!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: Business Acumen IV: Confusing Inputs and Output

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Business Acumen IV: Confusing Inputs and Output

In a 2003 article, the Wharton School reports on the joint work of one of their professors, Maurice Schweitzer, and a colleague, Karen R. Chinander of Florida Atlantic University. Schweitzer and Chinander conducted several experiments to investigate how information on inputs is used in arriving at judgments concerning the quality of output.
In the first experiment, 83 participants were asked to rate the quality of two video-taped presentations about an emerging technology. In the first part of the experiment, 41 participants were told that the person giving the first presentation – on electronic ink – had spent 8 hours and 34 minutes preparing his remarks, while the person offering the second presentation – on optical switches – had spent 37 minutes preparing.

In the second part of the experiment, 42 participants were told the opposite: that the optical switches presentation was based on eight-plus hours preparation and the electronic ink presentation on 37 minutes.

Participants were asked to rate the presentations on such factors as quality of information, quality of presentation skills and knowledge of the subject.
You can probably predict the outcome. People's evaluation of the presentations tended to reflect what they'd been told about preparation time, rather than the actual content and style of the presentations.
The study also showed that the same pattern of results occurred “even among participants who believe input time should not and did not influence their judgment.”
The other three experiments produced similar results, i.e., participants were inclined to use input measures to gauge output quality.(There was one exception. In an experiment where the output quality was low — participants were given tea that had had salt and a large quantity of lime juice added to it — participants were not swayed in their evaluation by information about the supposed expensiveness of the equipment used to produce one of the batches of tea vs. the supposed cheapness of the equipment used to produce the other batch.)

For me, one of the implications of this research especially worth pondering is what it says about how employees' performance is evaluated. All too often, the person who conspicuously spends long hours at the office is rated highly, even though what actually matters is the quality of the work produced. Somebody who works more efficiently than the long-hours type may, in fact, be creating more value for the organization.

Speaking more broadly about the implications of the research, Schweitzer says:
Most people in our experiment knew the input information was irrelevant, but they still used this information when judging quality. You have to design measures and put processes in place so that you can carefully assess exactly what the outcomes are that you need. It is often up to senior management to formalize the processes necessary to make important decisions, such as by using blind reviews of outcome measures. Doing this can be difficult, slow and expensive.
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