Hiring and Collaborating with Higher-Paid Employees

Source: Berkeley Economic Review

What happens when we know that others are paid more than us?  Does it affect our willingness to collaborate with them?  What about hiring decisions? Are we more or less likely to hire someone who may earn more than us?  Cornell Professors Kevin Kniffin and Angus Hildreth examined this question in a series of experimental studies.  They found an interesting, but not surprising, dichotomy when it came to collaboration vs. hiring.

First, the scholars discovered that, "People chose to collaborate with higher- rather than lower-paid peers unless explicitly told that their potential collaborators’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience were similar, suggesting that pay was viewed as a signal for competence."  On the other hand, they found that, "People were less likely to hire a candidate with a higher (versus lower) pay history for a subordinate position on their team."  

This study has some very interesting practical implications with regard to the pay transparency movement.   The collaboration finding seems quite positive, though one has to wonder whether it is appropriate for workers to always use pay as a sign of competence.  In some organizations, we know that compensation and position is not at all a sign of strong capabilities!   The hiring dynamic is perhaps more problematic.  We would hope that people would hire the best talent, and that they would not feel threatened by someone who had excellent capabilities warranting high compensation.  Naturally, though, people's emotions are affected by compensation differences.  If it means that we don't hire the best people, then that would be very worrisome. 

How to be a Supercommunicator

Have you met someone who is a highly effective communicator who engages you in enjoyable and helpful conversations with ease?  Why are they so effective at making conversation?  Recently, I read Charles Duhigg's terrific book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.  Charles earned a Pulitzer Prize as a writer for the New York Times.  Many years ago, he was my student in the MBA program at Harvard Business School.  In Duhigg's book, he explores the behaviors and methods of people who are particularly effective at connecting with others.  When he published the book, Duhigg sat for an interview with McKinsey & Company.  He commented on one very important trait of supercommunicators: 

Supercommunicators ask ten to 20 times more questions than the average person. Those questions can include something like, “That’s interesting. What did you think of that?” or “What did you say next?” They pose questions that invite us into the conversation.  Some of their questions are “deep questions.” These questions ask people about their values, beliefs, or experiences. An example of this could be as easy as saying, “You’re a lawyer. What made you decide to go to law school?” They ask questions that dig into learning who people are. They aren’t overly intimate questions but an opportunity to share who we are. People love the opportunities to share those things, which could feel amazing.

Duhigg notes that supercommunicators also are very good at detecting the type of conversation in which others wish to engage.  Is it an emotional, practical, or social conversation?  Many people mistakenly approach all conversations as practical ones, i.e., we are trying to solve a problem together.  Sometimes, though, others do not want help coming up with a plan of action or making a decision.  Instead, they want to share how they are feeling and would like someone to simply listen and empathize.  In short, you have to understand the purpose of the conversation.  In other words, what does the other party want from the dialogue?  

Finally, Duhigg stresses one technique that is very helpful in any conversation.  The term for this approach is "looping for understanding."  Sometimes, people describe it as the "playback" method. When we engage in looping or playback, we are listening actively, restating what we believe we have heard, and then we seek confirmation from the other party.  In short, we ask: Did I understand you correctly?  That question enables others to clarify their thoughts and helps us avoid misunderstandings.   

The Value of Companies with Many Occupational Options for Employees

Is it valuable for an employee to seek out employers that will offer the possibility of a variety of roles that they may fill over a period of years?  New research by Professors Inês Black and Ana Figueiredo suggests that role variety boosts wages, employee retention, and job satisfaction.  Duke Fuqua Insights recently summarized their research:

• workers starting their career at firms with more occupational variety switch occupations internally more often within the first 10 years;
• as a result, workers starting their career at firms that offer more job titles tend to have higher wages in 10 years;
• independently of firm size, the more occupations a firm offers, the more likely it is to retain their employees.

Professor Black goes on to comment on the impact that role variety can have on retention: "For every one more occupation that I offer to my workers, I'm 10% more likely to retain them 10 years from now," she explained.  

Role Playing the Competition at Dick's Sporting Goods

In 2021, Dick's Sporting Goods introduced a new store format: Dick's House of Sport. These stores are  experiential retailing at large scale.  The stores exceed 100,000 square feet, and they feature rock-climbing walls, batting cages with HitTrax technology, golf hitting bays with simulator technology, putting greens, and a service department that will repair bicycles and other athletic equipment. In 2024, Dick's experienced strong comparable store sales growth, and they have announced plans to open 16 more locations this year. CEO Lauren Hobart commented on the new format:

The success of House of Sport and Field House concept stores isn’t just about climbing walls and large-scale experiences, Hobart said – although that helps.  “The experience is delighting athletes,” Hobart said. “We’re seeing athletes drive longer distances. They’re spending more time when they come. The community is just absolutely embracing House of Sport.”  Vendors like them too because they have more potential to bring a brand to life, with opportunities such as the “Collab” approach that looks like small brand stores within the large House of Sport concept, Hobart said.

How did Dick's Sporting Goods create this new concept?  Executive Chairman Ed Stack explained recently in a Forbes article:   “The brief I gave everybody was we need to sit down, and we need to design the concept that will kill Dick's Sporting Goods.”  I love this idea.  It reminds me of Lisa Bodell's "Kill the Company" exercise.  Bodell explains: "Kill the Company [allows you to] pretend that you are your number-one competitor. You have three minutes: How will you put yourself out of business?"  Stack used this type of thinking with Hobart and her team to develop the Dick's House of Sport concept.  It certainly represented a bold bet - doubling down on brick-and-mortar in an age of e-commerce disruption.  Yet, so far, the investment in experiential retailing seems to be paying off.  Are you ready to role play your competitors and ask the question: What could they do that would be devastating to our business?  It might just lead to a creative breakthrough.  

