How to express yourself if you want others to cooperate with you – new research
Collective action is often the key to creating dramatic social or environmental changes, be it reducing pollution and waste, diminishing overfishing by sourcing alternatives, or getting more scientists to openly share their data with others.
Collective action, however, can involve social dilemmas. That’s because the choice to act altruistically might come at some personal cost. To deal with such problems, cooperation and communication are key. Now our new research, published in Rationality and Society, sheds some light on the best way to get people to cooperate in such situations.
In the world of economics, decisions about cooperation are often studied in laboratory games such as the prisoner’s dilemma or the public goods game. The public goods game is one of the best examples of a cooperative set up: participants have to secretly choose how many of their private tokens to put into a public pot, which everyone can benefit from.
The interesting aspect of the cooperative situation in this game, and many others, is that it exposes each member of a group to uncertainty, which is the fundamental source of the social dilemma. Even if an individual member might cooperate by sharing their resources, they can’t be sure if anyone else will. So, if you cooperate you are taking a chance, meaning the first move to cooperate can be viewed as altruistic.
It might be disappointing to realise that others might not cooperate. This may prompt some to opt instead to free-load, which is to cooperate less or not at all, but still benefit from the potential cooperative actions of others. The first move to do so is viewed as selfish by scientists.
So what do people typically do in such situations? It depends what other factors people take into account, for instance the social status they have in the group, as well as the type of resources they are giving up.
In reality, decisions of this kind are often made in situations that involve discussions with others. The communication aspect here can be crucial. Communication helps group members to size up the intentions of the others, and gives them a chance to persuade their peers to act cooperatively.
However, this presents another form of uncertainty. We know that people don’t always do as they say. For instance, they might be virtue signalling – talking in ways that promote themselves as virtuous and reputable, without actually intending to cooperate.
Talk is cheap
To look at the effects of communication on cooperation, we assigned 90 people to groups of five. Each member of the group had to perform a task which was tied to money – squeezing a hand grip device multiple times to get a small reward each time.
Each member of the group had a choice to make: either keep the money for themselves each time (free ride), or contribute it to the group pot (cooperate). Whatever money was in the group pot each time was multiplied by 1.5 – so half more than what could be earned individually.
Two other important elements of the experimental set up helped us to understand more precisely the influence of communication on cooperative behaviour.
Participants had to choose whether to cooperate under specific sets of circumstances. In the “possible virtue signaling” condition, each member had to state before they performed the task how many times they intended to share money they had earned, and were told that this information would be communicated to the rest of the group. In the “money in your mouth” condition, each member was told that the actual number of times they shared the money would be communicated to the rest of the group. In the “flying blind” condition, however, no information was communicated to the rest of the group.
Once every member of the group had performed the actual task, all five members entered into a group chat online where they could discuss the task, and the information (at least for two conditions) that was presented to them. After the group chat, they then performed the task again, and were each paid the amount that they had personally earned, as well as the amount earned by the group.
So what happened?
People were much more likely to cooperate during the “possible virtue signaling” and the “money in your mouth” conditions than in the “flying blind” condition. So, knowing that your intentions or actions would be passed on to the group made a difference. But how much of a difference was determined by what was discussed in the group chat.
There was a direct relationship between how much the group reached a consensus to cooperate, and how much they actually cooperated. In other words, when people said things that helped the group reach a consensus, they ended up acting cooperatively.
Our study suggests that avoiding phrases that indicate hedging and equivocation helps people cooperate. Being vague about the extent of your intended contribution, “I’ll give more next time”, and offering conditional contributions, “I’ll give more if everyone else does”, will fosters mistrust within your group and reduce people’s sense of obligation. Ultimately, this will hinder the group’s ability to reach an agreement to cooperate.
The communication styles we use can also make a difference. Speaking in a way that signals solidarity and authority will strengthen the group’s collective identity and establish a norm to cooperate. Humour and warmth help too. On the other hand, we found that groups that used more formal and self-interested communication styles, such as those associated with the world of business and politics, were less cooperative.
In short, showing strong leadership through assertive statements, expressing encouragement through motivational phrases, and making people feel part of your group are good first steps in getting others to cooperate.
