Saturday 22 February 2014

Towards Good Decisions


Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.

Better still if the experience and wisdom are gained by observing the results of bad decisions made by others. However, the fact is that of all the decisions that we make at each and every stage of our life and in our career, only some are good choices.

We are all likely to make bad decisions at some point or the other. And mind you ‘Not all our bad decisions are mistakes’.
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So what differentiates a bad decision from a mistake?

At times, we are faced with situations where we do not have an idea what the best choice might be. What do we do if we have to respond very quickly and there is not enough time to gather information? In such situations, we make decisions and take actions using our intuitions. As intuitions come naturally to most of us, the use of intuitions helps us to arrive at conclusions rapidly and rather implicitly. However, intuitions are also hardwired with cognitive biases, which substantially influence our thinking. Without these biases and heuristics many decisions would never be made.

Here we need to bear in our minds that while the use of intuitions is certainly beneficial in some circumstances, say where innovative or creative thinking is required, it can also lead to errors in others. In the process we may be prone to making a mistake.

Alternately, there are situations where we make the wrong choice in spite of knowing that it is not really the right thing to do, but we take the risk believing that we will get away with it. If we manage to get away, we do not hesitate to repeat our wrong actions. On the other hand, when we receive flak for our choices, then we try to pass off our bad decisions as judgment errors or mistakes.



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Owning up a bad decision

As the deliberateness of our action is a key factor that separates a bad decision from a mistake, it is relatively easier for us to admit a mistake, but it is much harder to accept that we have consciously made a bad choice. People are generally more unforgiving towards those who have deliberately acted in a way that was likely to produce a bad outcome.

Dov Seidman, an observer of societal trends in the US, notes that passing off a bad decision as a mistake and rendering an apology has almost become a reflexive response among leaders. Every other day, some chief executive, politician or other prominent figure is seen apologizing for their mistakes.

When a bad decision is re-labelled as a mistake, it no longer appears to be something that is done entirely on purpose. Thereby it reduces the extent to which others perceive the involvement and contribution of the person behind the error and so the person is more likely to be forgiven and the action is more likely to be forgotten.

However the distinction between the mistakes and bad decisions is not always so clear nor is it so simple to arrive at. At times we choose A over B for reasons that we often don’t understand. Our intuitions, cultural biases, emotions and other contextual factors implicitly come into play and fundamentally affect the way in which we gather and process information to make decisions. People are susceptible to think and act in a particular manner due to their cultural orientation. For instance, whereas, we find that the word ‘sorry’ is  one of the most abused words in the US, on the other hand the to say 'sorry' is still an ‘alien’ concept for many unruly parliamentarians in India, who do not regret their display of uncouth public behaviour.

A decision based on perception of ‘what is right’ for the one who makes the decision may not be perceived in a similar manner by others who are impacted differently by the decision. Here the distinction between bad decision and mistake gets blurred.
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Learning from mistakes and bad choices

Both mistakes and bad choices provide the opportunity to learn and grow from them. The best way to look at mistakes is to use them as stepping stones to move forward towards our goals.

Owning up our decisions is the first step towards improved decisions. We can learn from our mistakes only when we admit the mistake, offer a sincere apology for it and own up the mistake instead of trying to justify the reasons which led to it. Analyzing our mistake by recognizing the situation under which we made the mistake and identifying the wrong action on our part will help to avoid repeating the mistake.

Furthermore, though presence of cognitive biases hugely impact decision making, yet most people are generally not aware of them or like to believe that they are susceptible to implicit biases during decision-making. Recognizing that the biases exist can help us to consciously put some plans and processes in place to address through the biases and balance our intuitions with rationality.

To arrive at better decision outcomes and avoid repeating the same mistake over and over again, we need to work towards:
  • Owning up our decisions.
  • Analyzing our mistakes.
  • Recognizing the situation if it arises again.
  • Remembering the mistake we made.
  • Being aware of our biases.
  • Being aware of likely outcome.
  • Changing our mistake behaviour.

