An Ethical Choice Choosing to Lie Mark Twain wrote, “The wise
thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully.” Not
everyone agrees that lying is wrong. But we probably agree that
people do lie, including each of us, to varying degrees. And most
of us probably agree that if we lied less, organizations and society
would be better off. So how might that be done? Research
conducted by behavioral scientists suggests some steps to
recovery. Stop lying to ourselves. We lie to ourselves about how
much we lie. Specifically, many studies reveal that we deem
ourselves much less likely to lie than we judge others to be. At a
collective level, this is impossible—everyone can’t be below
above average in their propensity to lie.
So step 1 is to admit the truth: We underestimate the degree to
which we lie, we overestimate our morality compared to others,
and we tend to engage in what Bazerman and Tenbrunsel call
“moral hypocrisy”—we think we’re more moral than we are. Trust,
but verify. A recent study showed that lying is learned at a very
young age. When a toy was placed out of view, an experimenter
told young children not to look at the toy and went out of sight.
More than 80 percent of the children looked at the toy. When
asked whether they had looked, 25 percent of 2-1/2 year-olds
lied, compared to 90 percent of 4 year-olds. Why do we learn to
lie? Because we often get away with it. Negotiation research
shows that we are more likely to lie in the future when our lies
have succeeded or gone undetected in the past. Managers need
to identify areas where lying is costly and find ways to shine a
light on it when it occurs. Reward honesty. “The most difficult
thing is to recognize that sometimes we too are blinded by our
own incentives,” writes Dan Ariely, “because we don’t see how
our conflicts of interest work on us.” So if we want more honesty,
we have to provide greater incentives for the truth, and more
disincentives for lying and cheating. Sources: Based on D. Ariely,
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—
and Especially Ourselves (New York: Harper, 2012); K. Canavan,
“Even Nice People Cheat Sometimes,” The Wall Street Journal
(August 8, 2012), p. 4B; M. H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel,
Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do
About It (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); A. D.
Evans and K. Lee, “Emergence of Lying in Very Young Children,”
Developmental Psychology (2013); and L. Zhou Y. Sung, and D.
Zhang, “Deception Performance in Online Group Negotiation and
Decision Making: The Effects of Deception Experience and
Deception Skill,” Group Decision and Negotiation 22 (2013), pp.
153–172. Creative Behavior Creative behavior occurs in four
steps, each of which leads to the next: Problem formulation. Any
act of creativity begins with a problem that the behavior is
designed to solve. Thus, problem formulation is defined as the
stage of creative behavior in which we identify a problem or
opportunity that requires a solution as yet unknown. For example,
artist/entrepreneur Marshall Carbee and businessperson John
Bennett founded Eco Safety Products after discovering that even
paints declared safe by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) emit hazardous chemical compounds. Thus, Bennett’s
development of artist-safe soy-based paint began with identifying
a safety problem with paints currently on the market.76
Information gathering. Given a problem, the solution is rarely
directly at hand. We need time to learn more and to process that
learning. Thus, information gathering is the stage of creative
behavior when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an
individual’s mind. Niklas Laninge of Hoa’s Tool Shop, a
Stockholm-based company that helps organizations become
more innovative, argues that creative information gathering
means thinking beyond usual routines and comfort zones. For
example, have lunch with someone outside your field to discuss
the problem. “It’s so easy, and you’re forced to speak about your
business and the things that you want to accomplish in new
terms. You can’t use buzzwords because people don’t know what
you mean,” Laninge says.77 Idea generation. Once we have
collected the relevant information, it is time to translate knowledge
into ideas. Thus, idea generation is the process of creative
behavior in which we develop possible solutions to a problem
from relevant information and knowledge. Increasingly, idea
generation is collaborative. For example, when NASA engineers
developed the idea for landing a spacecraft on Mars, they did so
collaboratively. Before coming up with the Curiosity—an SUVsized rover that lands on Mars from a sky crane—the team spent
three days scribbling potential ideas on whiteboards.78 Idea
evaluation. Finally, it’s time to choose from the ideas we have
generated. Thus, idea evaluation is the process of creative
behavior in which we evaluate potential solutions to identify the
best one. Sometimes the method of choosing can be innovative.
When Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was unhappy with the
team’s uniforms, he asked fans to help design and choose the
best uniform. Cuban said, “What’s the best way to come up with
creative ideas? You ask for them. So we are going to crowd
source the design and colors of our uniforms.”79 Generally, you
want those who evaluate ideas to be different from those who
generate them, to eliminate the obvious biases.
problem formulation The stage of creative behavior which involved identifying
problem or opportunity that requires a solution that is as yet unknown.
information gathering The stage of creative behavior when possible solutions to a
problem incubate in individual’s mind. idea generation The process of creative
behavior that involves developing possible solutions to a problem from relevant
information and knowledge. idea evaluation The process of creative behavior
involving the evaluation of potential solutions to problems to identify the best one.
