A642.5.3.RB - Making Smart Groups

A642.5.3.RB - Making Smart Groups

Can these concepts help promote innovation within an organization?

Sunstein & Hastie (2014) offer several concepts and strategies that could help promote innovation within my current organization. Sunstein & Hastie (2014) pointed out that most organizations tend to not live up to their potential. Most do not develop innovative ideas and succeed, but often most organizations simply settle for an idea rather than pushing their innovativeness to the limit. It has been shown that in groups sometimes the first to speak is the leader. It has also been shown that once this individual speaks, some people do not feel the need to speak up or even question what was first proposed. This means groups tends to settle on the first proposed ideas without any second guesses. This then makes you wonder how you avoid the pitfalls of groupthink or silenced members. (Academy, 2014)

How do they compare and contrast with the other readings from this module?

“when there are many who contribute to the process of deliberation, each can bring his share of goodness and moral prudence…some appreciate one part, some another, and all together appreciate all.” – Aristotle

The biggest problems in groups is when an individual finds him or her-self misreading signals and reputational pressures, which in turn makes people unable to open up about their opinions fearing some confrontation, penalty, or even shame. Unlike what Canfield & Smith (2011) advocated, that “when trying to solve problems, work first to identify how the work is being done by documenting the process where it’s happening, with the people doing the work, and with data from the process”. The process flow chart from the textbook, “Imagine” (2011), provides step-by-step guidance into leading a team where misunderstandings are not a common fallacy. Instead, it recognizes that open conversations “will often uncover inconsistencies about how people are interpreting instructions and carrying out their activities”. (Canfield & Smith, 2011)

Sunstein (2015) group concepts provides a significant opportunity to avoid common mistakes and biases that lead to individuals awry. Concepts such as planning fallacy, which means when individuals miscalculate the real amount of time or money a project will take or cost for instance. Framing effects is a term that “influences our decisions according to the semantics of how the options are presented. (Sunstein, 2015) For example, the company I work for rewarded the crew by telling us if we could beat the turnaround of an aircraft on the ground compared to the last airplane, then we get a bonus in our check the following week. What they avoid telling us was that if we missed the goal it effected out end of the year company bonus.

Can they be combined into a process that can be used to promote innovation across the entire organization?

           Organizations not only require teamwork, but also sufficing innovation levels that will lead to successful outcomes. “Combining what and how innovation with strategic thinking and action allows you to establish a desirable place in the external scheme of things. You can successfully renew, transform and disrupt to create a better world”. (McKeown, 2014) In the same manner Sunstein and Hastie (2014) believed that making group wiser is a way of innovating. One of their solutions suggested that, “leaders can structure group deliberations to make them more likely to succeed. One very simple way is to let others speak first. Another is to assign specific roles or areas of expertise to members of the group. The key is encouraging individuals to share their diverse knowledge rather than suppress it”. (Sunstein, 2015)

The authors provided an array of different terms and guidance on how to lead teams in a smarter way. All changes can be considered innovational changes since they could potentially change the structure of an organization. Therefore, I believe they could all be combined into a process that can be used to promote innovation across an entire organization. I would take over step one; establish team, with the assigned process goals. (Canfield & Smith, 2011) This process allows the leader to mold the group necessities as they encounter them rather than making strict, non-changeable rules. Having group flexibility is extremely important. Furthermore, I would consider combining Sunstein (2015) process of assigning roles since, “in such a group, sensible information aggregation would be far more likely, simply because every member would know that each of the others had something to contribute”. Finally, McKeown (2014) advised, “winning with innovation depends on what you view as success and the actions of many different events that may be influenced but rarely controlled”.

References

Academy, K. (2014, February 10). Conformity and groupthink. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/ds3-ljxTRvo

Canfield, J., & Smith, G. (2011). Introduce Process Improvement Skills. Holland: Black Lake Press.

Hastie, R., & Sunstein, C. R. (2014). Making dumb groups smarter. Harvard Business Review, 91-98.

McKeown, M. (2014). The Innovation Book. London: Pearson.

MinuteVideos. (2016, January 8). Groupthink - A short introduction. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/CWEvJciU0Zc

Sunstein, C. (2015, January 27). Cass Sunstein: Getting Beyond Groupthink. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/7jFfxsuoZQU