Chapter 12

The most interesting thing I learned in chapter 12 was in the “Real World” section where it talked about McDonald’s multiple methods to identify the problem of losing customers to Starbucks and other coffee shops. I had no idea that so much research goes into figuring out where people are purchasing there beverages after they order their food. McDonalds conducted several three hour interviews, which were videotaped, in which interviewers studied beverage buying habits of their customers. The problem they saw was that McDonalds was missing out on one of the fastest growing beverage industries. The text explains how data proved that soda sales had flattened while specialty coffee and smoothie sales were growing at double digit rates.
I did some additional research to find out which type of person goes where. Studies prove that the average age of a McDonald’s customer is 18-34, as for Starbucks the average age of a customer is between 35-44 years old. Income also plays a role in which goes where, people with incomes over $60,000 per year tend to go to Starbucks where as people with an income lower than $60,000 tend to buy McDonald’s products.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1702277,00.html

Chapter 12: The Rational Model

When managers make decisions it is essential that they consider all possible solutions before making a final decision. The rational model presented by Kreitner and Kinicki “proposes that managers use a rational, four-step sequence when making decisions” (337). This will allow them to make better decisions and narrow down their options in an effective manner. In addition, they will be capable of making firm decisions which will benefit their companies and it will help them succeed. The four steps which Kreitner and Kinicki speak about in the book are identyfying the problem, generating alternative solutions, selecting a solution, and implementing and evaluating the solution. These steps are useful when making decisions which will affect a group or decisions that will only affect an individual.

In an article, which was researched by a student at the University of Granada in Spain, she speaks about her approach in conductiong her research,which consisted of the Rational Model. Not only is the rational model useful for everyday decisions, but it is also useful when conducting important research. It is a basic outline when conducting any type of research. She explains how the, “The rational approach of attention purports to describe the ways in which the Human Visual System (HVS), which is what her study is about, actually does behave in making choices among possible locations of interest for allocating attention” (609). She also explains that “We are interested in the aspects of rationality that seem to be present in the decision making of the HVS” (613). She uses all four steps in the rational model in order to prove her problem and find an answer to her study. She also shows how important decision making is, which can be influenced by our areas of interest. This approach also applies to businesses and managers when they are faced with difficult decision making, especially when their decisions strongly affect other individual.

Source: García, J.A., et al. "Information visibility using transmission methods." Pattern Recognition Letters 31.7 (2010): 609-618. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Mar. 2010.

Chapter 12: Making Decisions

In chapter 12, decision making is fully examined. In the book, there are four types of decision making styles: analytical, behavioral, conceptual, and directive. Chapter 12 includes a grid with all four decision making styles, and I also decided to search more about them. In one presentation online, the term decision was defined as a choice from two or more alternatives. The same site also defined the decision making process as a set of eight steps including identifying a problem, selecting an alternative, and evaluating the decision's effectiveness.

Looking into the four types of decision making styles, I found another site that gave definitions to each that seemed close to the book's definitions. For the directive style, the site refers to the person with that type of style as having low tolerance for ambiguity and are efficient, rational, and logical in their way of thinking. Those people focus on the short term and decide based on minimal information and alternatives. For analytical decision makers, they have a higher tolerance for ambiguity than directive decision makers, and they enjoy more information and alternatives. Conceptual decision makers are generally more broad and consider all available alternatives, and they are focused on long term goals and are capable of creativity. The last one, which is the behavioral style, contains people who work well with others and are open to suggestions. Through all four, I definitely think that it is important to try and put all together in making a decision. It is important to find out information and alternatives as well as hear others' suggestions when working with a team.


Sources: - http://www.slideshare.net/adhirock/the-decision-making-process-172869

- http://toolkit.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/dsrd/part/decision_making_styles/8/42/201.html

Decision Making Styles

In chapter 12 on of the major points explained were represented by figure 12-1, Decision-Making Styles. The four categories on this grid are Analytical, Conceptual, Directive and Behavioral. Directive style are usually oriented toward task and technical concerns during decision making, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and value orientation. Analytical is a decision making style that looks for alternatives and more information, it has a high ambiguity tolerance but a low value orientation. Behavioral is a more open minded style which has a lot of social interaction and has a high level or value orientation and a low tolerance to ambiguity. Finally conceptual is a problem solving style that considers many options and future possibilities. It has a high tolerance to ambiguity and value orientation. These all describe the combination of how a person perceives and comprehends stimuli and how they respond to information. Although almost every individual will make a decision differently, thier specific style will fall under one of these four Decision-Making Styles.

