intuitions are essential in the problem-solving process
STUDENT ONE
What interests me most on the topic X factor, is that intuitions are essential in the problem-solving process where logical methods cannot apply, executives will mostly use their intuitions to solve the problem that faces them. The level of obligation given to an individual determines the level of instinct one requires. Instinct is a factor that is used to separate men from boys.
According to Ralph S. Larson, people will perform well when placed in the middle of a management level because, in the middle of a management level, the process of decision making is mostly quantitively. If the same person s placed at a senior position at the management level, his or her performance reduces because here problems become more complex and ambiguous as well. They soon get to determine that their judgementdoe3s not look as precisely as it should be and is a problem. Many business models are not stable due to various reasons. One reason is due to advancement in technology, in modern life for a business to perform well, it should advance is technology as technology advance itself. Due to rapid advancement in technology, many companies are not able to maintain the pace of improvement, and due to this reason, these businesses are mostly not stable. Another reason why most businesses are not permanent is that most business models change tremendously, and the process requires substantial capital investment, which the majority may not afford. Because competition is emerging day in day out makes very many businesses not stable. Rapid changes like competition also change the amount of profit acquired by a business rapidly, the amount of profit acquired today my largely vary to the amount of profit acquired tomorrow thus making very many business non stable.
Richard Abdoo says that in a marketplace one do not have a lot of time of hearing and revising in order to make a decision, decision have to be made in a timely manner, this implies that one has to use the information on his or her disposal, infer it and use intuitions to reach to a decision. In every organization the top positions or levels requires very sound business intuitions. Larson suggest that when faced with a situation that requires him to make a decision he first relies on quantitative information or data already analyzed, he then looks to the information to determine intuitively whether it’s a good or a bad deal.
This improves my creative problem solving skills as it taught me to first listen to my intuition before making any decision. Ignoring ones intuition may lead to one making very poor or very bad decision and this is a very big problem. One has to learn to trust his or her instinct otherwise being uncertain about the suitability of one’s instinct my lead to ignoring them which as stated above leads to poor decision making process which intern leads to a serious problem which affects a business or an organization negatively.
Taking immediate action is also a creative problem solving technique o learnt from the article. One should act fast to take the available opportunity. Richard Abdoo says that in a marketplace meaning a place with very high competition one should not use the slow process of hearing and reviewing all the available alternatives to make decision on the right course of action. this is because decisions have to be made and implemented in timely manner.
STUDENT TWO
One topic I find very interesting in this article about what is Gut, a very good example is given that when one sees a large snake while walking in the woods the eyes quickly makes the image and sends it to the brain even before one is aware of the dangers that are posed by the snake. This information reaches the visual thalamus of the brain which also sends the information to the amygdala. Amygdala sends implies to the body which intern increases the heartbeat, increase in heart beat corresponds to an increase in blood pressure. The individual may start to sweat and shiver, this is evidence that fear build up in the individual. Thee individual my decide to run or call for help. Fear is an example of a primal emotion also a gut instinct.
Fear somehow is one factor that influences and affects the process of decision making. Fear a feeling that build up in the brain. The brain process a lot of information, the information could be of two types. The first type of information is that one is not consciously aware of, this happens any time e not only when one is asleep or dreaming. Mintzberg called this the right brain, it mostly process subconscious, emotions and initiatives. the second type of information that the brain processes is the conscious information, this is the information that one is already aware of. Mintzbrrg called this the left brain which processes rational and logic and also conscious information.
The right brain is very important when it comes to making decisions thus one should make sure that he considers the information in the right brain. To do so one has to trigger or tap information in the right brain. This can be achieved using various activities which one finds convenient or working for him. This activities could include music listening, dancing, t5hinking while jogging, daydreaming, thinking while taking a shower could work and also placing yourself in unfamiliar situation and trying to solve the situation to come up with solutions. The brain and all the other parts of the body are all linked, they are linked by the nervous system and also some chemical signals such as modulators, hormones and neurotransmitter. The brain could simply be defined as this interconnected systems of the body. This explains the physical reactions of the body such as sweating and shivering that accompany an intuitive feeling.
