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| Prof. T. N. Krishnan |
The
similarity to an organizational context -Like chess players
organizational managers are faced with complex situations, are limited in their
information processing capabilities and also need to decide under time
pressure. Managers do make decisions by doing a cost-benefit analysis, but the
interesting part is that most of the times just as in chess situation there are
too many variables and too much information that all of which possibly cannot
be humanly considered while taking a decision. What this implies are atleast
two things. First, they need to conserve their energy and not dissipate it on
things that would not yield much returns. Second, they need to simplify the
decision making process.
Firstly, it is found that great managers appreciate the
unique abilities and eccentricities of each of the employees[1]
accept them as they are and offers job opportunities which match their talent.
Just as a good chess player knows the possibilities of each piece and accepts
its strengths and limitations and creates the positions accordingly. There is
probably greater energy wasted in trying to change someone both at an
organizational and individual level than increase our capacity to accept the
other as they are and offer opportunities that match their interests and
talents. Good organizations try to make jobs relevant to employee’s life
interests[2]
and try to match the motivations and unique talents of each employee to the job
at hand[3].
That being said research in organizational psychology has long debated the role
of both nature and nurture in human behavior. While something are more stable,
some others are less so and can be trained for, but the trick is to
differentiate the one from the other.
Secondly, simplifying the decision making process could be
done by atleast two ways: one is to perhaps consider only those variables that
are most relevant to the decision to be made and the other is to make use of
pattern recognition. The work by Simon on bounded rationality choice making suggests
decision makers given the constraints, often employ heuristics rather than
optimization. Factorial designs and policy capturing studies have become
popular as research methodologies in management, and the methodologies are
based on the premise that decision makers rely on a relatively small number of
factors in making judgements. Not all factors need to be considered and some
are more highly weighted than others, given a context. For instance in Employee
selection literature though two types of fit – person-job and
person-organization fit have been previously established, a recent interesting
policy-capturing study finds that one type of fit becomes more relevant to the
other depending on the kind of employment relationship and tasks performed in
the job and the fit is established based on a small number of factors. In a
similar vein, not all choices need to be analysed to make a move. The pattern
recognition ability of expert chess players is similar to the case of an
experienced business leader being able to make correct choices without much
analysis while a rookie manager would have to navigate through piles of
information before deciding. This could
perhaps explain why an expert Chess player rattles through his moves in a
simultaneous game and still win or why a doctor has diagnosed a disease even
before the patient has completed reciting the symptoms. Again the work by Simon
provides interesting insights into these.
The dissimilarity between the organizational situation and
the chess situation is that managers are invariably faced with different and
often competing goals while in a game of chess it could be a singular one (to
win).The trade-offs between long-term and short-term goals are popular in
management literature and there are numerous research and examples. In an oft
quoted example on staffing we often hear the recruiters complaining that there
are not enough skilled people to occupy positions. This might be surprising
given a recessionary economy the scales favour the employer.But in the
interesting study by Cappelli (2011[4])
finds that given a recessionary economy,employers are expecting prospective
workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up
time – the paradox being to get a job, you have to have
that job already.What this has lead to is a
situation in which companies are investing less and less in training and
development (less cost) and expecting more of performance (more benefits). A
related pointis that in a game each match could be taken in a ‘sportsman’
spirit while in an organizational situation the outcomes of each decision made
could have an impact on the ongoing relationship between the affected parties
and is often more nuanced than raw cost-benefit analysis.
[1]
Buckingham, M. (2005). What great managers do, Harvard Business Review,
[2]
Butler, T. &Waldroop, J. (1999). Job Sculpting. Harvard Business Review,
77(5), 144 – 152
[3]Cappelli
(2011). Why Companies Aren't Getting the Employees They Need
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204422404576596630897409182
accessed on 23rd November 2013
T. N. Krishnan is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources at IIM Kozhikode.
T. N. Krishnan is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources at IIM Kozhikode.
