Topic: Brainstorming and Team Creativity Presentation

Order Description This week you explored team creativity and brainstorming. For five days, keep a creative idea journal. Each day you should come up with 5-10 fresh ideas (these can be business concepts or strategies, for example) and reflect upon the merit of those ideas. Additionally, identify the brainstorming technique/approach you used and determine the merit of the approach used to generate your ideas (consider referencing outside sources and course text to substantiate your approaches). Then, create a paper where you share the top 10 ideas you came up with and include explanations/descriptions for each idea. Discuss the brainstorming and/or creative process. Create summary that shares what you learned from this exercise. must include reference page. ASSIGNMENT This week you explored team creativity and brainstorming. For five days, keep a creative idea journal. Each day you should come up with 5-10 fresh ideas (these can be business concepts or strategies, for example) and reflect upon the merit of those ideas. Additionally, identify the brainstorming technique/approach you used and determine the merit of the approach used to generate your ideas (consider referencing outside sources and course text to substantiate your approaches). Then, create a paper where you share the top 10 ideas you came up with and include explanations/descriptions for each idea. Discuss the brainstorming and/or creative process. Create summary that shares what you learned from this exercise. THIS PAPER SHOULD HAVE MINIMUM OF 3 SOURCES (I INCLUDED INFORMATION BELOW, MUST USE COURSE LECTURE CALLED (CSU-GLOBAL, 2015) MANDITORY REFERENCE FOR THE PAPER FROM MY COURSE LECTURE: THE FOLLOWING IS COPIED INFORMATION FROM THE COURSE, AND IF ANY OF THIS INFORMATION IS USED PLEASE REFERENCE IN THE PAPER LIKE THIS: (CSU-Global, 2015) UNDER THE REFERENCE PAGE IT IS SITED AS FOLLOWED: Colorado State University-Global Campus. (2015). Module 4- Conflict and creativity [Blackboard ecourse]. In MGT 425 – Managing and Leading Team Dynamics. Greenwood Village, CO: Author. 1. Types of Conflict In the process of working together and making decisions, conflict among team members is not unusual. Differences in interests, perceptions, and preferences are inevitable and conflict results, and if not properly managed, then team performance can suffer. Teams and leaders can proactively manage conflict by understanding how to effectively use or deflate conflict. The first step in dealing with conflict is to identify the conflict type which can include: 1. Relationship conflict that involves disagreements based on personal and social issues that are not related to work 2. Task conflict that involves conflict about ideas, plans and projects 3. Process conflict that involves disagreements that team members have about how to approach a task and who should do what Conflict Management Styles and Approaches Research has found that team members can take at least five courses of action when they find themselves involved in conflict. The courses of action are based on the concern for oneself and concern for the other party to result in: competition, avoidance, compromise, collaboration, and accommodation. Another approach is the Contingency Theory of Task Conflict and Performance. This theory views team performance as a function of the type of task conflict, conflict management style, and the nature of the task performed by the group. The three approaches to managing this conflict are: 1. A collaborating approach that considers the interests of all parties 2. A contending approach that considers the rights of each party and the power of each party 3. An avoiding approach in which all parties avoid each other Wageman and Donnenfelds’ Conflict Intervention Model is another approach. This model identifies interventions to improve the conflict resolution processes and includes: 1. Team (re)Design, which involves deliberate changes in structure 2. Task process coaching, which involves helping the team to perform better through changes in effort, strategy, and talent 3. Conflict process coaching, which involves direct intervention in a team to improve the quality of conflict it is having 4. Changing the individual, which involves individual-level training with the goal of making specific team members more tolerant and thoughtful when they disagree with others How teams address conflict impacts their performance and productivity. In most teams, there are usually a few people who really do not like or respect each other (i.e., relationship conflict), people who disagree on the process to meet objectives (i.e., process conflict), and at least one person who believes that the plan to meeting the team goal will not work (i.e., task conflict), but has no proposal for a plan that he or she believes will work. The approaches that the team can take to address the conflicts can vary. The team can ignore the conflicts (i.e., avoidance), make comprises (i.e., hybrid processes or tasks), become competitive among each other, or they can become collaborative and accommodating of individual issues and still be effective. For example, to address the relationship conflict, the team can separate those in conflict into subgroups that work on different aspects of the objectives. It can address process conflict by using a coach or third-party to facilitate a review of the current processes and the creation of new ones. Finally, it can address task conflict by having the negative employee undergo training and coaching to help him or her positively impact the team. Through this scenario, the team is able to continue to move forward towards meeting its goals while actively addressing the conflict issues. Norms of Fairness Conflict among team members can be caused by differences in what members consider norms or methods of fair allocation. There are three primary methods in which fair allocation is viewed: 1. Equity method or contribution-based distribution: prescribes that benefits and costs should be proportional to team members’ contributions 2. Equality method or blind justice: prescribes that all team members should suffer or benefit equally regardless of input 3. Need method or welfare-based justice: prescribes that benefits and costs should be proportional to member needs. Norms of fairness affect the mood and emotions of teams. In reality, these norms are usually determined by the overall organization which incorporates assessments and incentives at the individual and team level. For example, the team could be given a task that has various components that can be divided up by knowledge; while the smaller tasks may differ, all members are working equally hard and long on their specific task. Or, a team could adhere to the need method of fairness, in which a team member is given a less time-intensive task due to a need, such as a medical situation that requires extensive amounts of time away from the office. Minority and Majority Conflict In Groups Team conflicts can involve subgroups represented by a statistical majority or minority that works to influence team members directly or