Perception and Business Problem Solving: Are you able to Face the Cliff?

Are you able to "Face the Cliff"?

Perception and business success are inherently linked together in a union that will continue to flourish. Business leaders that can perceive patterns in the environment can eventually find solutions to such problems in their pursuit for organizational growth. It is through this problem solving approach that businesses are more capable of selling products and services with market appeal. The use of art helps highlight how perceptual patterns can be found and its influence on the ability to use these patterns to recognize potential possible solutions to complex environmental problems. 

Perception is the ability to recognize, organize and interpret perceptual information from our senses to understand the environment.  Even though each of us holds the biological capacity to perceive changes in our environment we do not always have the mental faculty to make sense of those perceptions. For example, our eyes might see something interesting but our brain has completely skipped over it. Without recognition and awareness the information is useless.

The reason why we have skipped over important environmental information is because we are not accustomed to thinking “out of the box”. We are confined and constrained by the way we were taught to think and how to think about the world. This pre-defined understanding limits our ability to recognize new cues as important to understanding the entire picture of the problem. 

To perceive is not enough. One must also seek to take that piece of information and try and find a place for it in a larger environmental puzzle. For example, you recently discovered you are missing some money out of your wallet. This means you have been cued into a problem. You then begin to trace your steps by thinking about when you last saw the money and the things you may have bought. If you remember a purchase at McDonalds yesterday you might stop searching because you have found the answer. 

Successful business ideas are often found, discovered, and implemented in much the same way. Business leaders with the ability to perceive changes in their environment are also more likely to recognize these changes and then search out possible solutions to that change. If they are successful they are able to see a trend and then study that trend to come to appropriate market solutions that improves business sustainability. 

Before one can adequately focus on solving complex business problems they must recognize the problem and then seek to find a pattern or relationship among the variables to describe the greater trend. As the information seeking behavior continues, a stronger and better thought out pattern becomes developed and the solutions become clearer. 

For example, a person who can see a pattern in art (i.e. the face in the picture) may be better able to see changes in a business environment. It is through this pattern recognition that the mind can understanding new ways of looking at information and be open to the experience that there are multiple solutions to the same problem. It is through the analysis of these multiple solutions that the most practical and economically viable patterns are chosen.

Without this openness to experience people will naturally skip over that information which doesn’t fit within their schematic understanding of their environment. Those that rely heavily on previous information and methods of thinking are at a disadvantage in the business world. Such people have difficulty thinking about the nature of a problem and finding appropriate solutions that enhance the likelihood of a positive outcome precisely because they are not aware of the problem.

Business is all about solving problems. Products are developed and sold because they have some practical utility for customers and solve important problems. Without the ability to recognize and solve new problems there will be fewer new products and services being developed. For example, China has moved beyond copying American products to developing and implementing their own products in the market at a fraction of the cost of what is being developed in the U.S. If business leaders in the U.S. do not find ways of processing new ideas, concepts and thoughts for practical utility they will be less competitive over the long run. Continue reliance on out-dated management techniques and organizational structures will further the decline.  In other words, they will lose revenue and potential investment income because they cannot solve market problems (patterns) at a price others can afford. Are you able to “face” the cliff?

Innovative and Adaptive Traits Should be balanced in Management Teams

Developing strong teams should take into consideration the various cognitive styles that employees use. Innovators and adaptors have different approaches to tacking issues and can complement each other’s styles. Mixing those who work within the system with those who can change the system may provide higher solutions to problems. The personality of members is often associated with how they solve problems. 

Innovation is based within the employee’s abilities and their motivation to make such concepts practical. People differ in their abilities to problem-solve and exist within a continuum ranging from adaption to innovation (Kirtion, 1994). People who engage in adaptive behavior work within existing systems while those who are innovators work to create novel systems. 

The personality of employees can have a significant impact on the overall use of innovative strategies. Personality can be seen as a cognitive style wherein people prefer to perform similar mental tasks (Goldsmith, 1994). Some personalities are more prone to developing new paradigms and solutions to existing problems while others are more focused on fixing systems within current understandings. 