Magda Osman, Principal Research Associate in Basic and Applied Decision Making, Cambridge Judge Business School; Agata Ludwiczak, Assistant professor of Psychology, University of Greenwich; Devyani Sharma, Professor of Sociolinguistics, Queen Mary University of London, and Zoe Adams, Post-doctoral researcher in Sociolinguistics, Queen Mary University of London
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Businesses Tested by Uncertain Times Emphasize Importance of Responsive Enterprises
What a Responsive Enterprise is and why it matters when facing change, highlighting Financial Services & Healthcare industries
The last few years have changed everything, the world of business included. From Financial Services to Healthcare, no industry was immune from swift, significant, and unforeseen changes. While many would like to go back to “business as usual,” the reality remains: all organizations are facing incredible change due to increased customer expectations, new technologies, and ever-changing market conditions. Our research found that not everyone is thriving – but Responsive Enterprises are.
A Responsive Enterprise embraces change to create competitive advantage. These organizations lead by iteratively evolving capabilities and culture to reimagine business and reinforce resiliency in the face of constant change. In our experience, this approach is critical to sustained success; however, only 15% of firms are truly responsive to new developments driving today’s economy. Is yours one of them?
Changes We Can All Relate To
2020 catapulted nearly everyone into a vortex of seemingly endless change. From transitioning to remote work in many industries, to relying more heavily on digital infrastructure and stressors of pandemic life, individuals and businesses were pushed to – and sometimes beyond – their limits.
Early on, we noticed that some organizations fared better than others, and hypothesized that Responsive Enterprises didn’t just respond to change; they were resilient to it. They viewed change as a differentiator and harnessed it as an opportunity to maximize competitive advantage.
Our research confirms that enterprises are better able to respond and thrive in the face of change when they focus on three key areas: customer centricity, operational effectiveness, and agility. Customer centricity is the ability to identify and respond to customer needs; operational effectiveness demonstrates the ability to adapt operations to market change; and agility is the ability to ensure continuity through organizational resiliency and adaptivity. Increased maturity in these areas predicted longevity of an organization and its place in the competitive landscape.
Combined, these focus areas help businesses rapidly adjust to deliver better business outcomes in unpredictable business conditions. This investment results in impacts beyond just revenue, profit, and the bottom-line – responsiveness impacts every aspect of business from employees to consumers and all the intricacies in between.
Responsive Enterprise Maturity
The collective results show mature Responsive Enterprises are more likely to achieve key business goals compared to less mature firms, with notable impact outlined in the image below. The silver lining takeaway? There is so much room (and market share) available for improvement and success.
Mature vs. Less Mature Responsive Enterprises
Let’s compare two industries: Financial Services and Healthcare. Organizations in the Financial Services industry tend to measure as more mature in their responsiveness. And while adjustment was needed when the worldwide pandemic hit in 2020, the industry was in a better position to pivot compared to other workplaces: customers could still access their financial assets, many employees could do their jobs remotely, and the digital side of institutions allowed for maintenance and growth.
But even with their more mature responsiveness programs, Financial Services firms still had to scramble when the world (and business) changed as we knew it, all while maintaining trust and focusing on accessibility for their customers. These firms must also address the large market of people who do not have digital access to their finances or are not inclined to use them, serving a wide band of generational preferences as well as unbanked and underbanked populations. Over 400 financial institution executives predict the following shifts by 2025:
- 83% believe predictive (personalized) advice & product recommendations will be available to all customer segments
- 77% believe over 75% of new accounts will be opened through digital channels
- 74% believe over 90% of retail customer onboarding will happen in digital self-service channels
- 70% believe over 50% of customers will open a new financial relationship with a fintech and/or big tech providers
- 66% believe branch locations will decrease by 20%
With these shifts, ask yourself: can your teams, processes, and technology adapt to and deliver on these changing customer needs and expectations? If you are not responding, a competitor will.
By comparison, 2020 turned the Healthcare industry upside down. An industry known to be resistant to change was forced to make significant changes in real-time as the pandemic unfolded. For this less mature industry, it was both a shock to the system and a wake-up call.
Before the pandemic, Healthcare systems had dabbled in telehealth, with most using stand-alone, “bolt on” tools to provide a tiny fraction of services. Then, literally overnight, these disruptive, “bolt on” tools were suddenly better positioned – and better able to respond – to a radically changed marketplace than established hospitals and clinics.
When Healthcare clients ask how to respond to outside disruptors who pose a threat to their market share, we point to how disruptors rapidly and iteratively leverage a customer focus, operational adaptability, and agility to meet demonstrated patient and provider needs. Our data shows that any enterprise – even complex, regulated enterprises like health systems – can become Responsive Enterprises.
Legacy Healthcare systems who invest in the three pillars Responsive Enterprise can be as “disruptive” and responsive to change as start-ups or big digital platform who are pivoting into Healthcare. Significant incumbent advantages – brand recognition, existing patient relationships and great doctors – mean that even a small improvement in responsiveness can help Healthcare organizations compete with and potentially defeat these and other competitive challenges.