Lastly when perceptions about the correctness or righteousness of a significant decision vary, then it becomes very necessary to assess the impact of the decision of different people, gain buy in of the people who are impacted by the decision, set ground rules and work towards a goal or desirable consequences while acting in appropriate manner to avoid undesirable consequences.

Better awareness will not necessarily guarantee better decisions, but they can make them more likely.
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References:

Sunday 9 February 2014

So What Type Of A Social Media User Are You?



While it is a commonly known fact that the number of people accessing internet is growing, some key facts worth noting are :
To think about it, with the penetration of internet and global mobile outreach growing by the day, sites such as Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn and other networking websites are becoming an integral part of our daily lives. So much so, that we check our Facebook, Twitter accounts right in the morning even before we start our work, during the day we post to these accounts and we also log in before we retire for the day to  keep ourselves updated on what’s happening around.

In fact, social media has become a phenomenon that has changed the way in which we which we seek & share information and interact with our friends, colleagues and other people across the world.

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Organizations maintain their online presence on Facebook , Twitter, Flickr , Google+, Pinterest , MySpace , D Digg and other social sites. Many organisations use social media for their customer service function and also for their sales and marketing functions. Some organizations are turning to social media even for recruiting. Communities are using social media to support their cause and for crowdfunding. Political parties run social media campaigns. Business owners use social media to promote their brand. 
Researchers use social media for getting peer reviews of their work. And HCL Technologies is even conducting the first ever coolest recruitment drive on Twitter.

However many critics warn that though social media offer freedom and flexibility, it can be misused for settling personal scores. Constant use of social media can also be quite draining and cause addiction, anxiety & increased peer pressure particularly among young people.

Whether the use of social media will keep increasing on a continual basis or it is a bubble waiting to burst, the fact is that you simply cannot ignore social media. Rather, one needs to learn how to use social media optimally. We also need to remember that though social media is a powerful platform for communication, yet certain things are best communicated in private. A school in the US,  has adopted Social Media Policy recognizing the importance of incorporating the latest technology as a tool to enhance learning while providing guidelines to ensure responsible and safe usage by system employees.

Based on my observation of how different users use Twitter, I have illustrated below some typical types of users. Can you identify which user group you belong to?  What are the other types of users that you can think of?
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Different Types of Twitter Users
Different Types of Twitter Users

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Welcome your comments.

Monday 3 February 2014

How companies can effectively engage employees


Continuing the discussion from my last post on how Employee Engagement can create business value, here  I will write about how organizations can implement a range of workplace strategies to increase the levels of engagement. In this post we look at some best practices relevant to all types of organizations, though the nuances and implementation will vary from setting to setting.

Meaningful work and clarity of objectives

Having a meaningful job is the most important factor that affects levels of engagement for all employee groups. Employees, who are able to relate their tasks to a broader context and feel that they can make a difference have positive perceptions about their work. Where employees can see the impact of their work on the organization or on the customers or on society in general, the level of motivation and engagement are higher.
Work can be made meaningful by
  • Assigning jobs to individuals based on their ability and attitude.
  • Communicating to the employee how the job adds value to the organization and fits into the overall objective of the organization.
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Senior management communication style and vision

Senior Management can achieve higher levels of engagement by linking the desired organization outcomes to measurable performance drivers. The manner in which a firm’s management structure the organization, shape up the culture and people practices, and create incentives for their employees defines the firm’s ability to use its people to differentiate and compete.
Communication from senior management about organization’s vision and objectives helps employees to understand the overall purpose of the organization and see a bigger picture in their daily work.
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Management style

Employees’ level of engagement and other work responses are affected by their perceptions of management style. Middle management has a significant role to play in creating an optimal working environment and in helping line managers to support employees in achieving their performance goals. Line managers are the interface between employees and senior managers; as such they need to ensure that the right people are placed in jobs that are appropriate for their skills and abilities. They also need to communicate the goals and objectives clearly, so that employees can focus their effort on specific tasks. This is particularly important in large organizations where there is typically little contact between the senior management team and employees. Articulating the link between individual jobs and the broader organizational aims helps employees to see how their role fits with, and contributes to, the bigger picture of the organizational strategy.
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Person - job fit

