Is Bias Killing Your Decisions? Tap into Creative Thinking Skill for Unbiased Decisions

We all can bet that making an unbiased decision appears on every leader's wishlist.

While everyday decisions like the color of your shirts, meal plans, and exercise regimens are easy to make, the tough calls are your decisions on a day-to-day basis with heavy consequences. This reminds me of a recent insight about biases, which may look ordinary until caught.?

An insight came with watching Hanna, a 2011 action thriller movie. A first glance at the name Hanna brought a boring and mundane image to mind. However, I should have realized earlier that the theme of adapt or die (which so represents our uncertain world now) would have some indications about Hanna the "lethal weapon'. A few minutes into the film, boring is proven otherwise.

What seems like an innocent young girl was ferociously replaced with a child reared by her father, an ex-CIA officer in the woods of northern Finland. Hanna was trained as an assassin. Not her real father, he still loved her. He confessed that he previously recruited pregnant ladies for a CIA programme to strengthen their children's DNA for super-soldiers. After the experiment closed, all were killed except Hanna, whom he saved. If I had continued with my bias over an unassuming and straightforward name, I would have missed an action-packed movie, which I enjoyed tremendously in every gripping minute till the closing credits.

Back to the case about making decisions and biases.?

Some of your high-stakes decisions end with positive results, while others have a detrimental influence on your career, life, and people around you. Most decisions are made when we frequently let our preconceptions or prejudices overtake to guide us, resulting in bad decisions.?

Decisions are about making choices.

Making choices among various possible actions are what decision is about. Sometimes, your decisions also involve inaction. Probably that is why some management claims that half of the decisions by managers end up as failures inside companies. That does not disqualify the overall improvement in your decision-making ability remains a crucial component of optimising your productivity at work.?

Why is unbiased decision making important?

If a person is persuaded to decide based on opinion without regard for facts, they have likely excluded other alternative variables. Intelligent decision making is about pondering before deciding whether all the other arguments were valid and rejected.

According to American Bar Association. (2020 about "Having a bias doesn't make you a bad person, however, and not every bias is negative or hurtful. It's not recognizing biases that can lead to bad decisions at work, in life, and in relationship." Decision-making is more difficult when biases and prejudices are involved.

We blame our DNA (not the manipulated type like Hanna's) because humans are complicated beings.?It is deceiving when we believe we have used logic, because there is still a high possibility that you have done the opposite. Some common hidden biases that are known to sneak into our thoughts include:

1. Considering yourself in a particularly favourable light. Overestimating your talents, for example, usually makes you believe in doing tasks more quickly than you really do. Thus, you end up causing issues with project timelines.?
2. Claiming credit for one's successes while avoiding one's failings. This includes an eagerness to accept credit or even takes unwarranted praise. Repeating the same mistakes is likely if you do not learn from failure.?Not admitting your mistakes is a bias to boost your self-confidence in the way of compensating for perceived failings.
3. Making decisions based on self-interests rather than what is reasonable or beneficial for others. Detecting the consequences of personal interest in others is more manageable than recognizing the repercussions in your own actions for self-serving decisions. For instance, seeing your colleagues overloading their teams with work when you are blind to yourself for doing the same to your own people.

Being obvious is everyone bases judgements on biases that influence their decision making. While you are aware or not of possible bias,?you can still consciously compensate by removing the reasons that affect your evaluation of the judgement. Prejudices are ingrained in us; thus, it is best to be aware and note it as part of us. It is impossible to give up prejudices!?

Getting to know bias in decisions

Maybe defining the meaning of "bias" word by Cambridge Dictionary. (2021a, June 23) can shed some light with?"the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment." ?While we have to acknowledge and disrupt our own prejudices, we need to recognise and be ready to disrupt the bias of others. Probably, working with others is the most complicated and inconvenient element of eliminating bias.

More often than not, our inherited biases and prejudices are the default mode when making decisions. A bias in decision-making and thinking is a systemic mistake. It happens when the individuals in the world around them analyse and interpret information. In turn, bias influences the decisions.?

Two sorts of decision are available — programmed and unprogrammed. A programmed choice has highly routine decisions,?which sets rules and regulations for every decision-maker to arrive at the same result. The other non-programmed decision is rarer, with decisions most likely to be made heuristically or partially. Heuristic approach to problem-solving "uses a practical method or various shortcuts in order to produce solutions that may not be optimal but are sufficient given a limited timeframe or deadline" (Investopedia, 2021). Either one may be present in your decision. Thus, both can overrule your rational thought to cause biased decisions with unlikely and unwanted outcomes.

Conscious decision?making?

Minimizing biases in decision-making is about guiding ourselves to frequently catch our personal prejudices in "an unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed without enough thought or knowledge" (Cambridge Dictionary. (2021b, June 23). Formulating your coping strategy can deal with biases that lead to poor judgments.?