Indecisive? Do You Know The Right Thing to Do, Yet Still Hesitate?

Source: Michigan Daily

Have you ever found yourself "doom scrolling" on Netflix while your friend or spouse implores you to simply, "Pick something already!"  Many of us have experienced this type of indecision.  We are overwhelmed by choice in those cases.  In other situations, we encounter equally good, or equally poor, courses of action, and we can't decide amongst these roughly comparable options. 

In my research, I've found another form of indecision that occurs frequently.    Indecisiveness does not always stem from an inability to determine the best course of action.  Instead, in some cases, individuals know precisely what to do, but they resist moving forward anyway? Why?  They know that the implementation of this course of action will be quite bumpy.  There will be challenging pitfalls to avoid and obstacles to overcome.   They know it will be painful at times.  They aren't quite certain how to tackle these challenges.  Thus, they resist making a decision at all.   They delay the choice, even though they know it is the right thing to do.  Perhaps you can relate...

What can we do in these situations?  First, we can identify precisely what skills, resources, and talent will be needed to address these implementation challenges.  We have to identify the gaps in our own expertise and identify the people to complement us and provide the know-how to execute our planned course of action successfully.  Second, we can reflect on those past situations we have encountered in which implementations have not gone as planned.  We should consider what strategies have worked for us in the past.  How have we overcome obstacles, pivoted effectively, and iterated when initial plans faltered. Reflecting on lessons learned from those circumstances will help us become more decisive in this moment. Third, we can imagine what success will look like.  Many people have heard of the pre-mortem method.  That's when we imagine what failure will look like, and then identify what is likely to cause that poor outcome.  The pre-mortem can be very helpful when we face a risky decision.  However, if we are indecisive, sometimes the pre-parade can help us move forward.  In that method, we imagine what a great success would look like, and we identify what will be the key drivers of that success.  Then we can start working on putting those conditions in place to insure success.  

Can AI Enable Us To Focus More on the Work We Love to Do?

Source:  Doyenhub Software Solution

Most of the attention on AI these days seems to focus on how it can make us more productive, as well as how it may even displace some workers whose tasks can now be automated.   However, a new study examines a slightly different question.  It explores whether AI can change the nature of work.  Might we engage in different activities as a result of the impact of AI, and might we even have more time to do what we truly love to do? 

Manuel Hoffmann and his colleagues have published a new working paper titled "Generative AI and the Nature of Work."  They examined the results of a natural experiment associated with the use of GitHub Copilot, a generative AI tool for software developers.  The findings illustrate an interesting shift in the work that developers were doing.  First, the generative AI tool enabled software developers to spend more time coding and less time on administrative tasks related to project management.  Second, they found that developers engaged in more exploratory work with the introduction of this AI tool.  In other words, developers conducted more experiments and spent less time on established projects.  The scholars summarize the key results as follows:

Copliot eligible developers engage with an additional 15 new repositories on average relative to ineligible peers. Beyond simply interacting with a new set of repositories, we also find evidence that generative AI enables developers to gain exposure to a wider range of technologies. In Panel B, we can see that eligible developers increase their cumulative exposure to new programming languages by 21.79% relative to the baseline. We also estimate a version of this cumulative programming language exposure measure weighted by the median salary reported by software developers who use that language.21 Access to Copilot induces developers to experiment with programming languages that command a 1.41% higher salary relative to a baseline of $119,371 (an increase of $1,683).

I found this paper to be quite thought provoking.  It makes perfect sense to me.  If AI is making us more productive, then what are doing with that new time have on our hands? Are we just doing more work in a given period of time, or are we sometimes using that "new time on our hands" to engage in innovation work?  Are we learning new skills, trying out new ideas, creating new products and services, and inventing better work processes?   These outcomes may not only be beneficial for the organization, but rewarding and fulfilling for us personally.  

Does Competing Outside of Work Harm Collaboration at Work?

Source: ESPN

What can we learn about collaboration at work from professional soccer players? A new study offers some fascinating insights.

First, why did scholars Thorsten Grohsjean, Henning Piezunka, and Maren Mickeler become interested in studying soccer players? They noted that people sometimes find themselves competing with their colleagues in settings outside of the workplace. For example, senior executives may find themselves sitting on the boards of directors of competing firms. They may be raising funds for non-profit organizations that are competing for the same grants from local foundations. Or, they may be donating to competing political candidates. Does this competition outside the workplace impact the interpersonal dynamic at work?   To answer this question, they adopted a novel research approach with the setting being professional soccer.   

Grohsjean, Piezunka, and Mickeler focused on the fact that many professional soccer teammates compete against each other during international tournaments such as the World Cup. Each teammate will play for his or her home country, and then they return to being teammates on their professional club the next season. The scholars decided to look at how World Cup competition affected collaboration among teammates the following season.  Specifically, they examined whether these teammates, who had competed against one another in the World Cup, would pass the ball more or less frequently when returning to their professional club the next season.  According to these scholars, "The average number of passes between treated players in the post-Cup season drops by about 11%." 

This startling finding suggests that we should be keenly aware of the potentially deleterious effects of competition among colleagues outside the workplace.  Spillover effects are real.