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2002).

How can we get more creative decisions?  It is most essential to promote the culture for creative ideas. While there is some evidence that individuals vary in their ability to be creative, we also know that individuals are more creative when they are motivated by intrinsic interest, challenge, task satisfaction, and self-set goals. The manager can enhance or reduce the creativity of the employee in the organization. Enhancing creativity in organization is a big challenge to any manager. Managers who wish to enhance and promote creativity in their organization can follow variety of ways which are discussed below.

Promoting Creative Environment

Decisions are the choices made from two or more alternatives. Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem or an opportunity, (Cameron & Dennis, as quoted in Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2002). In an organization, if the creative environment is ensured, definitely, employee also can contribute to creative decision making. A creative environment, is one in which there are clear goals and objectives, and the freedom and autonomy to seek out the means of achieving those goals without interference, (Amabile 1998). In such environment, a person may have intrinsic motivation to achieve the goals of the organization. Whenever his /her creative ideas are accepted, they feel respected in the organization.

It demands a systematic and sustaining leadership effort in order to develop an organizational creative and innovative potential. ‘A creative environment is cultivated from the top and it is the leadership team that sets the level in terms of how the organization work with and develop its creative resources, which is present in every company’, (Amabile 1998).  The leaders should actively promote initiatives that generate creativity, remove barriers and formulate the innovation strategy that should work as a guideline for the entire organization.

Promoting Innovative Strategies

If the Creativity and innovation is emphasized all through the organizations through a continuous updated, it is possible if only emphasized upon clear and well formulated company strategy (Adam, Brezillion, Carlson, & Humpreys, 2006).  Initiative and attempts will be meaningless if such specific strategies are not developed. Particularly, the leader’s role will be vital in encouraging the employee for creative activities. The goal of the innovation strategy is to establish processes that foster the creative minds and make them stay in the organization. By creating an environment and an infrastructure to apt for the individual where their creativity is explored or clicked, the leader taps them into the organization and utilize for the progress of organization. It means strategically leadership can develop the policy to capture the talented people and utilizing their creativity for the sake of organization. It is important to implement the received creative ideas which not only helps for the progress of the organization but also motivates the employees intrinsically uplifting their morale.

Promoting Organizational Culture

Organizational culture helps in creative decision making process.  Organization Culture is defines as ‘a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems …,therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems (Schein, E.H. 2004).

It means to say that the new member also can contribute in creative decision making. If the manager could set up such culture where every individual could contribute less or more in decision making process, obviously, there is a high chances of getting creative ideas from each individual of the organization. A good leader definitely incorporates them for making their decision creative and sound which ultimately contribute for the betterment of the organization.

Promoting Distributed Leadership

As the Distributed leadership (DL) provides the opportunity to practice decision making role to many individuals one at a time, they can contribute for creative decision making. This approach addresses leadership along with teams, groups and organizational characteristics. In practice, this approach objects the supposition that an individual should take the lead to ensure change (Goeksy, 2015). Distributed Leadership (DL) can be considered as people centric leadership traits where responsibilities are assigned to the people involved holding them accountable on the particular task.  Proponents of this idea claim that shared leadership is required since institutions are too complex to be managed with only one individual. Responsibility for managing various complex tasks in organizations is distributed among a myriad of individuals with different roles. As each individual has their own creativity, it helps the organization to be benefited from them. Each subordinate leader gets the opportunity to think creatively, and implementing them differently. DL simply can be stated as involving others in decision making and problem solving with their innovative and original ideas.

The basic principle advocated in this approach is that it promotes creative idea through shared responsibilities.  Obviously, many minds are better than single mind. If the responsibility is distributed to many employees, again, they can have the opportunities to utilize creativity for the sake of the organization. By the same token, if the power and responsibility is vested in a single leader, the other employees tend to think that it is not their responsibility to contribute for decision making. They let leave for the leader alone. As a result, the organization will be deprived off innovative and original decision making and implementing them. However, distributed leadership concept and approaches continued to be explained under concepts such as

Managing Resources

If the organization recognizes the resources and manages them properly, the personnel of the organization will not leave the organization. The resources may include material resources like working hours, money, materials and technology, or mental resources like knowledge, ability or capabilities. It is especially the application and the combination of resources which determines the outcome of the creative and innovative performance. At the same time, if creative and original ideas are rewarded in the organization by accepting in the decision making, the organization will be highly benefited. Therefore, the leadership needs to pay attention on how to mobilize different resources to get more and more creative ideas for the advantages of the organization.

Supporting Creative Decision-Making with Information Technology

Constructivists believe that knowledge and idea can be gained through shared and previous knowledge.  ‘Such discoveries are only going to come about when the environment is carefully set up to make the important patterns discoverable’ (Taber, 2011). It means creativity of a person is explored only through the information the person has received. Therefore, the organization has to manage the information technology in the organization, so that every person working there can have their creative ideas explored. This is the age of information and every individual longs for the knowledge. The knowledge and information received from the information technology ultimately helps to explore the creativity of the person. As a result, those ideas can be borrowed while taking decision. It helps not only to solve the problem of the organization but also may help to explore the better opportunities.

Avoiding disturbing atmosphere in the workplace

Sometimes the policy and system of the organization itself may discourage the creativity in the work.  The Organizational factors may block creativity at work. According to Amabile, T. (1996) there are some factors like:  expected evaluation—focusing on how work is going to be evaluated; surveillance—being watched while working; external motivators—focusing on external, tangible rewards; competition—facing win-lose situations with peers; and constrained choice—being given limits on how to do the work. These factors reduce the creativity in the organization. As a result, the employee can’t contribute in decision making even if they are provided with the shared leadership. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to such factors and reduce them for the betterment of the organization.

Conclusion

Creative decision making has key roles for the betterment and progress of the organization. As an organization has many personals, it is necessary to utilize all their creative, innovative and original ideas for the prosperity of the organization. For this reason, if the organization adopts the policy of involving those individuals in decision making, all of them can contribute for creative decision making. By implementing those creative decisions, definitely, the organization can achieve its goal. To get this into practice, it is necessary to adopt certain policy by the organization like creating environment, promoting distributed leadership and accepting the creative ideas from any level if they are creative and good for the organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

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