(Note: The ideas expressed in this article do not point towards any organisation in particular, and are written from personal experience and a hypothetical and academic perspective)

Decentralised decision-making is when the authority to take decisions is distributed throughout a large group of people. Such a concept without a doubt has far-reaching implications in any organisation. The decisions that arise from a decentralised system are considered the result of group knowledge and/or crowd wisdom.

‘Group Knowledge’ is a process by which large numbers of people converge upon the same knowledge through ‘Group Interaction.’ ‘Crowd Wisdom’ is the collective opinion of a group of individuals rather than that of a single expert. As i worked with people from different academic backgrounds i became an advocate of convergence, which is the overlapping nature of design, science, and art. As an advocate of the convergence movement, I began to analyse and see the interdependencies within them and how they can better act in concert and continuity, thus delivering solutions that are creative and innovative.

Getting back to the main point “Decentralisation” has three general benefits:

A. It encourages motivation and creativity
– Gets the ball rolling for new ideas and fresh concepts
B. Allows many minds to work simultaneously on the same problem
– Similar to supercomputing and high end graphic cards/smartphones – dual core/quad core/octa-core processing
C. Accommodates flexibility and individualisation
– Independent Thinking & Diversity, resulting in abstraction and moving ahead of stale concepts

The challenge for many organisation is how to push their employees for more creativity and innovation in their ideas/projects/products/and services. This is quite a big challenge, even for a lot of very senior professionals. Plus, highly debatable since freedom should encourage employees and foster creative and innovative ideas, keeping in mind feasibility.

In alignment with systems theory, decentralisation should foster individualism, innovation, and growth. The strategic decision to have separate departments that have autonomy over their projects and leadership should at least in theory should work well in creating growth and new ideas. However as all human beings consciously or subconsciously know that human experience is expansive and omnidirectional. The future runs in a linear line, thus it is difficult to prepare for it, without hope. Decentralisation surely doesn’t block creativity in my view, but i feel there might be some additional challenges that are unrecognised by human beings that is stopping innovation and at large, societal progress itself.

In my personal experience, In order to come up with new ideas some organisations, especially ‘Advertising Agencies’ conduct brainstorming sessions. These are usually done to break up the regular habitual way of thinking, and hopefully come up with some new and innovative ideas for campaigns and brand development. I have a feeling there are some unknown barriers in many organisations that results in a lack of communication between management and the employees. Since innovation cannot occur without creative thinking, however it can encouraged by management, as part of their daily job performance. Creativity at the workplace can express itself through fresh thinking, new ideas, seeing things from different angles, and also acting on such ideas.

My recommendation is to establish monthly – creativity forums for departments and cross-department brainstorming sessions, expanding the mindset of the employees via a healthy exchange of ideas.

Organisations that promote creativity and innovation will have a lot of associative benefits

Increased Drive – Employees will be more driven, and better aligned with corporate objectives due to better exchange of ideas

Improved Morale – Improved morale due to gaining a sense of control and greater sense of appreciation by leadership and management.

Improved Harmony – Greater harmony among employees, due to time spent together, thus emotional barriers will be broken down, since a lot of employees don’t speak with each other due to shyness or fear of the unknown, or shyness from people higher up the ladder.

Paradoxically, such a decision can only only come up from a leadership position since recognition and a reward system are highly critical for creating an innovative organisation.

Support from Senior Management and Leadership Positions
Drive employee empowerment by reinforcing commitment to innovation by giving a scope to experiment with and help out draw the dots between similar innovations and needs of organisation

Reward Innovative Employees
Support innovation by rewarding the outstanding employees who are not just driven by financial reasons, but are truly passionate about their work even though they might not be getting paid that much still devote a lot of intellectual horsepower to get the job done, and exceed scope & requirements

Appreciate Diversity
Seek employees from different academic backgrounds, skill sets, and organisational levels. Innovation can come from anywhere in the organisational ladder, this has been proven time and time again. Innovation has more to do with abstraction, passion, new ideas, and a solution-driven mindset, then experience or academic background. Diversity is what cultivates imagination to take an organisation to the next level.

External Learning
Seek new ideas and best practices from different industries by bringing in external consultants, experts, and interns from International Universities. Encourage and reward employees to attend workshops, seminars and conferences to build confidence and enhance exposure

A sustained and effective creative workforce requires a lot of commitment from leadership and the employees themselves. But a strategy should also be in place that gives a good framework for creative growth. By having a leadership that encourages creative thinking, means breaking some of the conventional barriers that exist in most companies. It will mean taking risks, and stepping away from current corporate cultural norms.

In my view, a lot of senior management has a tendency to be left-brained. Always relying on logic, reasoning, and rationality. When in fact human nature itself is not always logical, reasonable, or even rational. By allowing right-brain thinking to be utilised in an organisation, there will be a flow of new ideas that will allow an organisation to progress. Innovation is always about seeing what no-one else saw. This can only happen when you look at things from different perspectives. I believe imagination is a big asset that will allow all of us to create a better future, and this is what organisations need to stimulate and foster growth.

Whatever we see as a new technology, product, or a service was once just a part of someone’s imagination.