So, how does an effective leader arrive at an unbiased decision? If an unbias decision emerges from considering the best options, how can we acquire enough ideas to arrive at the right choice? How do we generate more choices to choose from? Is there any method through which organisations may encourage better-unbiased decision-making??

The answer may be in your ability to generate and evaluate ideas in the first place through creative thinking skills before making the decision.?

If unbiased decision-making can originate from a vast quantity of information, then we may need to deliberately examine and determine what information is and is not essential.?

The qualities of creative individuals are about being flexible to churn out the most number of ideas so that these ideas can help us to filter information when making the decision. Consequently, unbiased decisions are well-informed answers after robust ideas generation that makes it possible to narrow down options to select a solution. In this regard, we would rely on a creative decision-making paradigm to arrive at an unbiased choice as a solution.

Making creative, informed decisions

A company with creative thinking abilities are ahead of a rival when it comes to solving problems for decision making. Because of the flattening of company structures with strong market competition, people and organizations are being forced to be more innovative in their selections. These decisions range from cost-cutting to developing new business models.??

If a decision-maker is to come up with fresh ideas while going through the problem-solving process, it will be necessary to think creatively to assist the process. By combining fresh ideas and problem-solving factors in decision-making and using them to create choices, you can lower the risk of biases when you make informed decision.??

Creativity allows the decision-maker to examine the problem more fully and understand it. This may be done in a way that others may not understand or perceive novel or useful options while addressing an issue. This is where the creative thinking and problem-solving capability training sessions can help mould the decision-makers to follow a systematic decision-making process to lessen bias possibilities.?Comprehensive creative thinking skills training for teams can form a common problem solving language to sow the seeds of understanding while eyeing to build an unbiased decision-making culture in the long run.

Being able to arrive at unbiased decisions is a crucial element of being a good decision-maker. Creative thinking for decision making starts with original concepts. It also requires unbiased attention to practical preparation and accessible execution of the respective solution later on.

Unbiased decision from careful choices?

If your decision-making process is flexible, you can come up with many different answers to an issue. The result can benefit in understanding how unbiased decision is madenon, which is to tap into the originality or uniqueness of a concept.

The degree of creativity in the decision-making process encourages researchers of unbiased decision-making abilities to refer to two areas of 1) the fluency in the number of thoughts a person can produce and 2) the flexibility in the degree to which thoughts vary from one another. This, according to some experts, is no accident because your creativity is the result of three elements interacting together:?(1) Persons (open-mindedness to new experiences, risk-taking), (2) their qualities (expertise, creativity, motivation) and (3) the surroundings (Amabile, 1988; Amabile, et. al., 1996; Ford & Gioia, 2000; Tierney, et. al., 1999; Woodman, et. al., 1993). For instance, research indicates that people who are open to experience, are less conscientious, more self-accepting, non-judgmental, and more spontaneous tend to be more creative (Feist, 1998). Strengthening unbiased decision-making abilities depend on several creative thinking strategies.

1. Avoid simply going along with your feelings blindly

Even when people are aware of making the decision at hand with many options, the decisions are still plagued with perceptual biases. Even when there is a strong desire to make the best decision possible.?

Occasionally, your emotions will guide you to the right course of action, usually in matters relating to your personal life. However, while making professional choices, especially those that impact others, you must put your emotions aside. The capacity to examine options in a non-judgmental manner is a hallmark of creative thinking. Analysis, open-mindedness, problem-solving, organising, and communication are all characteristics of creative thinking.

Being rational in decision-making is to set your selection criteria for your solution before you look for all options. This will keep you from being overly attached to one choice. It is easier in narrowing down your standards as a result.

Let us assume you begin looking for houses before deciding on your criteria. You may come across a house that you believe can accurately represent your own style and you form an emotional attachment to it.

Since you like this house, you may convince yourself that the most essential requirements are the big house porch and many rooms. You may discover after buying it, the house is too expensive to upkeep and you do not need so many rooms after all. Setting a few broad criteria before looking for alternatives may help you avoid making errors like this. However, you need to balance this rational approach with a creative mindset to encourage decision-makers to consider all options rather than just a few. You are more likely to make a successful choice if you generate many options such as 1) looking for a number of houses and 2) refining your standards as you go along discovering differences among the houses that you visit in order for you to cover a broad range of possibilities.

For most of us, it is more complicated than it sounds in identifying the feeling/s you are experiencing (are you angry, worried, or sad? What are your current feelings?) and putting it to the side. It is simpler to minimize the influence of emotion on your choice when you can identify and be aware of it.

2. Avoid being swayed by your first reaction.

We may make a hasty judgement on a circumstance or a person that turns out to be incorrect later. Unfortunately, we are more inclined to stay with it.