This article improves my problem solving technique by teaching me the skills of asking question. In case of a problem one should design questions that facilitate one deep thinking to come up with logical solutions to the problem. This questions should help one to identify the cause of the problem. For example Pittman being a CEO of six flags noticed that there was a problem between the janitors and customers. He asked himself questions to help identify the root of the problem. He realized that the janitors had the duty to keep the park clan while the c customers were the ones responsible for making it dirty. He realized that this was the reason there was a misunderstanding between the janitors and the customers.
Another problem solving technique I learnt is writing and identifying answers or the solution to my questions. After designing question, the next step is using the question to identify the root cause of the problem. The last step is finding the solution to the problem. For example after Pittman identified the cause of the problem he came up with the solution. He redefined the duties of the janitors, the main duty of the janitors was to make sure that the customers had a great day but not to keep the park clean.
STUDENT THREE
The importance of being emotional is the topic I found being interesting among all maybe it’s because before reading this article I did not think that being emotional could be important In any way, I even wished that there were no emotion as I considered them as being useless and sometimes even torcher. Answering this question is not quit easy, research has brought some clues to this question. Research done by Antonio R. Damasio a neuroscientist realized that emotions influences our process of decision making. He was studying individuals who were suffering from brain damage, he mainly focused on brain damage in specific parts of the prefrontal cortices. This is where secondary emotions such as sorrow are processed, he noted that such individuals retain normal functioning of the whole brain in very many aspects or ways such as their intelligence, language, attention, motor skills and also memory but they hand problems expressing certain specific emotions, for example when shown pictures of people who are injured are breeding they seem to feel nothing as opposed to a normal human being who would definitely pity the injured people. According to Damasio this patient also find a serious problem in making simple and trivial decisions.
Emotions and feelings plays a very great role when it comes to a situation when has to make any decision. emotions help an individual look though available opportunities and filter them very quickly even when we are not aware in the left brain. Our emotion in the right brain thus guide and help in decision making up to the point where the left brain or the conscious mind picks it from there and aids in making good decision or choices. Different emotions affect the process of decision making differently, anger and anxiety are likely to lead to faulty decision while happiness is likely to lead to better or good decisions. This means that one should highly consider his or her emotion when making any decision. One should avoid making important decision when he is angry or anxious about something as he is likely to make very poor decision and that is problem. To make good decision it is important to have a balance in emotion, this simply means that one should try to bring his emotion to an equilibrium to make proper and better decisions.
This topic under this article help me improve my creative problem solving skill by showing me the importance of considering ones emotion before making any decision this simply means that one should not take immediate action. It shows me the importance of balancing my emotion while making decision to avoid a scenario where one emotion my affect my decision making process which is likely to make me make a very poor decision. It also teaches me not to take action very fast instead I take time to think and reconsider any opportunity to evaluate and identify which best fits to solve the problem am exposed to by so doing I mostly find myself making almost the best decision. Not taking immediate actions also allows for time to listen to my instinct which is also a very important and essential process when it comes to decision making.
Another skill on creative problem solving I learnt is meditating on the right course of action. Meditation refers to the process thinking on what would happen if I took a certain decision over the other. Here ones emotion would help one to identify which decision is the best. One goes through all the alternatives available and notes her emotional change for him to be able to drop some alternatives and remain with the best. Then one uses his instinct to come up with the best alternative and thus making the best decision.
STUDENT FOUR
the topic I find very interesting is the topic on a pattern in patterns. When doing anything or taking any course of action ones intuition comes first, while deciding whether to start any business ones intuition starts figuring out the probability that the business will succeed. After the intuition business intuitions now comes in and this is what finalizes the judgement on whether or not the business will succeed. There is a kind of pattern involved in decision making process as illustrated above.
Experience is one important factor that is very helpful while it comes to decision making process. An individual with a lot of experience on something easily makes good decision on matters concerni8ng what he or she has experience on. This suggest that while making any decision on something that one has no prior knowledge one should consult from those with experience or experts failure to doing so one is likely to make faulty decisions and that’s a very big problem. If it was a business that faulty decision is likely to affect the business negatively which may even lead to the failure of the business. People with experience about particular issue got chunks of stored information which thy are able to retrieve and consider the information while it comes to making decisions unlike the person who has no experience, this implies that the person has no prior knowledge thus has nothing to consider or has no established pattern in his or her brain to consider while making the decision and hence such a person is mostly likely to make faulty decisions. According to Simon experts/ people with experience about a particular situation are able to retrieve from their memory all the things they are aware of while in the same kind of situation.