Exhibit 6-5 Three-Stage Model of Creativity in Organizations Causes of Creative
Behavior Having defined creative behavior, the main stage in the three-stage
model, we now look back to the causes of creativity: creative potential and
creative environment. Creative Potential Is there such a thing as a creative
personality? Indeed. While creative genius—whether in science (Albert Einstein),
art (Pablo Picasso), or business (Steve Jobs)—is scarce, most people have
some of the characteristics shared by exceptionally creative people. The more of
these characteristics we have, the higher our creative potential. Intelligence is
related to creativity. Smart people are more creative because they are better at
solving complex problems. However, intelligent individuals may also be more
creative because they have greater “working memory”, that is, they can recall
more information that is related to the task at hand.80 The Big Five personality
trait of openness to experience (see Chapter 5) correlates with creativity,
probably because open individuals are less conformist in action and more
divergent in thinking.81 Other traits of creative people include proactive
personality, self-confidence, risk taking, tolerance for ambiguity, and
perseverance.82 Expertise is the foundation for all creative work and thus is the
single most important predictor of creative potential. Film writer, producer, and
director Quentin Tarantino spent his youth working in a video rental store, where
he built up an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. The potential for creativity is
enhanced when individuals have abilities, knowledge, proficiencies, and similar
expertise to their field of endeavor. You wouldn’t expect someone with minimal
knowledge of programming to be very creative as a software engineer. Source:
Based on T. Henneman, “Bright Ideas,” Workforce Management (January 2013),
pp. 18–25. Creative Environment Most of us have creative potential we can learn
to apply, but as important as creative potential is, by itself it is not enough. We
need to be in an environment where creative potential can be realized. What
environmental factors affect whether creative potential translates into creative
behaviors? First and perhaps most important is motivation. If you aren’t
motivated to be creative, it is unlikely you will be. A review of 26 studies revealed
that intrinsic motivation, or the desire to work on something because it’s
interesting, exciting, satisfying, and challenging (discussed in more detail in the
next chapter), correlates fairly strongly with creative outcomes. This link is true
regardless of whether we are talking about student creativity or employee
creativity.83 It is also valuable to work in an environment that rewards and
recognizes creative work. The organization should foster the free flow of ideas,
including providing fair and constructive judgment. Freedom from excessive rules
encourages creativity; employees should have the freedom to decide what work
is to be done and how to do it. One study of 385 employees working for several
drug companies in China revealed that both structural empowerment (in which
the structure of the work unit allows sufficient employee freedom) and
psychological empowerment (which lets the individual feel personally
empowered) were related to employee creativity.84 What is the role of culture? A
recent nation-level study suggests that countries scoring high on Hofstede’s
culture dimension of individuality (discussed in Chapter 5) are more creative.85
Western countries like the United States, Italy, and Belgium score high on
individuality, and South American and Eastern countries like China, Colombia,
and Pakistan score low; does this mean Western cultures are more creative?
Some evidence suggests this is true. One study compared the creative projects
of German and Chinese college students, some of whom were studying in their
homeland, and some of whom were studying abroad. An independent panel of
Chinese and German judges determined that the German students were most
creative and that Asian German students were more creative than domestic
Chinese students. This suggested that the German culture was more creative.86
However, even if some cultures are more creative on average, there is always
strong variation within cultures. Put another way, there are millions of Chinese
more creative than their U.S. counterparts. Good leadership matters to creativity
too. A recent study of more than 100 teams working in a large bank revealed that
when the leader behaved in a punitive, unsupportive manner, the teams were
less creative.87 On the other hand, when leaders are encouraging in tone, run
their units in a transparent fashion, and encourage the development of their
employees, the individuals they supervise are more creative.88 As we will learn
in Chapter 10, more work today is being done in teams, and many people believe
diversity will increase team creativity. Past research, unfortunately, has
suggested that diverse teams are not more creative. More recently, however, one
study of Dutch teams revealed that when team members were explicitly asked to
understand and consider the point of view of the other team members (an
exercise called perspective-taking), diverse teams were more creative than those
with less diversity.89 A study of 68 Chinese teams reported that diversity was
positively related to team creativity only when the team’s leader was inspirational
and instilled members with confidence.90 Another study in a multinational drug
company found that teams from diverse business functions were more creative
when they shared knowledge of each other’s areas of expertise.91 Collectively,
these studies show that diverse teams can be more creative, but only under
certain conditions. Creative Outcomes (Innovation) The final stage in our model
of creativity is the outcome. Creative behavior does not always produce a
creative or innovative outcome. An employee might generate a creative idea and
never share it. Management might reject a creative solution. Teams might
squelch creative behaviors by isolating those who propose different ideas. One
study showed that most people have a bias against accepting creative ideas
because ideas create uncertainty. When people feel uncertain, their ability to see
any idea as creative is blocked.92 We can define creative outcomes as ideas or
solutions judged to be novel and useful by relevant stakeholders. Novelty itself
does not generate a creative outcome if it isn’t useful. Thus, “off-the-wall”
solutions are creative only if they help solve the problem. The usefulness of the
solution might be self-evident (the iPad), or it might be considered successful by
stakeholders before the actual success can be known.93 An organization may
harvest many creative ideas from its employees and call itself innovative.
However, as one expert recently stated, “Ideas are useless unless used.” Soft
skills help translate ideas into results. One researcher found that among
employees of a large agribusiness company, creative ideas were most likely to
be implemented when the individual was motivated to translate the idea into
practice—and when he or she had strong networking ability.94 Another important
factor is organizational climate; a study of health care teams found that team
creativity translated into innovation only when the climate actively supported
innovation.95 These studies highlight an important fact: Creative ideas do not
implement themselves; translating them into creative outcomes is a social
process that requires utilizing other concepts addressed in this book, including
power and politics, leadership, and motivation.
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