Decide when you're under pressure

When you're in an environment under pressure you make decisions quickly. This is the speed that characterizes this type of decision. How can we quickly take the right decision, is to decide under pressure.

The big difficulty in making a quick decision is that one is tempted to consider the issue with his own eyes. Everyone has been shaped by his upbringing, his culture and environment. Each brain reads the reality in a way and sort information in a unique way. We should therefore be particularly vigilant regarding the cultural filter.

In a second time to force them to acquire an overview of the problem, we will of course go to find information on the Internet, whose speed makes it a vital tool, but also look to our peers and to experts: consult experts can clarify the issue of limiting the scope of questioning. The principle: they have already faced similar problems. If this is not too complicated, benefit from their experience can save valuable time when we are in a hurry.

In any case, if we have two solutions, we must find the third. Otherwise there is a risk to limitate an early decision to evidence.

Do you think people need quiet space to be creative? p365

•  Quiet space is necessary if you want to think by yourself

Everybody needs time to make a decision. You cannot make up your mind if you are in a noisy atmosphere, and if you are not alone with yourself. It is the same thing with creativity; all the famous scientists and geniuses have a lot of time alone in their lab, before creating a new invention or product. So must be a businessman who wants to come up with a new dea, a new project or a new marketing plan. He must figure out by himself all the opportunities of the market; he also must do a brainstorming of all his ideas. many people need time and quiet space before creating something. So am I. I need to be alone a few moment if I want to write an assignement or a paper.

•  You need to be freed from the multiple tasks you have to do, and to be given this time
  

To get this quiet time, your mind must not be occupied by all the daily preoccupations, such as your appointments, your teamwork and so one. So if you have to create a project, or to come up with  anew idea, the best is to ask for quiet time to your employer, and to have a personnal assistant who can do what you can delegate. Thus, you will be free to take time by yourself.

•  It is also necesary to share your creativenes by talking with the other employees

When you have spent enough time alone, it is vey important to share your reflections with the team. They will give you new ideas. Indeed, when you spend too much time alone, the danger is to go into a bed direction and to forget the main points. 

Quiet time is really necessary, but it is very efficient when it is followed by discussion time.

Decisions, decisions...

Managers need to be capable of making unbiased, solid decisions that benefit their companies. There are two types of decisions: ones that need to be made on the spot and ones that require more time because their outcome has higher consequences upon a business. Oftentimes, the speedier decisions are made upon intuition- or at least recognizing a problem, relating it to a past problem and thinking back on how it was solved in the past. Of course, for more important decisions, this should not be the end of the decision-making process. From this point, a manager should reflect on how a past decision has affected a company and if there are any other alternative actions that could be taken. The goal being to make the best possible decision, not just any decision.

In the article I read, the author offers this advice "Leaders should not rely solely on intuitive judgments, nor on painstaking analyses. The key is to know how to choose. The more complex the decision, the more leaders need to supplement their hunches with investigation and analysis. But realizing that the brain is a maestro at recognizing patterns reminds them to respect their intuition as well."

Oftentimes we end up being guided by past experiences without being conscience of it. For example, in life, people often end up dating the same type of people and end up disappointed time and time again if their type is not 'good'. People buy the same type of products overtime too. When your sick, you automatically grab soup for dinner, instead of considering that bread may actually make your stomach feel better. It is important to train your mind to stop automatically going for the normal or comfortable. Yes, use your intuition to guide you, but don't let it be your ultimate solution because then nothing will ever change for the better (in your life or in a business).

Source:
Callahan, Lisa. "Blink or Think?." T+D 64.2 (2010): 68-69. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

Nominal Group Technique

Chapter 12 discussed individual and group decision making. When a certain group of people has to come up with a decision, it would be no surprise that we would all assume chaos. To be able to come to a group consensus and to be able to come up with ideas and decisions well, a form of structure is needed. This is where the nominal group technique comes in. The Nominal Group Technique is a decision making process used in a group setting. There is a particular process that needs to be done when using this technique:

1) Understanding the problem
2) Everyone in the group offers ideas to help solve the problem
3) Everyone discusses the ideas and decided whether or not they agree. This is the time they also ask for people’s clarifications.
4) Everyone votes anonymously for their choices


According to research done by Ann McPhail, this technique can also be useful for students. She did a study on how it affected students’ opinions about physical education in their school. The school was having a difficult time with trying to gather the students’ opinions about exercising and what they should do for physical education. The researcher noted, “The quantitative data (rankings) from the NGT format allows the researchers to assess the strength that the statements (qualitative data) had in the pupils’ response to a specific research question. “ In other words, it gave more details about the students’ response. It surprised me how a nominal group technique can be beneficial in a class setting.


