Examining the Claims
The first claim that has to be examined is the idea that salespeople do not have access to marketing resources that could be helpful in promoting the watches. It directly relates to the notion of hasty generalization because the organization did not perform any in-depth analyses of its sales or marketing efforts (Boss, 2017). Therefore, the team might have mistakenly hypothesized that the market is slowing down because of several reports prepared by other companies. The team should look into its own data instead and ensure that all data sets are considered.
The second claim eligible for examination is the lack of positive interaction between the marketing department and the financial manager. It is a rather vivid example of a red herring fallacy because one of the parties accuses the other one in a possible attempt to cover up its own faults. The problem with this logical fallacy is that there were no audits performed to be certain of the fact that any of the given units tend to conceal information or share invalid data with their colleagues (Boss, 2017). Eventually, the team might find out that its claims were erroneous, but it would be too late to introduce any changes.
The third claim to be examined is the assertion that salespeople are not doing a great job and, therefore, have to be kicked out from the organization in order to help the management improve sales. This is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy because there is no proven association between the salespeople being completely responsible for the state of affairs in the market and target audience behaviors (Boss, 2017). Accordingly, the established sales goals could be merely inadequate and have nothing to do with the professional attitude and skills of the company’s salespeople.
Identifying Potential Fallacies
Creative thinking could be inhibited by hasty generalization because this logical fallacy creates a situation where employees do not have enough courage or interest to explore new possibilities. Accordingly, a single report regarding the ineffectiveness of the salespeople’s actions could lead to irrational decisions and potentially negative outcomes for the organization (Larsson, 2018). Wrong conclusions are synonymous with the lack of creativity because they avert the responsible individuals from thinking that they could be able to perform something unorthodox and actually succeed as a result.
The red herring logical fallacy might also be a devastating factor in terms of affecting creative thinking within the organization. The main reason for considering it is the high rate of the team becoming too preoccupied with secondary issues that have nothing to do with productivity and flexibility, leaving practically no room for creative decisions and approaches (Islam, 2020). The red herring fallacy seems to be the most impactful for the organization because it could lead the workers to lose precious time and resources while focusing on a secondary issue.
The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is a limitation for creative decision-making as well because it mostly dwells on the link between different organizational elements that have to be created to explain the existing failure. Without a proven link between a drop in sales and organizational lack of performance in certain units, such claims only have a negative impact on creativity and avert employees from forecasting organizational successes (Islam, 2020). Creativity cannot exist within an environment where workers are recurrently misled by the management decisions and tend to see logical connections between elements that do not relate to each other in any way.
Overcoming the Fallacies
The first possible strategy to help the team overcome the logical fallacies identified above would be to address hasty generalization. In order to do it, the team would have to engage in a never-ending exploration of options and market possibilities instead of focusing on the claim that nothing could be done about a drop in sales. Due diligence should become the leitmotif for any corporate operations, with every employee performing a complex decision-making process to find new ways to sell the existing products. Hasty generalization is a damaging aspect for any business, and the current case is not an exception.
The red herring fallacy could be overcome with the help of communal decision-making and joint efforts aimed at refocusing the organizational strategy. Creativity among employees shall be nurtured by means of collecting timely feedback and creating more freedom in terms of how sales are organized. Accordingly, the team would have an opportunity to stop looking at the red herring and assume that there is more value in resolving the initial issue instead of adding secondary problems to the list.
In order to overcome the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the team would have to focus on teambuilding activities much more often. It would help the organization to increase employee morale while also eradicating the numerous scenarios where the workers’ blame game would have taken them away from creative decision-making. According to the current case study, there are no inherent issues in terms of interpersonal communication, so the management should capitalize on people’s relationships to spark their creativity.
References
Boss, J. (2017). THiNK: Critical thinking and logic skills for everyday life (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Islam, G. (2020). Psychology and business ethics: A multi-level research agenda. Journal of Business Ethics, 165(1), 1-13.
Larsson, M. (2018). Risks and logical fallacies. In Circular Business Models (pp. 257-273). Palgrave Macmillan.