Thursday, October 23, 2014

There's no 'I' in team, but there is 'me'

This past summer, I had an internship position with a small consulting firm.  I interned with another individual, and for the majority of the summer, our task was to complete the firm’s annual volatility report.  We were asked to track turnovers at the CEO, CFO and COO levels for Fortune 500 and S&P 500 Companies (around 800 firms) in addition to measuring various demographic factors such as age, race, gender, undergraduate degree, etc.  We ran countless regressions to find trends within the data (for example we created a formula that we used to estimate the total turnovers for 2014), and we were also asked to add our own creative flair to the report, specifically through additional creative data topics.

At the beginning of the internship, our managers told us that we would be rewarded at the end of our summer term with a bonus.  This bonus was dependent on the new ideas and contributions that we brought to the Summer 2014 Report.  It was irrelevant who “came up” with the ideas since they told us that we would both receive the same bonus at the end of the summer.

In this scenario, I see an element of complete fairness.  Unlike the scenario that Haidt describes, there was no need to divide uneven earnings.  We both “pulled the rope to the marble jar” and received the same payoff.  Though this may be fair in the big picture, I’d argue that this method of reward isn’t always the best way to go about things.  In a situation such as the one Haidt describes, it may be true that though both individuals are pulling the rope, but one of the two may be putting in more effort to pull his rope than his partner.  This extra effort lacks a designated reward when the two equally divide the marbles.

In hypothetical situation similar to the one I described from my own experience, let’s say that one of the two interns was the only one to come up with new ideas.  These new ideas led to the most press coverage that the firm has yet to see due to their volatility report.  Is it then fair to equally reward both individuals just because the idea-less intern was present when the creative intern thought of said ideas?


Though we should share our earnings if a situation presents itself in which equal work is done by each individual, I am a firm believer in the idea of rewarding people on an individual basis.  I believe that singling an employee out for a job well done is not only positive reinforcement for that individual, but it is also the more fair thing to do because they put in extra effort to present their best work and should be rewarded.     

2 comments:

  1. I thought it was interesting that you focused on effort as the key driver of reward. Suppose you as an intern actually worked quite hard, but you came up with no original ideas in spite of all the time you put in. Should you receive a bonus in that case, or not?

    Next, consider the case where you and your fellow intern are both working hard, but individually. Then one of you has a spark for a new idea. Should that be shared and have you both focus on it rather than what you were doing previously? Or should the person who didn't get the spark continue to work on what that person had been working on?

    In my second paragraph, I'm trying to get you to think of the sharing from the productivity point of view. Once a good idea appears it seems to me likely that it would be better had both of you worked on it, to refine it and see its full implications. Then it would really be team production.

    If your consulting firm had this idea of team production from the get go, then the bonus structure they had in place might make sense, wouldn't it?

    You didn't write about this, but a related question is how much supervision you got and if your supervisor (I assume both interns had the same supervisor) encouraged team production. Sometimes the reward scheme itself isn't sufficient to produce the cooperative solution. You need coaching too.

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    1. In terms of the first idea, in which an intern works hard and comes up with no original ideas, I believe that individuals should receive some sort of reward for hard work, however, I believe that as a supervisor, it's important to state what the individual is being rewarded for. Reinforcing positive behavior and explaining oneself is extremely important in this situation.

      In the second case, I believe that the two interns should collaborate because not only would it increase their productivity, but it would also allow the project to be completed quickly in a high quality manner. I think this would be more of a team production, and I think what I may have been describing in my post lacks this team unity element because one intern puts in more elbow grease than the other.

      The bonus structure that they have in place does make sense, but one must also consider the element of potential "slacking" performed by one of the team members. Hypothetically, if both team members collaborated and put in some sort of equal effort, an equal bonus would be called for. Unfortunately, humans aren't as efficient/predictable as this ideal situation, and individual work ethics/personalities play a strong role in group mentalities and dynamics.

      We did receive some supervision, but the supervisors allowed us to work very independently throughout the summer. They checked in on our progress on a weekly basis and knew an approximate time frame to complete the report, but because they were not familiar with Excel, it was hard for them to gauge our exact progress.

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