Source:
MacPhail, A. (2001). Nominal Group Technique: A Useful Method for Working with Young People. British Educational Research Journal , 161-170.

Chapter 12

Simon’s Normative Model is a model, guided by bounded rationality, of processes that managers use when making decisions. Bounded rationality means that the decision makers have certain restrictions that affect their decision, such as, personal or environmental characteristics that lower rational decision making. This restriction results in minimal solutions to problems as opposed to optimal solutions, making it difficult for alternative solutions to be identified in the long run. Thus, decision makers are forced to satisfice with minimal solutions. An example of this would be when I received an assignment to compute a company’s financial ratios. The teacher left out the part where he wanted us to compare the ratios to the industry ratios and what the industry’s normal ratios were, therefore this lack of information created the restriction for my classmates and me. We had to satisfice by just computing the ratios and presenting the numbers, however, the numbers meant nothing without a comparison. As a result, my class handed in papers that only met the minimum and not the full requirements of the assignment.

In Power’s (2005) website, Simon claims that rational humans are satisficer and not optimizers by nature. According to Herbert Simon:

“The social sciences suffer from acute schizophrenia in their treatment of rationality. At one extreme, the economists attribute to economic man a preposterously omniscient rationality. Economic man has a complete and consistent system of preferences that allows him always to choose among the alternatives open to him; he is always completely aware of what these alternatives are; there are no limits on the complexity of the computations he can perform in order to determine what alternatives are best; probability calculations are neither frightening nor mysterious to him ... At the other extreme, are those tendencies in social psychology traceable to Freud that try to reduce all cognition to affect. Thus we show that coins look larger to poor children than to rich, that pressures of a social group can persuade a man he sees spots that are not there, that the process of group problem-solving involves accumulating and discharging tensions, and so on.”

This means that social sciences suffer from rationality because it constricts us to only think one way and therefore we fail to think outside of the box. It limits our intuition and only allows our problem-solving skills to be used which cause us to be easily influenced rather than using our own thoughts to make decisions. It makes people follows norms instead of being unique and embracing individuality.

Works Cited
Power, Daniel. Ask Dan! about DSS - How do decision-making models relate to the design and use of DSS? 6 August 2005. 27 March 2010 .

Your reward

In this day and age many people believe that by giving others a reward, or punishment, that it will give a person an incentive to do a better job on a particular task, or goal. Many people receive a reward in the form of a paycheck which is supposed to a physical manifestation of the time and effort a person has exuded in the work place, usually on a weekly basis. Another incentive that many employees are given is the promise of a promotion if they work an enormous amount of time and produce quality work, as deemed by their boss. Yet, others are satisfied by knowing that they have done their work and have done so efficiently. The idea of rewards and positive reinforcement are very mundane and have plagued the workplace for many years, and many employees are tired of such a system. Some of the goals set by companies make employees roll their eyes because it is usually something generic like "sales number" or "customer retention." Most people employees find this not to be a challenge and they want something to challenge them in many different ways. The book calls this learning goals says it is. "strives to improve creativity and develop skills." This is a better method and works better because employees are challenged to come up with new creative things and allows them to find different ways to attack or deal with a problem. A company should make goals on which the employees agree with and have a part in making or contribute to in some way, in order to reduce the hasty attitude and animosity in the workplace, and to increase excitement; the employees will have a renewed vigor for work because they will be able to offer new ideas, discuss ideas, compare them, and be able to present them to their fellow co-workers.

Expecting...