While making any decision one must first do some research, by so doing one is able to accumulate data essential while making the decision. After one accumulate a bunch of data one should try to figure out the message conveyed by the data and establish its meaning. After doing one should try to establish a pattern to connect the data and the situation one want to decide on. By doing so one is able to note the difference and the similarities available between the known outcomes from the data available, from there one should try to link the known to the unknown to establish the probability of the success of the unknown. By so doing one is able to make almost the best decision. For example Pittman loaded himself with data that enabled him build patterns in his blain that helped him when it came to decision making process.
This improves my ability of solving problems critically as it Cleary bling’s out the importance of recognizing when ones intuitions speak. According to Simon one uses his gut to draw patterns and rules that one is aware of and cannot desist from articulating them. Simon says that people reach to a conclusion by considering things that go through the perceptual system in our brain, one is usually aware of the result of our perception but is usually not aware of the stems. Simon called this steps the intuitions. According to Simon each decision making process can be broken into patterns and rule which helps in reaching into a varied conclusion.
Another creative problem solving skill I learnt is deepening my intuition by meditating. Pittman would first deeply meditate the data he had analyze it and establish patterns that aided in his decision making process. This is one factor that enabled Pittman to always make the right or the best decision. He would load himself with information, he say that whenever he added a new piece of information he was almost seeing the answer to his problem. That why we see pitman enabling the shift of AOL to a multi-billion revenue earner only within a few years.
STUDENT FIVE
In this article the topic on know and check thyself is very interesting. Sometimes our instinct is wrong thus this necessitates the act of checking ourselves. Some human inbuild traits would easily affect our decision making process, human being will take very unnecessary decision to gain big profits or recover some losses, this act is called classic gambler syndrome. Human being will also tend to see patterns which are not there or simply do not exist, this is referred to overfitting data. Being aware of this one should check and revisit any decision making process before coming into the final conclusion to avoid such errors from occurring.
Sometimes we don’t realize how our intuitions could be very faulty, this is Clear brought out when we think back and note some instances when we ought to trust our gut but we didn’t forgetting when we our instinct. Sometimes we consciously or subconsciously make efforts to enable success of another person, this is self-fulfilling prophecy, the end of our efforts is the that justifies our decisions but does not show whether our choice was good. The dangerous part of all this is the tendency of being overconfidence, overconfidence means that we overestimate our own abilities and see as if we can achieve more and more. Many people think that they can easily tell whether a stranger is lying but according to research that is not true, most people 50 -50 ability to tell whether someone is lying. According to Ekman most people do not try to find out whether their judgement is correct. Due to this people do not recognize when they make mistakes and hence cannot learn from them. This is what boost people confidence to high levels making them to get overconfident.
To avoid being overconfident one has to possess a very strong mechanism of self-checking. By so doing one is usually aware of the bad decision that he has made before and learns from them. One should take time to think and revisit all the decision that he has ever made to identify the good decisions and the bad ones just as Larsan Abdoo does. According to Eisner self-assessment should be done continuously all through the decision making process which I find being very essential as it to tell whether he is headed in the right direction. An effective leader should be able to recognize his moods, drives and emotion and balance them during decision making process. Self-checking should be made a must activity in every organization.
Reading this article improves my problem solving skills as I noted the importance of dedicating enough time to listen t my intuition. Wisconsin energy CEO would use eight hours a week to ride a motorbike just to reflect on his past decision making process. By so doing, he learn something that help him in the coming days when he is exposed in such similar situations. During those ours one is able to think and determine whether what he is doing is right or is for the intended purpose or not.
Another problem solving technique I learn is taking immediate action and being flexible. This means that when I take certain course of action and realize is not good u should allow room for changing to another immediately. Pittman is a very good example, he says that that probably his decision is wrong, he explain that when he realizes that he quickly changes it to something else which is better than the other one. This ensures that Pittman will have made more right decision than wrong ones over time.