Increasing Creatvity in Business Decision Making

In rational decision making, how much creativity is acceptable for an organization? Common sense also dictates that too much creativity in decision making is to be avoided since the ultimate goal is provide benefit, not harm.

Decision making is a reaction to an initial problem that has come to the attention of the proper personnel and that person then examines it for needed action. As a standard; decisions are made in business environments using pre-defined models like: defining the problem in a constrained format, outlining specific criteria of the object, determining the values of all these criteria, giving due consideration to all reasonable alternatives, then evaluating the alternatives and making a final selection as a decision. It has been said that the higher the level of experience; the greater the creativity skills, coupled with an increased level of motivation will then produce an increase in creativity in decision making (Robbins & Judge, 2007; Rodriguez, 2007).

Hughes (2003) notes that "research has shown everyone has some creativity".He specifies that "systematic courses of instruction in applied imagination produce significant gains in personality traits such as confidence, self-reliance, persuasiveness, initiative, and leadership" this leading to a positive gain for the employee and the company. He feels that corporations should look for employee's that have "higher than average scores in areas of mental/emotional health" and feels confident that the studies he has reviewed are accurate when he links those numbers to "higher than average scores in creative thinking"(Hughes, 2003).

Rodriguez (2007) feels that creative risk taking on decisions may create an increase in innovation and with careful actions develop "higher odds of innovating routinely and successfully" for an organization. He gives the Toyota Prius car as an example. He writes of its success and about the teamwork of designers that took risks in their decision making and pushed their creativity past the old limits. He sums up the key to improving creativity as "Think big, but use constraints-such as schedule, headcount, and scope" (Rodriguez, 2007).

Thurm (2007) writes that "management by data" may be the latest trend but business methodology must include innovation in decision making. Scott Thurm suggests risks are inherent if using only an analytic or data-driven approach as this focus will repress the needed creativity desirable for innovation and business growth.He writes that the success of corporations as diverse as "Harrah's Entertainment, Google, Capital One Financial and the Oakland A's" are "admirable through the use of management by data" but some credit must be given to the creativity used for these enterprises and their use of innovation for growth (Thrum, 2007).
Ponder writes of having a "set of beliefs and personality traits" to compliment leadership styles noting that "a person's mannerisms and personality" do not change. The "complexity of leadership" must have recurring qualities that "seem to surface in the best leaders; one of them being creative problem solving". He states that " the best leaders concern themselves both with people relationships and the tasks for which they are responsible because tasks usually are accomplished more effectively when human factors are considered (Ponder, 2005).Ponder continues with some statements"using creativity adds value" and this "value can be economic, social, psychological, or aesthetic" but that creative problem-solving (CPS) training works for businesses (Ponder, 2005).

Developing an increase in creativity levels will benefit decision making. It would seem that the newspaper and magazine articles that can be located generally on the Internet form a consensus. That consensus is that under certain directed constraints necessary to protect the integrity of the ongoing business, improvement in creative problem solving benefits that business (Rodriguez, 2007). To encourage employees to creatively answer changing environments, situations and systems while protecting the integrity of the business is the ultimate goal of developing more creativity in decision making (Robbins & Judge, 2007; Thurm, 2007).

References

Hughes, D. (2003). Add creativity to your decision processes. Journal for Quality and Participation, Retrieved August 28, 2007, from http://asq.org/pub/hp/actydp.htm

Ponder, R. D. (September 27, 2005). Leadership Made Easy -Determine Your Leadership Style. Entrepreneur.com, Retrieved August 27, 2007, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/management/leadership/learningtolead/article80104.html

Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T.A. (2007). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Rodriguez, D. (2007 May 16). Embracing Risk to Grow and Innovate. Businessweek.com, Retrieved August 28, 2007, from http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2007/id20070516_224245.htm?chan=search

Thurm, S. (July 23, 2007). Now, It's Business By the Data, but Numbers Still Can't Tell Future. In the Lead The Wall Street Journal Online, Retrieved August 28, 2007, from http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118514369308274339.html