In the book they present the Expectancy Theory which was formulated by Victor Vroom and it has been summarized as, "The strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends of the strength of an expectancy that the act will be followed by a given consequence (or outcome) and on the value or attractiveness of that consequence (or outcome) to the actor. In other words people are motivated to act in a certain way after they consider the hypothetical outcome of an action they might commit in order to produce a desired outcome. Also if the individual thinks that putting forth more effort will not have any significant impact on the quality of the intended goal then he/she will put more, less, or the same amount of effort into their endeavors. Vroom defines expectancy as follows, "represents an individual's belief that a particular degree of effort will be followed by a particular level of performance." A person's expectancy can be influenced by factors such as:

1. Self-esteem

2. Self-efficacy

3. Previous success at the task

4. Help received from a supervisor and subordinates

5. Information necessary to complete the task

6. Good materials and equipment to work with

People's previous failures and glories will take much part in their expectancy and will at times dictate what a person does and how much effort a person will put into the task at hand. The designated importance a person places on a task, goal, etc. will also dictate how much effort a person is willing to put into their endeavors.

Personal Values

Our personal values and beliefs our instilled in us at a very young age without us having any knowledge until later on in life when we reflect or make a decision and come to the realization that a certain action we committed was due to what our parents taught us, or what we ourselves have learned through our experiences. The book uses Milton Rokeach's definition which states that' "a person's value system is defined as an enduring organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence along a continuum of relative importance." That being said all the decisions we make one a day to day basis are an outward representation of our own personal values, or value system. These values are further tested in the work place or when something is asked of them but if carried out that action might conflict with a person's value system. A study done by Julia Underwood, a professor in Azusa University, shows that students values are tested significantly once they graduate and get a job because their drive and ambition for success might result in the sacrifice of their value system, the adoption of maladaptive behavior. She then says that it is such perplexity that should give educator's an incentive to provide their students with an understanding that they must live with the choices they make and hold themselves accountable. Some people compromise their personal values for whatever reason, while others would rather sacrifice their jobs and not their personal values.

Underwood, J., and A. Harrison. "Perfectionist at 20 - Work-life Issues at 40? Personal value systems and Future Implications. " Interbeing 3.1 (2009): 31-36. ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest. Web. 27 Mar. 2010.

Chapter 5

A topic that I read about in Chapter 5 was self-efficacy, and as defined by the book self-efficacy is, "a person's belief about his or her own chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task." According to an expert self efficacy begins to manifest itself in a person through the experiences that they have in their childhood and also through the many skills that they pick up in many different areas/fields. Though self-esteem is not the same thing as self-efficacy, self esteem does however contribute positively on a persons self efficacy. Self-efficacy and performance is a "cyclical one", in the sense that a person can either spiral upwards towards success, or downwards to failure. Of course people who spiral downwards toward failure do so because they have a low self-efficacy, and people with such a view will tend to panic more easily and believe that they have no control over their surroundings. On the other hand people with strong self-efficacy are quick to get back up when they fall, and they refuse to quit or give up. Such people also develop of deep sense of interest in various activities, and will follow through on that they commit to, and face every challenge with a positive attitude believing they can supersede anything.

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/self_efficacy.htm

Ethnocentrism

In Chapter Four I read about ethnocentrism. I also learned about ethnocentrism in speech and rhetoric because it is one of the worst qualities or mindsets that one can walk into a room with. Ethnocentrism, as defined by the book is, "the belief that one's native country, culture, language, and modes of behavior are superior to all others." Many cultures and people as a whole have gone through hell because of people believing and thinking their culture was superior to other cultures they encountered. Some cultures that will immediately appear on the list, or at least mine, are African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and Jews. History has shown us that these cultures practically were to an extent pushed close to the brink of extinction and/or barbaric and inhumane treatment. In the book is states that having an ethnocentrism mind set is bad in a business setting according to extensive research conducted globally, and it leads to many problems within an organization. Most recently we have seen an utmost contempt to people who are Muslim or whom have ties to the Middle East due to the events of 9-11, and I personally believe that this is an injustice that the multitude have to pay for the sins and atrocities of a select few. However, this just goes to show how people can be easily influenced by the government whom had much propaganda of getting people to feel animosity towards Muslims. While many people would like to believe that the government is objective to the matter the truth is that they are not, and of course they will show us the things they want us to see, and they will conceal images, and information they do not wish for us to know. My personal view on this is that there are good and bad people alike in every culture and we must all be aware of this fact and accept this truth, and not be so quick to judge and point fingers.