In any organization or on any team it is important to have innovators and adaptors to balance out the two cognitive approaches. Adaptors weaknesses can be hedged by the innovators strengths and visa versa for innovators weaknesses and adaptors strengths (Kirton, 1994). An adaptor may be able to create an efficient program within existing understandings. Yet such adaptors do not often have the ability to create new ways of solving problems.

A study conducted by  Xu and Tuttle (2012) administered an adaptation-innovation scale with  the Big Five personality inventory to 517 accountants with approximately 20 years of prior work experience.  Demographic information was also collected on participants to understand gender and background. Even though the study was designed to test a new instrument it still came up with a number of important conclusions. 

Results:

-Participants with Openness and Extroversion were also more innovative. 

-Conscientiousness is positively associated with Approach to Efficacy. People with Approach to Efficacy traits are able to work longer periods of time toward a goal while adaptors are sloppy and avoid following routine. 

-Accountants have a preference for adaptive styles. 

-Female accountants are more prone to be adaptive styles.

The research indicates that accountants are more adaptive by nature. As a practical application accountants with a preference for adaptive styles should be counter-balanced by CEO’s with higher levels of innovative vision. When profit margins are declining, working within the system without changing that system may be futile. Organizations and teams should consider the balance of members with adaptive traits and those with more extroverted innovative traits in order to effectively hedge cognitive styles.

Kirton, M.  (1994). A theory of cognitive style, in Kirton, M.J. (Ed), Adaptors and Innovators: Styles of creativity and Problem Solving, Revised edition, Routledge, London.

Goldsmith, R. (1994). Creative style and personality theory, In Kirton, M.J. (Ed), Adaptors and Innovators: Styles of Creativity and Problem Solving, Revised edition, Routledge, London.

Xu, Y. & Tuttle, B. (2012). Adaption-Innovation at Work: A New Measure of Problem- Solving Styles. Jamar, 10 (1).

Measuring Innovation in Organizations

Organizational innovation is an important aspect of growing products and services for international markets. Without innovation new revenue streams will not be developed and older revenue streams will suffer from higher levels of international pressure. Encouraging organizations to grow, develop, and overcome their market challenges is tantamount to innovating the economic system. Research helps indicate what measures organizations are using to measure innovation in an effort to improve their operational and financial performance.

Innovating organizations are often seen as improving the system that works to produce better and more relevant outputs.  An innovative system consists of the participants or actors and their activities that create a socio-economic environment where these actors function together to determine innovative performance of the system (Eggink, 2012).  Under such a definition the entire organization is a social-economic group or bubble where the internal activities produce meaningful outputs.

The elements that make up the innovative system may be specifically designed or come together through a more organic method. “There is no presumption that the system was, in some sense, consciously designed, or even that the set of institutions involved works together smoothly or coherently.”(Nelson, 1996).  Generally, economic systems are more organic and due to their circumstantial and historic development while the socio-economic groups of organizations are better planned and thought out.

To see how effective innovation is and the methods used to understand innovation within the organization it is often necessary to conduct a comparative analysis. A comparison of time periods and different systems helps to create better measures of innovative systems (Edquist & Zambala, 2009).  Through such analysis business leaders can better determine the overall effectiveness of their own measurement systems and methods of improvement.

Literary research conducted by Becheikh, Landry & Amara (2006) helps to highlight how firms measure innovation performance within their organization.  They reviewed 108 studies and built a composite of the findings that help business leaders and government officials understand how innovation is being measured in the economy. 

Results:

-24% used firm-based surveys

-25% used an innovation count

-18% used patent registrations

-6% used research and development expenditures

-15% used comparative indices

-9% other measurements such as sales, trademarks, time use, etc…

-4% made no attempt to measure

The research helps identify that the major of innovative measurements are based in firms and counts of developmental outputs. Other may use comparative indices as well as patent development.  At present the majority of firms are not using a measure of multiple factors that includes surveys, counts, and indices in order to more accurately engage their development. 

Becheikh, N., Landry, R. & Amara, N. (2006). Lessons from Innovation Empirical Studies in the Manufacturing Sector: A Systematic Review of the Literature from 1993-2003. Technovation, 26, 644-664.

