Essay on Do all people think alike?i
In actuality, diverse theories offer different views on human thinking but there is no universal homogeneous view on ways of thinking used by people. Different theories agree only on the diversity of ways of thinking and they distinguish general trends and factors that determine the way people, think, like intuition or logic, for instance. According to the Adaption-Innovation theory, the existence of diverse problems, which people have to serve, contributes to the diversity of ways of thinking people use to solve those problems. At this point, I can refer to my personal experience since my vision of human thinking and my way of thinking has been different before I have got acquainted with the Adaption-Innovation theory.
The adaption-innovation theory holds the premise that all people are creative because they need creativity to solve problems (Luo & Bernacki, 2014). This fact was well-known for me and I believed that managers should encourage the creativity of employees to enhance their performance. I believed that all people have the creative potential which they can use to introduce innovations. However, as the adaption-innovation theory places emphasis on the fact that people face different problems they elaborate different problem solving strategies based on their specific way of thinking (Luo & Bernacki, 2014). In addition, people use their creativity to solve problems that may also differ. What is meant here is the fact that people have different creative potential some are more creative than others. As a result, they use different ways of thinking. For instance, the most creative people are innovators, who are people that are capable to invent new solutions to problems which they face in their life. Moreover, innovators can introduce new solutions to existing problems as well as they can offer solutions to new problems, which they have never faced before. For instance, innovators kept exploring and finding new solutions to the problem of transportation and invented airplanes, although, by that time, people had plenty of land transport technologies, including cars and railways, which allowed them to transport to the target destination relatively fast.
So far I would agree with the adaption-innovation theory since I believed that managers can enhance the performance of their employees and stimulate the development of their innovative activities. However, to my surprise the adaption-innovation theory insists that, aside of innovators, there are adaptors, who do not innovate themselves but adapt the invented solution to problems (Luo & Bernacki, 2014). At this point, it is important to place emphasis on the fact adaptors are not necessarily poor in the development of effective solutions. In fact, adaptors may be as important as innovators for communities or organizations. For instance, innovators can introduce an excellent, innovative solution to the problem, but fail to complete the introduction of the innovation, whereas it is the adaptor that will adapt the innovation and make it perfect for the solution of the particular problem.
Hence, I agree with the Adaption-innovative theory idea that people develop different ways of thinking. In this respect, the Adaption-Innovation theory places emphasis on the fact that specific ways of thinking develop on the ground of problems people deal with in their regular life. The interdependence between problems and approaches to their resolution that involve different ways of thinking is reasonable but still such a view is not perfect (Tharpe & Gallimore, 2008). In fact, people develop different ways of thinking dealing with different problems but still some people are more inclined to resolve their problems with the help of intuition, while others rely on logic and reason (Vygotsky, 2012). Hence, a priori they will use different approaches. In such a context, the creativity of individuals becomes the crucial factor that determines the way of thinking (Piager, 2005). The creativity is one of the major driver of thinking since it helps people to find more and more sophisticated and successful solutions to more and more complex problems which they confront in the course of their life.
However, the Adaption-innovation theory was surprising to me because I used to view all people as potential innovators and I did not distinguish adaptors. The acquaintance with the Adaption-innovation theory contributed to the change of my attitude to adaptors since now I basically agree that there are people, who do improve existing innovations and implement innovative ideas successfully, while not all innovators can make their innovations really successful.
Finally, the diversity of ways of human thinking may have a negative impact on the way people are managed. At this point, I can refer to my personal experience, when I encouraged my subordinates to develop innovations but many of them have failed and I believed that they just cannot perform well in our company but the problem could be their way of thinking, since they could be adaptors but not innovators. If I transferred those employees, whom I considered to be unsuccessful, to the adaption of innovations, they could have revealed their full potential.
Thus, the Adaption-Innovation theory offers the idea that human way of thinking differs and the development of specific ways of thinking becomes the result of people’s dealing with diverse problems. As they deal with different problems, they develop diverse ways of thinking. Some people turn out to be more creative than others and they become innovators, while those with less developed creativity become adaptors.
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