Gather round, children

I'm going to tell a little story about teamwork, and how I once had a job which operated in an environment that completely lacked it. Chapter eleven of our textbook is about teamwork and what makes an effective team. I had a job working for a company that had never heard the word before.

I probably shouldn't say the company's name, because I'm sure my employment there included some kind of nondisclosure agreement (because they knew the environment sucked), so I'll just call it Crappy & Slappy (no, it wasn't a law firm).

Crappy & Slappy made its money through a network of summer reading programs offered all over the country. Oddly enough, the programs usually approached five or six hundred dollars, and the areas that had the programs were often the poorest in the country (backwoods Louisiana, Tennessee, northeast Texas). My job was to answer the phone calls from people from all over the country, and con them into giving me their credit information.

Literally.

About 40 new hires and I all trained together doing role-playing phone calls and such. On a related note, there is something you should know: whenever you call a phone number to a corporate call center like this one, you WILL NEVER get a straight answer from anyone. It's actually their job. Literally, I sat in front of a phone and a binder filled with responses to any question a customer could ask. My job was to BS them long enough to get their information.

So, in this environment, once we all had our cubicles and binders, none of us interacted. Ever. In fact, my boss, a short tan douche named Nolan (douche) discouraged us from even being in the break room together. He said, "here we focus on sales. That's it." As it turns out, people started quitting and getting fired (myself among the latter), primarily due to the miserable soul-crushing atmosphere of a job that discouraged interaction with anyone but the telephone. In fact, part of the job was comparing yourself to everyone else in the office, using tracking software that logs each call and sale. At the end of every month, they would "respectfully let go" all people outside of the top 80% of salespeople. This system sucked, because most people who called would get agitated and defensive when we followed the script and immediately asked them for their information. You'd then get a visit from Nolan, who is somehow capable of hearing every single phone call as it happens. Constantly having that troll breathing down your neck is enough to make you insane.

Granted, it would be difficult to turn a call center into a team-oriented atmosphere, but I definitely agree with the book's assessment that teamwork is vital to any company. The environment wasn't even cooperative. They actively made a good portion of the employees feel enslaved and hopeless. It was such an ineffective atmosphere, I'm surprised Crappy & Slappy is still in business (and they are).

So this brings me to a few concepts in chapter 11 in the book that this job completely failed to understand. First, there is socio-emotional cohesiveness, which is essentially a sense of togetherness in a group that comes from emotional satisfaction. Okay, this place actively CRUSHED our emotions. I don't think I ever saw someone smile in that place. There was no sense of togetherness based on emotional satisfaction, because we weren't really allowed to interact. That led to a lot of frustration and marginalized a lot of people's work. Second, instrumental cohesiveness was nonexistent in this place. This type of cohesiveness is characterized by a sense of togetherness that comes from mutual dependency in the workplace. We could barely count on management to let us off on time. We certainly couldn't rely on anyone else. Whether or not you made the sale was often entirely beyond your control. Some people called thinking they would make a purchase, and others called to ask questions and yell at us when we went into the sales pitch.

As I said before, it's understandably hard to imagine a call center having a solely team-oriented focus, but this environment made its employees feel constantly watched (which we were), and expendable (only 10% of salesmen are allowed to make it past one sales season). They motivated employees by working termination into the very fabric of employment, and forcing you to frantically focus on your own sales. This didn't make sense. We weren't allowed to help each other, and we became more demoralized as more employees were fired for their sales numbers and other nonsense. One person was fired because their average call length was a little longer than the target time of two minutes.

To be honest, after a while, none of us even trusted the company. We all felt that we were just a means to make sales and then get rid of. We all needed money, but this was demeaning, and a lot of people opted to quit rather than remain employed there. A number of people stormed out, claiming to report the company to various agencies. Having an environment where you don't trust your employer and can't interact with other employees is actually kind a scary idea.

Needless to say, this place doesn't want teams, they just want money.

Communication and Differences

After reading the chapter I remembered I had some notes on the guest speaker who came in to talk to us and whom also had us do some team building activities in order to help us further understand what the business world was like. He also spoke about the differences not necessarily in the cultures but rather in the mannerisms and the words we used when people were in a different setting or place. The differences could extend as far as countries or as close as county to county. Where one mannerism was understood as a sign of positive encouragement that same mannerism could be understood as looked upon as a sign of offense in another setting due to the many different cultures worldwide, and of course according to the upbringing each individual had. The guest speaker also said that body language is important and can say a lot more than a million words. By simply observing someone's body gesture you can tell a lot about a person and what they are thinking about or how they feel without that person having to tell you through verbal communication. Therefore you must be well versed not just in speaking to someone in their native tongue but also by learning mannerisms that may be offensive to someone in a particular part of the world. You must also be able to control your body language because you don't want to send off the wrong message, or lose a great client due to one mistake you made.