indirectly. It is belie ved that majorities influence by inducing compliance due to direct influence and pressure, while minorities influence by inducing conversion or private acceptance. Minority subgroups are believed to be beneficial to groups because they stimulate broader thinking about issues. Research has shown that even when a minority subgroup is wrong about a given issue, its presence adds value to the group by stimulating divergent thinking to increase creativity and better solutions. For example, a new team member may join your group from a competitor. While your group has always followed the same template for generating proposals, the new team member tells you that her experience has been that colorful and graphically designed 1-page proposals have been effective. Because your team has always delivered black and white spreadsheets for its proposals, the thought of a colorful brochure-type document initially creates conflict. However, given that input, the team rethinks its approach and decides that adding charts and graphs to the proposal might be a better way to communicate the information. Team Creativity In Module 2, we learned about cross-functional teams and the level of diversity that they can deliver. In such teams, conflict can be caused by lack of understanding of how team members from different areas have different mental models about a task, referred to as representational gaps. The greater the representational gap, the more likely the team conflict, so a transfer of knowledge through education or experience is important in shrinking this gap. Although team members can encounter conflict while working together, they can also generate new ideas and arrive at creative solutions. There are four general domains in which new ideas can be classified: 1. Creative realism: the most desired outcome, with ideas that are highly imaginative and highly connected to current structures and ideas 2. Conservative realism: ideas are highly traditional and highly connected to current knowledge and practices 3. Conservative idealism: the worst type of outcome, with ideas that are unrealistic and not connected to existing knowledge 4. Creative idealism: ideas are highly original, yet highly unrealistic There are three indices for evaluating creativity: 1. Fluency: a measure of how many ideas a person or team generates 2. Flexibility: a measure of how many types of ideas a person or team generates 3. Originality: the ability to generate unusual solutions and unique answers to problems There are two key skills in creative thinking: 1. Convergent thinking: thinking proceeds toward a single answer 2. Divergent thinking: thinking is out-of-the-box and without boundaries, and moves in many directions Creativity is a characteristic of both individuals and groups. Creative people who are effective team contributors are passionate about specific things, are in tune with their creativity and knowledge about how to reinvigorate themselves, can select relevant information and ignore irrelevant information, and are hard-working with at least 10 years of expertise in a particular domain. One way to enhance creativity is to bring in an outside person to the team who will help facilitate new thought and perspective. Similar to brainstorming, this “creative” person is often from an advertising agency or other creative field who knows little to nothing about your particular teamwork or objective. Without mental boundaries, that person will start the creative process by contributing ideas to the group from his or her perspective. While some ideas may seem unrealistic on the surface, team members who understand their environment and the organization can often take those concepts and adapt them to be innovative and new, yet still fit established parameters. Brainstorming as a Method to Creativity Brainstorming is an effective way to encourage creative thought in teams, as it maximizes the quality and quantity of ideas. Rules for brainstorming should include expressiveness in which freewheeling is welcome, non-evaluation in which criticism is ruled out, combinations and improvement of ideas are encouraged, and quantity of ideas is valued. There are four major threats to effective brainstorming: 1. Social loafing: tendency for people to slack off or not work as hard as they would if they were alone 2. Conformity: the desire to be liked and accepted encourages unusual behavior to gain acceptance in a group 3. Production blocking or coordination problems: when group members cannot express their ideas because others are presenting their own 4. Performance matching or downward norm setting: performance of people working within a group converges over time. The four major threats can lead to failure to follow or abide by rules of brainstorming, slacking off on production of ideas, participation in social rituals that negate creativity, or setting performance benchmarks that are too low. They can also cause team members to conform, or experience inhibitions, anxiety, and self-presentational concerns. Enhancing Brainstorming There are three areas that can enhance team creativity in brainstorming: 1. Cognitive-goal instructions 2. Social-organizational suggestions 3. Structural-environmental suggestions Another way to facilitate brainstorming is through the use of computers. Electronic brainstorming allows members to interact and to exchange ideas through computers. The advantages of electronic brainstorming include: 1. Parallel entry of ideas 2. Anonymity 3. Flexibility in team size 4. No proximity requirements 5. Documented memory of ideas 6. Refinement and evaluation of ideas 7. Equality among team members The disadvantages of electronic brainstorming are that it is not as effective as face-to-face interaction for small teams, there is a loss of social interaction and power among participants, and it is difficult to award credit to individual team members who generate ideas. Additional thoughts on brainstorming: 1. Positive side benefits associated with brainstorming include increasing team cohesion and building morale. 2. Developing hybrid methods for creative work may be more effective than the use of just brainstorming. 3. The key to using brainstorming is to deploy it at the right time, in the right way. Globalization makes electronic tools for brainstorming necessary for organizations that have geographically dispersed teams. As you have learned from the readings, the processes and norms for brainstorming can and should be customized to individual team needs. For example, for its brainstorming sessions, the International Women’s Forum (IWF) electronically gathers top scientists and researchers to address issues that impact women worldwide. Each panel member is reflected in real-time on an individual screen and IWF members physically gather to participate in the brainstorming session with the input of the panel as to what could be feasible solutions to the problem being addressed. As this example highlights, a team leader’s ability to secure the resources the team needs to effectively exchange information is an important function of ensuring efficient information generation and exchange.