QUESTION:
What elements of the Human Resource Management process are especially depicted in this article? From this article, what advice would you give fellow students as they seek a position? Likewise, what advice would you give a recruiter who is seeking a job candidate?
In Hiring and Promoting, Look Beyond Results
By FRANCESCA GINO | October 24, 2011
Would you have more confidence in a new CEO who came from a company in a growing field or a troubled industry? Would you promote a top performer if you learned he or she used shady tactics to reach sales targets?
When making judgments about whom to hire and promote, context is crucial. It's important to know the situations in which people worked, and the methods they used, before judging their performance. In the case of the CEO, for instance, it's a lot easier to post great numbers in a booming industry than a shrinking one.
Unfortunately, we usually don't look at those factors. Evidence from several studies suggests that we're biased toward results when making these crucial decisions. Time and again, we look at what candidates have achieved-without asking where or how they achieved it.
Focusing on Results
This error comes in two forms. First, there's correspondence bias-the tendency to judge people's ability directly from performance, without taking into account their situation.
This type of error was demonstrated in a study I conducted with Don Moore of the University of California at Berkeley and Sam Swift and Zachariah Sharek of Carnegie Mellon University. We asked college students to assume the role of admissions officers for a selective M.B.A. program. Then we gave them candidates' grade-point averages, as well as the average GPA of the particular college each attended.
When deciding whom to admit, the participants overweighted applicants' GPAs and underweighted the effect of the grading norms at different schools. In other words, they did not appropriately take into account the ease with which candidates earned their grades.
Ends and Means
The other type of bias, outcome bias, is the tendency to base judgments about performance on the results alone, without examining the behavior the person used to reach those results. Consider a study I conducted with Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School and Don Moore.
We asked our participants to evaluate the actions of another person in terms of how ethical they were. From the description, it was clear that the person's actions were ethically questionable, and participants evaluated them as such. But when they then learned about the outcomes of those actions, their opinions sometimes changed.
When the actions led to a bad outcome, participants continued to view the person as highly unethical. But when the same actions led to a positive outcome, the person was evaluated as behaving ethically.
We all know that good people are sometimes unlucky, and that scoundrels sometimes get away clean. But if we judge decisions based on outcomes alone, we will end up condemning too many unlucky people and acquitting too many scoundrels.
Moving Forward
How can people overcome these biases? First, they must raise their level of awareness, recognizing that these biases exist and that they have powerful consequences. When managers face a hiring or promotion decision, they should consider whether they are appropriately accounting for a candidate's situation and whether their evaluations are based on both actions and outcomes.
Organizations may also need to make structural changes to their performance evaluations or promotion decisions. They might, for instance, reduce the effect of biases by including an assessment of the means used to achieve given objectives and the situational influences on performance.
By investing in these kinds of solutions, managers can be confident that they will be able to debug their selection decision.