management case analysis
alnnrye
s9creativeproblemsolving_S22018.pdf
Management Competencies
Session 9: CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING Seminar Instructor:
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Agenda
1. Warm-up case 2. basics on cognitive biases
1. Biological influences 2. Social Context / Culture influences 3. Personality influences
3. Practice: Creativity challenge 4. Improving creative problem solving (debiasing)
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powerful. flawed!
unique!
1. Warm-Up Case
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MONEYBALL – problem solving dysfunction
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Assignment: • note the problems that occur in the
group’s attempt at problem solving • reflect on why these problems occur
• Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), is general manager of the Oakland A's, an under-resourced baseball team
• Before the new season starts, he loses 3 of this best players to other teams
• He has no replacements in the team, and no budget to hire equivalent players from others teams
• He arranges a meeting with his team of talent scouts to discuss potential solutions.
2. basics of cognition
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optimize ! (best possible
option)
satisfice ! (“good enough”
option)
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idealistic view
realistic view
how people process stimuli
8source: adapted from hambrick & mason 1984 AMR
stimuli
choice
limited field of vision
& memory
selective attention &
recall interpretation
personality (preferences, needs,
thinking style, knowledge/experience,
etc.)
social context / culture
(frames, values, stress, structure, etc.)
biology (attention, memory,
systematic heuristics + biases, emotions)
stimuli
biology
personality
social context/ culture
biology
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Daniel Kahneman • Social psychologist • Received Nobel Prize for
Economics 2002
relies on heuristics: intuitive shortcuts learned from experience
• save limited time and attention
• cope with incomplete information or too complex information
• heuristics can bring hidden traps and lead to systematic mistakes in judgment (i.e. confirmation bias, anchoring, availability bias, etc.)
advantages disadvantages
system 1: fast, reflexive
system 2: slow, reflective
attempts to carefully think things through (systematic evaluation of adv./disadv. etc.)
READING: Milkman, Katherine L., Dolly Chugh, and Max H. Bazerman. "How can decision making be improved?." Perspectives on Psychological Science 4.4 (2009): 379-383
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relevance for creative problem solving:
we tend to dismiss things/ideas that are incompatible with held beliefs
CONFIRMATION BIAS
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OPTIONAL READING: De Martino, B., et al. (2006). "Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain." Science 313(5787): 684-687.
FRAMING EFFECTS
relevance for creative problem solving:
how ideas are presented influences our willingness to pick risky options
social context / culture
personality
social context/ culture
biology
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IMPLICIT BIAS / IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION
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• internalized, taken for granted assumptions about associations between race/gender/etc. and ability, trustworthiness, socioeconomic status (i.e. stereotypes)
• implicit biases are not accessible through introspection, and may be at odds with espoused values
relevance for creative problem solving:
erroneous assumptions about team members or stakeholders risk faulty problem definitions, solutions development, and solution evaluation
personality
personality
social context/ culture
biology
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powerful. flawed!
unique!
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relevance for creative problem solving:
unique perspectives can be a source of creativity and a source of misunderstanding/conflict (“I don’t see how this is useful…”)
3. PRACTICE: CREATIVITY CHALLENGE
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4. IMPROVING CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING
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Debiasing
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READING: Milkman, Katherine L., Dolly Chugh, and Max H. Bazerman. "How can decision making be improved?." Perspectives on Psychological Science 4.4 (2009): 379-383
not very effective: a) appeals to “try harder” b) offering warnings about the
possibility of bias c) describing the direction of a bias d) providing personalized feedback
(on errors in judgment)
more effective:
shifting decision makers from System 1 thinking to System 2 thinking (i.e. replacing intuition with formal analytic processes) e.g. by: • employing simple linear (econometric) models • taking an outsider’s perspective • “consider the opposite’’ • analogical reasoning (finding common underlying principles) • requiring joint rather than individual decision making • choosing between multiple options simultaneously (rather
than rejecting option separately)
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2 using contextual nudges to counter problematic system 1 biases
Debiasing – a simplified model
personality
social context/ culture
biology to address limits: involve multiple decision makers
to address biases: involve diverse decision makers (who work with different premises) utilize “rich” data
to manage multiple/diverse decision makers: carefully structure the process (choice architecture)
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encouraging people to share unique perspectives
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Why is it difficult for people to share unique information/perspectives they have?
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Ego-protection: In general we do not want to look weird, be judged
Projected Similarity: people may not see the need to share their point of view, because of
• subconscious parochialism (belief that your way of thinking is the only possible way of thinking)
• the assumption that people (or their situation) are more similar to you than what they really are, and that they see/interpret things in a similar way, have similar access to similar information etc.
3 Groupthink: in cohesive decision-making groups we experience a psychological drive for consensus at any costs
solutions: • Encourage a culture of differences
and psychological safety • demonstrate through active
listening for and reward contrarian views to demonstrate uncommon knowledge is welcome/valued
• show own willingness to accept criticism to encourage expression of doubts
how to structure the process: the design thinking approach
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DIVERGE
CONVERGE
SEE ALSO OPTIONAL READING: Kelley, T. & Kelley, D. (2012). Reclaim your creative confidence. Harvard Business Review. 90(12), 115-118.
