When we are under intense pressure to produce more and more for less and less it is hard to even think about innovating (being effective) because we are too busy thinking about producing (being efficient).  From a business perspective it seems great to have more demand for your products and services than you can produce.  But being busy can lead to complacency and a false sense of security because we tend to assume that the demand for our products and services will always be there and the secret of success is to just keep doing what you are doing.  Unfortunately, this pressure to meet the pent up demand can trick us into thinking that all we have to focus our decisions on is production issues and not about the next generation products or process innovation.  This is where what’s urgent overpowers what’s important and our decisions and our decision making processes get real sloppy.  Sloppy decision making is not a recipe for success.  

Think of the enormous product demand at Kodak and the pressure to produce and preserve their product dominance rather than understand the pressures their customers were or would be experiencing.  Not understanding the pressures influencing their decisions cost them their company and over a hundred years of photography dominance.  After all most managers are paid for production not some possibility of profits from a new product in the future, especially if it might make their current revenue stream obsolete!

For many businesses just creating or adopting an effective decision making template would be a ground breaking innovation in itself and most likely lead to more innovation.

Having a thorough decision making process is essential if your organization is going to remain relevant and it must include:

1. Focus on future customer needs.
2. Evaluating possible future technology changes.
3. Looking for innovation opportunities inside and outside your business.
4. Understanding and evaluating the numerous influences, goals and objectives of decision making.

This kind of thorough process will produce far better outcomes than any snap decision that is made to reduce some of our pressure and ease our pain.  Sometimes the pain we think we need to solve is only a symptom and we can expend an enormous amount of energy and frustration before we find out our efforts are not working.  Having a disciplined decision making process can help to avoid that waste.  Innovators need to take more time to pause and reflect and evaluate than traditional producers because producers have not focused on changing the game whereas innovators do and in the future producers need to adopt an innovator mindset.  

Great innovators don’t wing it!  They create decision making processes that help keep them calm under pressure so they can uncover as many options as possible and ensure that their decisions are the result of deep understanding. 

Organizations across the globe are in search of better and faster everything.  The need for creative problem solving has never been stronger but “can we get it done quicker” is usually the question?  As a matter of fact there are ways to get creative quicker.  The best problem solving comes when blood is flowing to the brain and when energy is high and the mind is flexible.  The good news is that we know how to induce all three of those things.  We don’t just have to wait and hope they will happen.  Studies have shown that the brain responds (i.e. operates more effectively with clearer thought) to some foods better than others and it operates more efficiently when blood is freely flowing.  So, just like your mother told you, it does pay to eat right.  We also know that our bodies naturally restrict blood flow in stressful situations and therefore the most optimum environment for creative problem solving is relatively stress free, happy and at ease.  We can create that kind of environment with something as simple as some light hearted humor and certainly laughter even if it’s forced.  (It is really hard to fake laughter very long without it being a little funny.)  Unfortunately, not all board rooms in corporate America are light hearted and stress free.  So, any effort in the direction of comfortable camaraderie and light hearted humor will contribute to the free flow of blood and consequently free flow of ideas and solutions.  You can try jump starting things by talking about your favorite funny movie or comedian just to get your brain connected to humorous images and thought patterns.  Actually the surprise and the unexpected you find in humor are exactly what creativity and innovative problem solving are made of.  It helps make the mind more flexible and open.  Once you learn how productive and fun creative problem solving can be you won’t want to try to work without it.