Edquist, C. & Zabala, J. M. (2009). Outputs of Innovation Systems: A European Perspective, [Online], Lund University, (Paper no. 2009/14).

Eggink, M. E. (2012). The Role of Innovation in Economic Development, D.Com. Thesis, University of South Africa, Pretoria.

Nelson, R. (1996). The Sources of Economic Growth, Harvard University Press, London.

Do You Hire Self-Handicapping Employees?

Employees win and employees lose as a natural course of life events. At times, we notice exceptional employees who have all of the right skills but fail anyway. Pulling out our hair we wonder, “can’t they see what they are doing?” Unfortunately, they may not actually be able to see how their self-handicapping thoughts are influencing their outcomes. Such awareness may be a little too outside their conscious thought for critical evaluation. New research helps highlight why such phenomenon occurs and how to overcome it. 

Many failures in life are caused by self-sabotage of one’s own abilities and skills. The concept of self-handicapping is a self-imposed strategy of avoiding evaluations of performance by developing strategies to implement barriers (Jones & Berglas, 1978). These barriers are created in order to protect short-term self-esteem but damages long-term proper evaluations of self. Who can blame themselves when there are millions of reasons to fail?

Employees may be self-handicapping when they are capable of completing projects but fail to do so because of poor choices. For example, an important project that does not get enough attention due to distracting work events may be self-imposed if this employee has chosen to engage and focus on these side projects. There are many legitimate excuses why some project was not completed effectively but self-handicapping may be the root when these excuses are within the employee’s control. 

Self-handicapping often occurs when employees are unsure of their abilities to perform the tasks set in front of them (McCrea, et. al. 2008). This unsure perception leads this person to inadvertently develop strategies that offer readymade excuses when failures do occur in order to avoid criticalness.  The whole strategy is designed to protect a person’s self-esteem from proper self-evaluation and correction.

The saddest part about self-handicapping is that employees may be completely capable of finishing satisfactory projects that benefit the organization or themselves. However, when such handicapping does occur the employee themselves are often unaware of what they are doing or why they are doing it. In order to change the way employees perform it is necessary to change the way they view themselves. 

Who is most likely to self-handicap? Employees who are more likely to evaluate themselves negatively are also more likely to self-handicap (Spalding & Hardin, 1999). In most cases this is an automatic cognition process as part of quick heuristics learned over one’s lifetime. Counter information is either ignored or not forthcoming thereby limiting critical thinking.

Four studies conducted by Mccrea & Flamm (2012) evaluated college students for self-handicapping traits and behaviors. Each of the four studies had different criteria and focused on a particular aspect of self-handicapping between genders. Independent judges were used to help code thoughts as participates engaged in the process of self-evaluation. Participants were unaware that the tests focused on self-handicapping strategies and were told the research was on intelligence.

Results:

-Threatening tasks with public evaluation combined with individual personality traits led to downward thought projection (prefactuals).

-The downward prefactuals helped participants identify possible excuses.

-The identified excuses primed individual behavior. 

-Cognitive load helped people not to think about negative prefactuals and therefore improved performance.

-The determining of possible reasons for failure may be a result of unconscious strategies that produce anxiety.

-Upward prefactuals (positive thoughts) may limit the impact of self-handicapping thinking on performance. 

The study helps managers and business leaders understand that handicapping behavior may be unknown to their employees. Such behavior is often automatic and outside of the employees awareness. However, cognitive load and positive thinking may have some level of impact on the overall performance and minimizing the impact of self-handicapping behavior. Helping employees understand how their thoughts are leading to negative outcomes may help them gain greater awareness of their performance outcomes.

 Jones, E. & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through self-handicapping strategies: the appeal of alcohol and the role of underachievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200-206.

Mccrea, S. & Flamm, A. (2012). Dysfunctional anticipatory thoughts and the self-handicapping strategy. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 72-81.

McCrea, S., et. al. (2008). The worker scale: developing a measure to explain gender differences in behavioral self-handicapping. Journal of Research and Personality, 42.