What Makes a Responsive Enterprise Different
We’ve seen the gravity and pace of change send people and organizations into a tailspin – but it doesn’t have to. Shifting from paralysis to resiliency is attainable regardless of your situation. The data below highlights the impact and importance of highly mature responsiveness programs. Their investments are driving differentiation and market share for mature, responsive firms and resulting in increased competitive advantage.
The opportunities and guidance are there for nearly any organization to become a Responsive Enterprise. Wherever you are on this journey, let’s continue to be resilient in the face of change and harness that change for continued success and improved business outcomes.
Join the discussion and delve deeper into the insights at www.celerity.com.
By Katie Markwell, Senior Vice President, Consulting Services; Marty Brennan, Senior Partner; and David Nickelson, PsyD, JD, Senior Partner, Celerity
INDUSTRY VIEW FROM CELERITY
Working in the metaverse: what virtual office life could look like
In the context of work, the digital divide has become less about access to devices and connectivity and more about skills and mindset. Many experienced professionals have never learned more than the rudimentary basics of email, web search and Microsoft Office. Instead, they lean hard on nearby colleagues or the IT helpdesk when things go wrong.
By contrast, young people have already demonstrated a competitive edge in the virtual workplace. They come equipped with a more intuitive grasp of digital technology and the initiative to troubleshoot problems via YouTube tutorials, social media and subreddits.
As a generation, they’re also bigger gamers. As more and more work takes place in virtual reality (VR) – and one does not have to share the somewhat eccentric vision of the metaverse Mark Zuckerberg articulated at the 2021 Connect Conference to believe that it will – being familiar with massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) like Fortnite and Roblox, not to mention the ability to manage multiple digital identities, is set to make that edge keener still.
Much of the metaverse is still to be built. VR, of course, has long been used in training for certain physical jobs, from astronauts and pilots to law enforcement, surgery and manufacturing. When it comes to specialist machinery or complex locations, the relative safety and cost advantages of training virtually are obvious. But it is in knowledge work – from software engineering to law to design – where the changes will be most profound.
How virtual workplaces can improve communication
For most people, remote working during the pandemic has been characterised by alt-tabbing between communications apps and videoconferencing platforms such as Slack, Teams and Miro. And there is certainly a lot of room for improvement there.
Academic studies have found that collaborative work between colleagues suffers when they work remotely. Exchanges over email or Slack increasingly replace real-time in-person conversations, hampering communication.
Google itself has claimed that informal chats at coffee machines and lunch tables in its campus were responsible for innovations such as Street View and Gmail. But, with remote working, this kind of serendipitous encounter all but disappears.
And of course there are costs to remote working, in terms of individual wellbeing too. Stanford researchers have found that so-called “Zoom fatigue” is driven by a combination of intense eye contact, lack of mobility, self-consciousness about one’s own video feed, and the cognitive demands of needing to give exaggerated feedback to signal understanding, agreement or concern.
Technological advances mean solutions to these problems related to remote working are becoming possible. Collaboration software such as Meta’s Horizon Workrooms and Microsoft Mesh, which allow colleagues to meet as avatars in VR or take part in a real-world meeting as a photo-realistic hologram, are already available.
The metaverse 1.0 will no doubt see organisations creating persistent VR workplace environments, in which employees can interact in real time as embodied avatars. VR versions of office spaces can be designed to encourage chance encounters and corridor chats.
Imagine, for example, if going from one remote meeting to another involved leaving the conference room and crossing a bustling virtual atrium. That might sound far-fetched but bear in mind that Korean PropTech company Zigbang has already opened a 30-floor VR office called Metapolis. Employees choose an avatar and navigate to their desks via elevators and corridors. When they meet a colleague’s avatar, their webcam and mic are activated so they’re able to have a conversation. The webcam and mic then turn off automatically as their avatar walks away.
Meanwhile, the ability to use and read body language and actively participate in group discussions by scribbling post-it notes or drawing on a virtual whiteboard should make remote meetings in VR more engaging and less sedentary. They require much more active use of the neck, shoulders, arms and hands than a typical hour on Zoom.
How to work as an avatar
It seems likely that a new set of workplace norms will emerge as the metaverse develops. Team games, including virtual bowling nights and virtual ping-pong tournaments, might supplant Zoom drinks as the default remote working social event.
When it comes to hiring, meanwhile, VR could bring distinct benefits. “Blind” auditions have been shown to significantly increase the representation of female musicians in symphony orchestras. It follows that interviewing as an avatar might diminish the effect of bias –- unconscious or otherwise –- against people on the basis of their gender, age or appearance.
