Decision Making and the Creativity of Creative Decision Making

Decision Making and the Creativity of Creative Decision Making

PSY302: Industrial/Organizational Psychology (PSH1916A)

Decision Making and the Creativity of Creative Decision Making

Decision-making can be depicted as a procedure of settling on one or more decisions, in view of choices made among at least two or more contending course of actions. The decision-making process likewise requires settling on a decision that is characterized between two or more alternative courses of actions that are accessible. Decision-making is an everyday action for any person. With regards to organizations, decision-making is a norm and a procedure. Powerful profitable choices present benefits to organizations, and ineffective choices produce loses. Thus, corporate decision-making is one of the most basic procedure in all associations. In the decision-making process one strategy from a couple of potential choices is chosen. During decision-making, individuals or groups utilize numerous equipment, methods and perceptions. Also, settling may be done on individual private choices or may incline toward mutual choices. In most instances decision-making is a difficult process within organizations. Majority of organizational decisions embrace some dimension of displeasure or strife with different groups.

Whenever dealing with organizational decision making there are certain aspects that must be included in the process. Rationale decision-making plays a factor in organizational decision making. Three concepts of rationale decision-making that affects decision-making are bounded rationality, cognitive biases and conjunction fallacy. There is also a theory labeled the attribution theory that is a part of organizational decision-making that consists of the effects of perception with decision- making; the information included with decision making which incorporates the consistency of information, the consensus information and the distinctiveness of information; along with the fundamental attribution error organizational error. The following paper will discuss all of these aspects that I just mentioned, along with a personal experience of my own with inaccurate judgement, and how creative decision-making can improve our ability to make better decisions.

Decision-Making

Decision-making is a vital part to all organizations. Making Rational decisions can be the difference between an organization being successful or being unsuccessful. There is a rational decision-making model used in organizational decision-making. The chief belief of rational decision-making is to distinguish and choose the result that is of the most extreme incentive to the organization. The rational decision-making model is comprised of six steps. The first step is to define the problem. In this step the problem is identified and verified the correct problem is being identified. Step two is to identify the criteria. In this step once the problem is identified the organization must form their formula for the decision and form the process for their goals in order to get the organization to the to the point that the goals that have been set can be accomplished. Step three is to weight the criteria. In this step the formula in which they have suggested to accomplish their goals is dissected I order to find the positives and negatives in the formula in order to confirm that the formula will be able to assist the organization to achieve the set goals. Step four generating alternatives. During this step brainstorming is done within the organization in order to come up with alternatives to the formula that they have created. People creating the criteria may even look back over past formulas that were created in order to see if they can comprise new ideas. Step five is to rate each alternative on all parts of criteria. In this step each formula is placed on a number scale from formula that will most likely help the organization to attain their appointed goals, to least likely to help organization to attain their appointed goals. This step is a difficult step due to it being based off of predictions of future result instead of actual results. The sixth and final step that involves rational decision-making is computing the most favorable decision. During this step all criteria (formulas) are calculated and compared to each other, with the formula having the highest chance of helping the organization reach its goals being the one that will be utilized (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017).

Bounded Rationality

In organization decision-making bounded rationality can play a part in making rational decisions. Bounded rationality declares that the limited or constrained or mental capacities in conjunction with outside elements such as time or cash for example that an individual has no influence over can be the cause of the individual settling on choices that are irrational (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). A good example of this is when an individual is in a situation that requires a hurried decision. During a situation such as this, a person may not have an ample amount of time to gather the maximum data needed on all aspects of the situation in order to make a rational decision. Thus, this forces the person to make an acceptable decision but likely not a decision that is considered to be optimal.

Cognitive Biases

Cognitive biases play a part in organizational decision making and is one of the most prevalent reason for making irrational decisions. “Cognitive biases can distort information processing if they are generalized too frequently or applied inappropriately” (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017, sec. 8.4, p. 11). A top prevalent cause of cognitive biases that I will reflect on is confirmation biases. Confirmation bias states that individuals search for data that affirms or carries what they accept to be valid and disregard data that discredits or does not carry what they accept to be valid (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). There is worry that particular introduction and confirmation bias can prompt inaccuracies of judgment and broken decision-making. A self-serving inclination toward attitude consonant data can prompt an inability to appropriately gauge evidence, improper certainty, and poor decisions. With this in mind, PC computers conceivably help bias individuals by helping them to get to the data they like and want to see, as opposed to the data they should and need to know (Phillips, Hoon & Landon, 2016).

Conjunction Fallacy

Assumptions are an issue in many people and many situations. With that being said, Assumptions are no exception within organizational decision-making. This is where conjunction fallacy plays a part in the decision-making of organizations. Conjunction fallacy happens when it is expected that various specific conditions are more plausible than a solitary general one. Thus, making the more specific decision appear to be more illustrative of the situation than the one that is more general (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). Conjunction fallacy simply effects organizational decision-making by causing people to make the wrong decisions based from assumptions and stereotypes, whether these assumptions and stereotypes were personal or influenced by others.

