Fear of the Unknown

When I was working in India in the late 2008 the H1N1 Flu kept spreading. People were trying to get their hands on the N95 masks for their family. People used to store the phone numbers of various hospitals where they screen for H1N1 symptoms. Many were even contemplating to take Tamiflu tablets so that they are protected.

In January of 2012, when Nigeria went on strike as a protest against the petrol price hike, I observed that everyone was buying petrol as though there is no tomorrow! There were serpentine queues outside the filling stations including people with large jerry cans and buying petrol at outrageous prices.

Why do we do this?

Fear is a factor of risk and is predominantly driven by our perception of risk. As human beings, we tend to overreact when gripped by fear. That is, we consider something more risky than it actually is.

The recession which is a totally new experience for many of us has created a similar fear. The perceived risk here being - we may lose our job. Every economic news (be it national, international or organization) is analysed for its impact on our job at every possible opportunity. Our daily routine gets paralysed and we become a victim of the “Fear of the Unknown”.

Your Action

Resist your temptation to actively search for negative news or draw unwanted inferences from routine information.  Avoid those coffee table discussions in your office that invariably steers towards dip in sales in your organization, attrition, policy changes and how your job is on the chopping block etc. that would impact you negatively.

Hyperopia Effect

SHOULD YOU CONSUME TODAY OR CONSUME IN THE FUTURE?

Most of us would have had this feeling one time or the other.

We come across a “Sale” in a shop and see a nice shirt but restrain ourselves from spending because we feel that others would think we are “cheap”. We assure ourselves that it is money well saved for some future needs. After a few days we end up buying a similar by paying 20% more and regret our actions for not buying at the sale!

Think of another situation. You are planning for a vacation with your family 3 months in the future. With the oil prices increasing by the day you believe that the flight tickets would rocket in the next 3 months. You make a smart decision to book them now. Two months down the line you find that the price of air tickets have fallen more than 30% because of some OPEC agreement! You are kicking yourself for your decision to buy ahead of time!

The case is no different with managers.

Consider this. You are a well intending Project Manager and have been entrusted with a new project. You want to ensure project success and get more repeat orders from the customer. You are managing a Six months fixed priced project and want to maximize the project margin. Three months in to the project you realize that you need a specialist to manage the testing but you defer and induct a low cost resource, to maximize the margin. Very soon you realize that project timeline is going to overshoot as the new resource is incapable of handling the complexities. Result – The customer is unhappy and more resources are needed to correct the situation giving rise to more cost and much reduced margin!

Think of the other situation – Another project manager with a similar project wants to ensure that his project is successful and his customer his happy. He staffs top quality resources in his team. 3 Months down the line – though his project is cruising nicely he does not have any budget to continue!

Why does this happen?

Many of us tend to adopt strict measures today in anticipation of having a better tomorrow. In other cases we tend to overeat today because we plan to diet from tomorrow!

Behaviour scientists call this the hyperopia effect. This is opposite of myopia. It is so called because it comes when people look too far into the future while sacrificing the present. Behavior scientists also call this Saver’s remorse.

This of course does not mean that you should not save today but you should also not postpone your current consumption.

It simply means that one needs to strike the right balance between consuming today and consuming in the future.

Pygmalion Effect

A friend of mine who is a delivery unit head of a reputed IT organization was relating an interesting experience from his workplace. As a delivery unit head he mandated that each of his project team absorbs at least 4 campus recruits. He observed that the freshers allocated to one project manager always excelled and became quickly productive and billable compared to other projects. This happened repeatedly for couple of years.

My friend who is always in the lookout for such signals soon found out that the Project Manager in question always expected enhanced performance from the new college recruits rather than brand them as ‘Freshers’ who will take their time to learn. So why did this make them perform better?

According to Behavioral psychologists, greater the expectation placed upon people, better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion. Pygmalion is a self fulfilling prophecy. In this case, the Project Manager’s expectation was internalized by the new recruits and it reflected in their performance. In many cases, the new recruits are labeled as “non-billable resources” or “buffer resources” and leads to poor expectations and thereby poorer performance.

Not Invented Here

I recently met a client who had a telling observation. He remarked that in IT organizations, most supervisor works “one rung” lower. When asked to explain, he stated that most supervisors tend to hang on to their earlier roles, far too long. They believe that if they do not provide continuous oversight, the reporting person would not deliver to the desired outcome.

Why is it so difficult for supervisors to “let go” of their earlier responsibilities? Behavioral scientists link it to “Not Invented Here” syndrome. In other words, it is the unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another person or culture. This practice of working down one rung lower continues until it reaches the lowest rung of the organization. 


The end result – inefficiency, dip in productivity and loss of accountability.