Based on the level at which decision-making occurs,?it can be divided into three types. Within the workplace, the direction of the company is determined by strategic choices. Tactical choices are those that affect how tasks or work activities are done. Finally, operational choices are made by workers to operate the business daily.

Consider the neighborhood sundry shop that regularly provides a complimentary house delivery in response to a client complaint. The owner made a deliberate choice to provide excellent customer service. The shop's management established the delivery policy as a tactical move to deal with client concerns. And, each day, the shop's workers make unique judgments on whether each customer complaint is valid enough to merit a complimentary delivery.

Consider your first response - what was it? What did you think, and how did you react? Afterwards, compare your initial response to the evidence. For example, if your first impression of a worker is he or she is always unfriendly, you subsequently see that they offer a kind gesture and complete tasks to a high standard, it is time to reconsider your first assessment. Allow yourself some time to confirm or reject that first impression.

3. Weigh multiple situations

We tend to operate under the assumption of a single potential situation (this is often the worst-case scenario). When we do this, the probable result we come up with seems highly plausible and likely, even if it is simply a scenario we imagined. Instead of settling for a particular situation, start exploring options.

Accepting the first choice that meets your basic needs is described as receiving the first alternative that matches your lowest standards. Many recent graduates, for instance, do not conduct a national or global search for potential employment options; somewhat, they restrict their hunt to a specific location and take the first offer in that area, while it may not be ideal. Thus, satisficing is related to the decision-maker saves time and effort by accepting the first choice that meets the minimal criterion rather than picking the best option in maximizing the achievable outcome.

If you do have to make a quick decision, go with acceptable enough – it meets the minimal criteria and is likely to result in a positive end – rather than searching for the ideal and perfect option that seldom exists.

What really is the ideal scenario? What occurs if the results are average, neither too good nor too bad? In adding to the one you first considered, try to think of at least a few additional scenarios and thoroughly analyze them.

4. Begin with the fundamentals and work your way up

Making your way up is a great way to begin a decision-making process. Start with the options you recognize will just not work for you and identify the critical elements of your decision.

The explanation may be that successful leaders are exact in regarding what they are after at the start of the decision-making process (Nutt, 1998). After that, they set goals for themselves and others to respond. Simultaneously, individuals conduct an unrestrained quest for answers. Whilst doing so, they get important people engaged and rarely use their leadership position to impose their perspective onto others.

If you are organising a vacation, you may decide right away that you want to be near a beach and in a location with many historical attractions. That will help you manage and reduce your options. Understand what you base your choice on and your fundamental criteria - what matters most to you, what has to be present, and what characterizes a good result.

5. Avoid striving to find the ideal solution for it all.

People frequently are stuck when attempting to choose the most outstanding choice available. That is not always attainable. When trying to make the best decision, we may be need to study hundreds of options and evaluate them by devoting considerable time and effort. We really are not built to do this because we can quickly assess 5-7 options at a time. If we have hundreds of options, we become trapped.

It may also be of little importance when the decision has very minor consequences. Is it essential to get the best oven possible? Even when making a significant decision, it is sometimes crucial to choose "good enough" rather than "great" because otherwise, the process would take an eternity.

In conclusion, creativity enables decision-makers to more thoroughly evaluate and comprehend the issue. Sometimes in ways that others may not perceive. The capacity to examine various viewpoints and solve an issue in a novel manner is creative decision-making. It provides unbiased decisions for new or improved alternatives, a new technique, or even aid in discovering a new product or service for a company to offer.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.),?Research in Organizational Behavior, 10?123–167 Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity.?Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1154–1184.

American Bar Association. (2020). Everyone Is a Little Bit Biased. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from Americanbar.org website: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/publications/blt/2020/04/everyone-is-biased/

Cambridge Dictionary. (2021a, June 23). bias. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from @CambridgeWords website: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bias

Cambridge Dictionary. (2021b, June 23). prejudice. Retrieved June 29, 2021, from @CambridgeWords website: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prejudice

Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity.?Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 290–309.

Ford, C. M., & Gioia, D. A. (2000). Factors influencing creativity in the domain of managerial decision making.?Journal of Management, 26, 705–732.

Investopedia. (2021). Heuristics. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from Investopedia website: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/heuristics.asp

Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (1995). The nature of insight. New York: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/4879.001.0001?

Nutt, P. C. (1998). Surprising but true: Half the decisions in organizations fail.?Academy of Management Executive, 13, 75–90.

Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M., & Graen, G. B. (1999). An examination of leadership and employee creativity: The relevance of traits and relationships.?Personnel Psychology, 52, 591–620

Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity.?Academy of Management Review, 18, 293–321.

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Wong Siong Lai

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