Creative Deviance: Bucking the Hierarchy?

I believe it is possible for an organization to deliberately create an “anti-hierarchy” to encourage employees to engage in more acts of creative deviance. All things being equal, the broad span of control leads to efficient organization while a narrow span of control results in hierarchical organization. However, span of control can be affected by some factors, such as abilities of the managers and employees, jobs complexity. Encouraging creative deviance is about executing on the innovation opportunities. There are five steps I think a company could take to encourage creative deviance.

Firstly, encouraging innovation is the most important step to have creative deviance.

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Secondly, when you make mistakes while you are innovating, you are better admit the problems as soon as possible and keep going on with improving your other innovations. Thirdly, creating a wonderful environment for your employees that could fosters innovation. Fourthly, trying to give your employees enough time and space to think innovatively so that they might have creative deviance.Last but not least, company that are less centralized would have a greater amount of autonomy, which may motivate employees to attain creative deviance.

The dangers of an approach that encourage creative deviance are: problems would not be seen as signs of failure, or even as issues that should be resolved before moving on to the next stage of development; misplaced enthusiasm can lead to an unrealistically tight development timetable; and lenient review procedures. Furthermore, there are dangers in listening too closely to existing consumers, who might just ask for an improvement to an existing product or service rather than imagining a new way of doing something.

In addition, if the companies cannot kill projects and products that are doomed to fail, the company will be in a danger. If creative deviance is the duel in your company’s growth engine, creative deviance gone badly can derail the whole train before it ever gets to the hill. Much less up it.

A company like Apple id able to be creative with strongly hierarchical structure is because the key to Apple’s success is not as it appears its hierarchal structure. Instead of that, the key to Apple’s success is having strong cross-functional teams. Different from other companies with traditional “assembly line” type of development, Apple adopts parallel production in which are having all the groups including design, manufacturing, engineering and sales to meet continuously through the product-development cycle. Then, they hold brainstorming sessions, trading idea sessions and solutions sessions. Strategizing over the most pressing issues, and generally keeping the conversation open to a diverse group of perspectives.

Although the process is noisy and involves far more open-ended and contentious meetings than traditional production cycles, the result is Apple’s success. However, the other companies find hierarchy limiting is because they keep doing the traditional “assembly line” type of development which is the designers start the process by designing the product and its basic features, and then the developers take a look at the design and shrink it down to what is possible. The manufacturers then figure out how to produce large quantities of this product taking out more parts and features along the way, and then the marketing and sales people figure out how to sell it. Bu the time the product goes to market, there is no creative deviance appear.

I believe that Apple’s success has been entirely dependent upon Steven Job’s role as a head of the hierarchy. Without the contribution from Jobs, Apple would not prosper as we can see today. Under this unique leadership style, employees are willing to work had and try their best to dedicate for their consistent goal. However, the potential liabilities of a company that is connected to the decision-making of a single individual is if the decision-maker is not visionary enough, the whole company will ruin by him or her. The fundamental errors in the leader’s perceptions can lead to a failed vision. Common problems include an inability to detect important changes in markets, for example, competitive. Technological, or consumer needs; a failure to accurately assess and obtain the necessary resources for the vision’s accomplishment; and a misreading or exaggerated sense of the needs of markets or constituents. Therefore, it is so important to select a wise leader who always has a clear vision, experience, and all the possible problems and situations have to be taken into account before making the decision.