Cognitive Biases in Management

What is a cognitive bias?

The concept of “cognitive bias” emerged in the 1970s through the psychological research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. It refers to a falsely logical, unconscious, and systematic thinking mechanism. It generally leads to a loss of objectivity, distorting decision-making through judgment alteration. Originally, cognitive biases helped our brains save time and energy by developing mental shortcuts.

✅ Useful Cognitive Biases in Management:

The Hawthorne Effect

Between 1928 and 1932, Elton Mayo continued studies on the performance of female workers at the Hawthorne Works factory. He investigated factors that influenced productivity by changing working conditions. He found that performance increased when working conditions improved. Surprisingly, performance continued to increase even when conditions worsened. He realized that being listened to had a direct impact on productivity.

Conclusions from this experiment:

🌟 Receiving special attention boosts self-esteem

🌟 Being the focus creates internal motivation and solidarity, enhancing performance

🌟 Participative leadership improves engagement

This cognitive bias directly influences performance by altering an individual’s behavior when they know they are being listened to. Applied to the business world, it can increase employee productivity through active listening. By placing employees at the center of objectives, teams create internal motivation and solidarity, leading to better results, even under challenging working conditions.

The Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect is a mechanism where the judgment we hold about a person (including ourselves) partly determines their behavior. How can this be implemented in management? It’s simple: Belief in the success of a project by superiors, peers, or the individual themselves enhances the performance of the person in charge. This ties into self-esteem; simply believing in one’s success contributes to achieving it. Therefore, it’s essential to value your teams.

❌ Biases to Avoid (and How to Counteract Them):

Escalation of Commitment

This common bias involves not abandoning an unproductive idea due to the unwillingness to accept wasted time and effort. This leads to even more time being wasted, despite knowing the likely outcome.

To mitigate this bias, accept that the time and effort invested are a learning experience that will be useful later. The ability to react in time is a significant differentiating strength within a team.

The Boomerang Effect

This effect involves rejecting any suggestion perceived as an attempt to influence us. The Boomerang Effect prompts us to do the opposite of the suggestion, even if it is sincere.
To counteract this bias, recognize that it can be used to manipulate us either way, prompting us to consider the consequences of our decisions rather than focusing solely on the satisfaction of the person who made the suggestion.

Status Quo Bias

This bias makes us prefer what we already know over new things, regardless of their relevance. We choose based on preconceived notions rather than the quality of the proposal.
To maintain objectivity, question what frightens you about change or whether you are convinced solely by the innovative aspect or if the proposal has a genuine differentiating advantage.

This bias is explained by two phenomena:

👉 Loss aversion: placing more importance on a loss than on a gain of the same value,

👉 Endowment effect: people value something they own more than something of the same value that they do not own.

Self-Serving Bias

This bias involves attributing successes solely to one’s own work and failures to others’ work. It generally leads to overestimating one’s abilities and mistrust of others and teamwork.
To avoid this, list the success factors that are not your own when a project succeeds and, conversely, identify the causes of failure related to your work. This helps to balance the perspective objectively.

Anchoring

This involves considering the first received idea or impression as a reference, leading to unequal analysis of all ideas or talents during recruitment. It can also trap us in a specific persona.
To limit its consequences, take the time to reflect, do not rush to the first idea. It’s important to step back, gather information, and review proposals or applications in a different order.

There are 250 cognitive biases.

How to Avoid Cognitive Biases in Evaluating Employee Performance?

Cognitive biases related to annual evaluations are numerous: from anchoring (difficulty in moving away from a first impression), to egocentric bias, confirmation bias, prejudices, implicit personality theories, self-serving bias, etc.

One way to avoid these biases? Rely on regular feedback that allows for constructive dialogue and is genuinely based on facts:

🍋  Take time before making a decision, considering facts to remain as rational as possible,

🍋  Provide regular feedback based on facts, not just perceptions,

🍋  Note your comments and observations throughout the year in a personal file

🍋  Conduct informal performance reviews outside the official evaluation periods defined by your company,

🍋  Learn from your mistakes: take the time to study process by process what went wrong in your decision-making and how you fell into the cognitive bias trap.

Key Takeaways:

To foster open and trusting discussions around performance, prioritize constructive feedback, objectify your judgment, and practice active and empathetic listening,

🚀 Your feedback should be precise, factual, illustrated with concrete examples, and focused on actions and behaviors, not on the person,

🚀 Being aware of your judgment biases (recency, halo, confirmation, etc.) is already a first step towards greater objectivity in performance evaluation,

🚀 By actively listening to your employees and positioning yourself as a “coach” in performance support, you will encourage discussions around performance and manage difficult reactions effectively.

To avoid cognitive biases, you can easily implement regular pulse checks with your teams. Let’s conduct an audit of your employee experience together!

👉 Book a demo !