Attribution Theory

When pertaining to an organization, attribution theory comes into pay from the way an individual perceives and describes the behavior of themselves as well as others in the workplace, and the aftermath that proceeds those actions. Attribution theory in organizational decision-making happens when various specific conditions are expected to be more plausible than one that is solitary. Thus, making the more specific decision appear to be more representative of the situation than the more general one. There are both dispositional and situational characteristics of the attribution theory. Dispositional (internal) factors are generated from personal characteristics of an individual, while situational (external) factors are generated factors from the outside that are considered as being out of the individual’s control (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017).

Consistency, Consensus, Distinctiveness

Consistency in the attribution theory is based on if the behavior of the individual is a consistent action or not. If complaints of bad behavior are constantly being filed on an individual at an organization, it will likely be seen as a dispositional (internal) factor that this individual has naturally bad behavior. In contrast, if an individual at an organization has no history of complaints and receives a complaint today, it will likely be seen as a situational (external) factor such as personal problems outside of work for example. Consensus in the attribution theory is based on if an individual is effected by a situation, is it possible that other people would act in a similar manner to the same situation. This could possibly be a dispositional factor if only a few people become effected by a situation in an organization, but if there are many people effected in a similar way in an organization then the chances of it being a situational factor is higher. Distinctiveness in the attribution theory is based on if a certain behavior is similarly and consistently being displayed in more than a single area. Distinctiveness would be a dispositional factor if a single or few individuals are effected, but if multiple or many people are effected similarly then this would be a situational factor (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017).

Fundamental Attribution Error

Perception is a process in which individuals gather their implication of the world. When it comes to perception, objective reality is unlike perceived reality, along with the reality of one person possibly being remarkably different from the reality of others (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). Perception plays a role in the way that behavior is attributed, and fundamental attribution error plays a role in organizational decision-making. Fundamental attribution error happens in organizations when an individual displays a certain type of behavior and an administrator automatically attributes the behavior as a dispositional factor instead of considering the possibility that the behavior of the individual could be caused by a situational factor (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). An example of fundamental attribution error is a person working at a call center is not receiving the required number of calls per hour that is required, and the administrator automatically makes the poor judgement that the individual is slacking on their job (dispositional factor). In actuality, the individual hasn’t been able to receive the required number of calls per hour because of phone issues (situational factor).

Personal Experience: Inaccurate Judgement

There have been many instances in which I have personally experienced inaccurate judgement. The one that I am about to reflect on is an experience that I had at my most recent job. I was a supervisor in the kitchen. I was doing prep work for both that day and the rest of the week. We happened to get some downtime and that was when some of the people went outside for cigarette break. I do not smoke, therefore I stayed in the kitchen and continued working. There were some things that were not put away properly, and not stored correctly before people went outside. The head chef came into the kitchen and saw that things were out of order and since I was the only one in the kitchen at the time, he began to give me a hard time about the things that were not done correctly. This was definitely a situation that involved inaccurate judgement in his behalf because he thought that I was the one that did these things. Afterwards thigs got sorted out and he gave me an apology, so all ended well. Attribution theory played a part in this situation as a situational (external) factor. Since he perceived me a being the problem but no areas that I work at had problems this was distinctiveness because I showed this behavior in no other way.

Creative Decision Making

Creativity is described as the generations of schemes that are considered to be of originality and able to be adaptive. Creativity is said to occur whenever a product, a service, or a procedure is initiated to others that will be considered original and beneficial. There is a model of creativity called the three-component model of creativity that expressed by three components. The first component is expertise in which an individual displays the knowledge, skills and experience whenever proceeding towards a problem. The second component is creative-thinking skills which is displayed by analogies and the amount of flexibility and imagination an individual use whenever proceeding towards a problem. The third and final component is motivation which derives naturally from the inside of an individual and is increased when the individual is interested in the problem even without any outside motivation (Youssef-Morgan & Noon, 2017). Creativity improves better decision making through brainstorming and allowing people to think outside of a box and possibly get the chance to act outside of a box as well, and by doing so this gives the chance for more effectives methods to be successful to be presented to the organization.

In closing, decision-making is a procedure in which making decisions is done. For the most part, the procedure is comprised of stages that include noticing issues, creating choices, assessing choices, choosing an option, executing choices, and appraising choice efficiency. Each continuance in the decision-making process is significant to administrators and their need to think about their making of decisions. This is in light of the fact that organization goals or targets can’t be cultivated without fitting basic leadership processes. It is essential to utilize the attribution theory in an organization for understanding the behavior of individuals in the working environment. It can help the people in understanding another person’s conduct just as their own.

References

Phillips, J. G., Hoon, T., & Landon, J. (2016). Dynamic Selective Exposure during Decision-Making. Journal of General Psychology, 143(4), 239. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1080/00221309.2016.1214098

Youssef-Morgan, C., & Noon, A. (2017). Industrial/organizational psychology: Second edition [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/