Just as custom “skins” (outfits) are a feature of many MMOs, in the virtual world of work, there may well be demand for creativity in virtual fashion and accessories too, as people seek to express their personal brand within the constraints of professional dress codes for avatars. Gucci has already sold virtual hats, handbags, and sunglasses on the MMO platform Roblox.
Young people have been the worst affected by the disruption COVID has caused to the job market. While some struggled with working productively from a shared house or their parents’ homes, others were scammed into joining companies that did not even exist.
Nonetheless, the pandemic has also brought exciting glimpses of how remote working might evolve. Due to public health concerns and climate pressure, the latter is here to stay. As it develops into the metaverse, it will continue to bring capabilities that are concentrated among younger people to the fore.
Sam Gilbert, Affiliated Researcher, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Exit IT, Enter Digital Employee Experience: is your business ready for the big change?
IT’s role has grown from supplying and overseeing IT equipment to creating and maintaining the entire work environment
Over the past year you’ve no doubt read articles, heard news or talked with a colleague about how the pandemic has changed the way we work. And the truth is, organisations are still figuring things out. Internal structures are changing, expectations for where employees work have evolved and technology requirements are still a work in progress.
One of the biggest changes to the workplace over the past two years has been within IT departments. The digital transformation organisations had been working towards rapidly became major priorities, to enable businesses to continue while working remotely. Digital readiness was no longer a nice-to-have, it became the connective tissue for employees to connect across the world. Let’s look at how that has changed the role IT once traditionally played within an organisation.
Understanding today’s expectations of IT
While IT has always been a key player, its role has transformed from a problem-fixer to an architect of the workplace. We no longer rely on brick-and-mortar offices to develop our workplace culture. Today our offices live in hardware and software. Our water coolers have become messaging channels and our conference rooms have become video calls. It’s not just our productivity that is dependent on our technology, but our company culture. The digital day-to-day run of show for organisations everywhere is made possible by IT, the producers.
But to pull this off there needs to be a cognitive shift from the traditional roles and responsibilities of IT. In fact, in a recent study 94 per cent of IT professionals agreed that the roles and responsibilities of their job has moved away from simply provisioning IT equipment. These are now focused more on providing solutions which promote employee collaboration and productivity since the shift to remote and hybrid working during the pandemic.
IT’s ownership of new tasks, such as developing working-from-home practices and training, supporting employee communication platforms and developing sustainability projects and polices, have been seen by 99 per cent of respondents in this same study. Many of these tasks are essential to day-to-day business operations. In fact, most workers (58 per cent) believe HR and IT are responsible for the workplace in equal measures. This means IT is a critical component to employee experience, having an impact on overall retention rates.
IT and the Great Resignation
A record 4.5 million workers switched jobs at the end of 2021. This staggering change happened for a number of reasons, but according to one recent report, HR and IT leaders ranked poor tech service as the third most influential factor for employee turnover and burnout. That is how much of an impact IT has on organisations today.
Today digital experience and employee experience are synonymous. It is IT’s job to create productive and positive work environments – whether employees are working from home, in the office, or both. For organisations still navigating the new role of IT and how they can be more impactful throughout the entire organisation, here are a few tips:
Expand visibility of employee IT pain points and needs
By understanding how employees are leveraging technology and where their challenges arise, IT leaders can help maintain productivity and create better digital employee experiences.
Incorporate automation
It’s possible to anticipate some common IT problems. For these instances, having automated responses for problem solving can create a more seamless tech experience for employees and IT leaders.
Establish experience-level agreements (XLAS) to fill the gaps that service-level agreements (SLAs) can’t
XLAs enable IT leaders to establish goals based on the quality of experience they’re delivering to employees. Measuring and tracking XLAs can allow IT leaders to solve high-priority issues first and ensure positive digital employee experiences.
Deploy two-way communications and survey technology for employee feedback
Allow for employees to notify IT as soon as an incident occurs, through two-way communication tools. This allows organisations to scale fixes across all impacted employees for greater efficiency.
While digital transformation was a gradual evolution pre-pandemic, today it is now or never. How employees experience technology can make all the difference in employee retention. It is up to IT and business leaders to embrace the new role of IT or risk getting left behind.
You can read more about IT’s new role as the “Architects of Flow” and how organizations can kick start their transformation in Nexthink’s recent e-book: IT in the Evolving Workplace.
By Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Office, Nexthink
INDUSTRY VIEW FROM NEXTHINK