People need to be in the right jobs with appropriate targets to channel their engagement. When people are assigned work for which they have a natural flair and which is in sync with their passions, productivity increases. Employees stand a far greater chance of being able to take on additional work if the work is in tune with their natural talents.
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Job Enrichment

In some firms employees are moved from their typical day-to-day task to a whole new role, for a limited time to increase the exposure of employees to different functions. This is known as JOB ROTATION. Although this has the advantage of increasing flexibility of production, it does not lead to motivation.
JOB ENLARGEMENT is another technique that involves adding more tasks of SIMILAR COMPLEXITY to the existing job. This technique too does not improve upon the motivational content of the job.
Some organizations provide their employees with opportunities to experience greater RESPONSIBILITY through ENHANCED tasks that require employees to use skills they have not used before, while staying on in the current role. This is known as JOB ENRICHMENT.
Job enrichment involves adding  MORE COMPLEX tasks to a job over a period of time. These new tasks are designed to stretch individuals to utilize their latent skills and abilities by giving them greater responsibility; as well as greater freedom and challenge necessary for self development. These are presented as OPPORTUNITIES rather than demands that  MAY be tackled as an optional extra.
Herzberg claims that while Job rotation and job enlargement fail to motivate because they do not offer the opportunity for growth in the psychological sense, Job enrichment provides the opportunity for the employees' psychological growth.
When introducing Job enrichment , jobs  chosen to be enriched should be such for which MOTIVATION will make a difference. There is no point in attempting to get people to increase their effort unless their increased effort leads to increased productivity. It is observed that employees with high growth needs are more responsive to job enrichment while people with low skills or knowledge are less responsive. Besides, if people are upset about other context things (pay, company policies, etc.) they are less responsive to enrichment.
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Job design

Jobs that are designed  to have appropriate breadth and depth [[1]] tend to increase engagement. HR professionals can play a key role in helping line managers to design jobs effectively and in developing selection processes that match individual skills to jobs, taking into consideration employee factors such as:
  • ability (can they do it),
  • motivation (will they do it).
Further HR can play a critical role in the selection, development and performance management of line managers to ensure that line managers are equipped to perform as engaging leaders.
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Person - organization fit

A match between the organization culture and the natural talents, passions, and motivations of employees creates higher levels of engagement. Assessing candidates for emotional competencies, soft skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, motivation, finding out how they’ll respond in real world situations, helps in recruiting employees who “fit” with the organization in terms of values and core competencies. Take for example a firm whose main strength lies in developing new products and technology. Such a firm needs to have the culture and the bandwidth to tolerate failures and moreover it needs to be managed and staffed by people who are driven by creativity, who thrive upon working in a dynamic environment and who are not averse to risk-taking.  In contrast, a firm in which efficiency and cost-control are critical will employ people who people who are oriented towards managing costs carefully.

Supportive work environment and employee voice

Engagement levels are also affected by the working environment. Engagement levels are higher where employees have a sense of teamwork, they perceive that they have support from others in accomplishing their job, and they can safely express themselves. Employees who have the confidence that the management would take into consideration their opinion while making decisions on workplace issues that affect them; will have a positive perception of the management. The belief that managers are interested in the well-being and career growth of their team members acts as an important motivator for employees and increases their engagement. Individual-level feedback can booth both engagement and performance.
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Finally...

The employee efforts and engagement and the rewards should be positively correlated. The reciprocation of efforts should include opportunities for development and promotion so employees can see their future trajectory within their organization.
It is very important for managers to show appreciation for the engaged employees, and find ways to engage other employees. At the same time, it is also crucial for business managers to understand that many times disengaged employees have strong motives behind their behaviors and there are some employees whose buy in is difficult to come by.




[1]  Breadth is the number of tasks a jobholder performs, Depth-amount of discretion an individual has to decide job activities and outcomes.


Related Links:
Engaging employees for creating business value
Job Rotation & Job Enrichment Examples