Creativity in Decision Making

1. Creativity in Decision Making Dr. Yan Liu Department of Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Wright State University

2. Introduction • A good decision making includes active creation of new and useful alternatives • An organization must be able to innovate rapidly and flexibly to be successful in the 21st century • Dynamic, ill-defined, full of uncertainty decision making environment • A creative alternative must be both novel and effective • A new approach that has never been seen previously • Helps to achieve the fundamental objectives of the problem

3. Psychological Theories of Creativity • Self-Actualization (Maslow, 1954; Davis, 1986) • Perceive reality accurately • Compare cultures objectively • Look at things in a fresh, naïve, simple way • Creativity can be developed by people (including those without special talents) • Psychoanalytic Theories (Kris, 1952; Kubie, 958; Rugg, 1963) • Creativity is the result of preconscious mental activity • Behavioristic Theories (Maltzman,1960; Skinner, 1972) • Creative behavior is a conglomerate of responses to environmental stimuli • Appropriate stimuli can lead to more creative behaviors • Cognitive Approach (Campbell, 1960; Mednick, 1962; Staats, 1968) • Creativity stems from a capacity for making unusual and new mental associations of concepts

4. Chains of Thought Example • You have four three-link chain segments (shown in the figure) • A jeweler has offered to connect the segments to make a complete circle • To do so, he must open and re-solder some links at a cost of $50 per soldered link • You only have $150, which means only three links can be opened and soldered So how can the job be completed? Open all three links of one segment and then use these three links to connect the remaining three segments

5. Phases of the Creativity Process • Preparation • Understand the elements of the problem and their relationships • Looking at the problem from different perspectives • Incubation • Explore directly or indirectly different paths toward new alternatives • Unconscious processing of information about the decision • e.g. A dream of Kekule led to the discovery of the chemical structure of the Benzene ring • The decision maker may do many things that seem to have a low chance of generating a new alternative, such as eliminating assumptions or adopting an entirely different perspective • Illumination • The instant of becoming aware of a new candidate solution, spontaneously or as the result of careful work and study • Verification • Verify the merits of the candidate solution • Satisfy constraints of the problem, perform well relative to fundamental objectives

6. Blocks to Creativity • Framing and Perceptual Blocks • Stereotyping • Most people fit observations into a standard category or stereotype • Usually works well because the categories are rich enough to adequately represent most observations • Can interfere with good judgment when new phenomena appear • Tacit assumptions • People look at problems with tacitly imposed constraints which are sometimes appropriate but sometimes inappropriate • Inability to understand a problem at different levels • Isolating the precise decision context that requires attention • Focusing too much on detail and not being able to reframe the decision in a broader context (“not seeing the forest for the trees”)

7. Blocks to Creativity (Cont.) • Value-Based Blocks • Fear of taking risks (risk aversion) • May be counterproductive not to consider a creative alternative just because others may think your idea is impossible or too “far out” • Status quo bias • The stronger the bias, the more difficulty one may have identifying creative solutions and alternatives • Reality versus fantasy • Placing much higher values on being realistic than fantasizing • Should be able to control imagination while exploring it

8. Blocks to Creativity (Cont.) • Social and Cultural Blocks • Taboos • What are “proper behaviors” or “acceptable” in the culture sense • Strength of tradition • Socio – cultural environment places a high value on maintaining tradition • Reason and logic versus humor, fantasy and artistic thinking • Feelings, intuitions, and emotions are depreciated in business problem solving • Valuable insights and understanding come from analytical treatments, yet valuable cues and ideas can arise by admitting and examining feeling, intuitions, and emotions • Organization Issues • Natural tendency of organizations to routinize, decrease uncertainty, increase predictability, and centralize functions and controls • Excessive formal procedures, lack of cooperation and trust among co-workers, and hierarchical organization structures

9. Creativity Techniques • Value-Focused Thinking • Use fundamental and means objectives as the basis for creating new alternatives • Invent an alternative that is as good as it could be for each fundamental objective and then find combinations (tradeoffs if necessary) to satisfy all objectives • Start considering all objectives at once and trying to find an ideal alternative for all dimensions and then revise the alternative if the perfect alternative does not exist • Broaden the decision context • Idea Checklists • Ask idea-spurring questions (See the insert at Page 234 of the textbook for Osborn’s 73 idea-spurring questions) • Write down alternative options for each attribute and then consider various combinations of the alternatives

10. Creativity Techniques (Cont.) • Brainstorming • At least two people, but no more than 8 or 10 people • Four rules • Rule out criticism • Welcome freewheeling • Seek large quantities of ideas • Encourage combination and improvement of ideas • Types of brainstorming • Free-form (unstructured) brainstorming • Participants simply contribute ideas as they come to mind • Pros: Participants can build on each other’s ideas. • Cons: the less assertive or low-ranking participants may not contribute • Structured brainstorming • Solicit one idea from each person in sequence • Pros: each person has an equal chance to participate, regardless of rank or personality • Cons: lack of spontaneity and somewhat rigid environment

11. Creativity Techniques (Cont.) • Metaphorical Thinking • Direct analogy • Think about how others have solved similar problems • Personal analogy • Imagine yourself being involved in situations relevant to the problem • Fantasy analogy • Seek to come up with far-stretched, fantastic, and ideal solutions • Help overcome value-based and culture blocks

12. Creativity Techniques (Cont.) • Nominal Group Technology • Each individual writes down as many ideas as possible and then in turn presents one of his/her ideas • Group leader records the ideas on a flipchart or chalkboard • Group discussions start after all the ideas are presented • Each individual ranks the ideas • Combine ratings to reach group decisions • Pros: prevent individuals from making disruptive comments during the session compared to the brainstorming approach • Cons: the group may lose the synergy that comes from an open session