Group-Aided Decision Making

As a group, many decisions need to made. There are advantages and disadvantages of group-aided decision making. Managers need to way the pros and cons of group decisions and apply it to the current situation. When deciding whether groups should be involved in the decision making process manager need to think of three things. First if additional information would increase the quality of the decision. Second, if acceptance is important. Third, if people can be developed through their participation. Before making the decision it is important to look at whether groups perform better than individuals. After 61 years of research, it is safe to say that groups usually perform better than individuals on a quantitative and qualitative superiority. However, there are still five things to think about when trying to decide between a grouo or an individual. Groups were less efficient than individuals so time constraints are a factor. Groups were more confident about their choices than individuals, this can be bnoth a good and bad thing. Group size affected decision outcomes.Decison making accuracy was higher when groups knew a great deal about the issue at hand and group leaders possessed the ability to effectively evaluate the group members' opinions and judgements. Lastly, the composition of a group affects its decision making process and ultimately performance.
Advantages of group-aided decisions:
1. greater pool of knowledge
2. different perspectives
3. gretaer comprehension
4. increased acceptance
5. training ground

Disadvantages of group-aided decisons:
1. social pressure
2. domination by a vocal view
3. logrolling
4. goal displacement
5. groupthink

A website that helps people go through this process with exercises and more information is on businessballs.com. It is a very helpful tool when you are stuck on which decsion to make about decision makinh methods.

"Problem solving and Decision Making." http://www.businessballs.com/problemsolving.htm

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Chapter 8 discusses a range of information in regards to Organizational Behavior. One of the subjects that stood out to me was "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." "Abraham Maslow developed a theory of personality that has influenced a number of different fields" (Simons 1). One of those topics that constantly debates Maslow's theory is of course business. Maslow wrote that the needs of human being can be classified as: physiological, safety, needs of love and affection, nees for esteem, and needs for self-actualization.
There is much debate to Maslow's Hierarchy. Some feel that it accurately defines human behavior and has "a high level of practicality" (Simons 1). Others, including myself, feel that human behavior evolves too quickly, and there are some many personality differences with human beings, there's no true way of prioritizing their needs nor their actions. Physiological needs of course are always the first priority when it comes to humans. Without water and food, it's impossible to survive. This however, is not the debate I wish to bring up. Its the last "needs" and how they are prioritized that I wish to discuss.
I don't no believe that its possible to prioritize human's needs, nor correlate it to human behavior. This was a very interesting read.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs."Janet A. Simons, Donald B. Irwin and Beverly A. Drinnien
West Publishing Company, New York, 1987

Creativity in the workplace

Creativity is a process of developing something new or unique. Motivation is what triggers creativity. In the workplace, creativty allows people to reach out of their comfort zone. In addition, it alows people to be committed to their field of interest and keeps the workplace lively, not dull. Managers should be encouraging employees to emphasize innovation, establish innovation goals, and reward employees who display innovation in activities and tasks. Having a positive work environment where people feel safe will allow creativity to blossom. Also, finding a way to develop a peer environment will allow people to be more concerned about working for the greater good rather than personal success.

In the article, "Foster a Culture of Creativity", they have many tips how to boost creativity in the workplace. First, be careful not to be too critical when employees come up with ideas that aren't all the way there yet. It sometimes takes a lot of bad ideas to get to a good one, and if people are too afraid of ridicule to participate, you may never get there at all. Second, attending conferences outside of the normal areas of expertise, working with people from other departments, and allowing time for travel, hobbies, or classes can result in creativity and productivity. Third, as a manager urge people to think about "what if" and "wish list" scenarios, and then see if you can collectively come up with ways to implement them.

In addition to creating innovative employees, creativity allows people to be more adaptive and flexible to changes. This is an important trait to have because the business world is constantly changing.

"Foster a Culture of Creativity in Your Workplace | Business Solutions from AllBusiness.com." Business Resources, Advice and Forms for Large and Small Businesses. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. .