Reward

This chapter explores the strategies behind reinforcing and motivating behavior. The chapter begins with Petrovich Pavlov’s unwitting discovery of reinforcement triggers that lay at the foundation for how employers reward their workers. A study by B. F. Skinner on superstition demonstrates what happens when the links between behavior and reward are misaligned, while a consideration of the research on learned helplessness demonstrates how employees can become disenfranchised from their work after repeated failure or criticism. The chapter ends with delayed gratification and what preschool children taught us about restraint and future success. Despite an abundance of knowledge about reward, organizations utilize only the tip of the iceberg when motivating employees.

Choice

This chapter dives into why people sometime feel paralyzed by decisions. Challenging conventional wisdom that more choice is better, the chapter explains how choice can lead to cognitive overload, as demonstrated first by the story of a failed electronics retailer and then by a study involving a fruit jam display at a California farmers market. Yet choice is critical to a happy and prolonged life, as shown with some novel research involving houseplants in a nursing home setting. The chapter concludes on the compounding nature of decisions, where cause and effect is never as simple as it seems, as demonstrated by the Hindenburg disaster. Implications for the workplace include providing employee choice where it matters most, promoting worker autonomy, and recognizing human biases toward oversimplifying successes and failures.

Power

This chapter replays the Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, going into detail about how the arbitrary assignment of guard and prisoner roles led to some of the most sadistic behavior witnessed in a laboratory environment. The study demonstrated how behavioral scripts are put in motion, where people conform to social stereotypes and role expectations as driven by power and influence differentials. The experiment is juxtaposed against the 2016 Academy Awards, where indirect forms of power resulted in a lack of minority nominations, bringing to light a multitude of signs pointing to indirect discrimination. The outcry led to a commitment to both overhaul membership in the academy and improve the mechanics of the awards process. Implications for the workplace extend to diversity and inclusion practices and policies to safeguard against harassment and bullying.

Confidence

This chapter retells the story of Captain Chesley Sullenberger who successfully crash-landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson, demonstrating how confidence, skill, and composure can lead to amazing results. This is contrasted to the follies of Nick Leeson who single-handedly broke Barings Bank (the oldest merchant bank) through a combination of greed and fear, demonstrating what happens when confidence outpaces true capability. The chapter is rounded out by a recent study about final salary arbitrations in Major League Baseball, highlighting how confidence, individual capability, and ego-threat interact to predict who chokes under pressure both in and out of the workplace. Those who have the most to lose tend to fall the hardest.

Conformity

This chapter speaks about Asch’s classic study about how individuals will conform to the group even in the face of unambiguously true information. Similar trends were witnessed in the real world during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, where President Kennedy’s top advisors succumbed to groupthink and failed to recognize Cuba’s military strength and foresight in predicting the planned US invasion. Contrary to common sense, individuals tend to resolve the cognitive dissonance they experience when faced with group pressure by changing their deeply held (and objectively true) opinions. Conformity to work processes is necessary in any workplace environment, but when taken to the extreme, it can lead to false perceptions about agreement, a lack of speaking out, and ultimately poor decision-making.

Intent

This chapter recounts the experience of a Chinese couple who attempted to find accommodation and food as they traveled up and down the Pacific Coast in 1934. Despite owners saying that they would refuse the travelers, the couple was received in all but one of the 251 guest houses and restaurants, demonstrating a disconnect between intention and action when people are confronted face to face with the target of their discrimination. Fast-forward to 2016, and Airbnb is struggling to address discrimination within its network of properties, where potential guests were declined service based purely on ethnicity, made possible by the distance created by technology. Recent research involving the gay and transgender communities shows how attitudes can be more closely aligned to behavior. By engaging in deep conversation, making personal connections, and evoking empathy, change is possible.

Helping

This chapter investigates why people will help in some circumstances and fail to act in others. The brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 was witnessed by 37 witnesses, yet no one intervened, kick-starting research into understanding what elements of the social context causes paralysis in people to act. This is compared to a 2015 accident in London, which saw 50 bystanders lift a bus off a cyclist. The chapter unearths the rules of helping behavior and how to overcome the diffusion of responsibility. When the need for help is apparent, interpreted correctly, and responsibility to act is clear, the chances to overcome paralysis is high. Taking advantage of these rules is especially important for the gig economy, where the connections between people are more tenuous and diffused across organizations.

Imitation

This chapter follows the short, troubled history of Uber’s corporate culture and how a leader’s behavior can permeate an entire organization, turning the workplace environment toxic and hostile to underrepresented groups of employees. A deeper look at role modeling via the classic Bobo doll study demonstrates how simply observing someone else’s behavior can lead to either socially beneficial or harmful outcomes. On a subtler level, expectations held by others, and particularly those in power, can result in their fulfillment through unconscious words and action, termed the Pygmalion effect, as demonstrated with a study of teacher expectations and student IQ. Imitation, through either role modeling or conforming to expectations, lies at the heart of a culture’s establishment and rigidity.

Identity

This chapter tells the story of the North Pond Hermit who lived without social contact for 30 years and the subsequent effect on his identity. As a result of his severe social isolation, Christopher Thomas Knight lost his bearings on where he fit into society and how he should interact with others. The freedom he gained in not being defined came at the cost of becoming disjointed from the world around him. The way social labels and multiple group memberships define personal identity can be understood by the Twenty Statements Test and is brought to life through the case study of Tim Fischer, the former head of diversity and inclusion at Marathon Oil, a company where the average employee is said to “bleed blue.” Identity is in constant flux and, as such, shared identities should be enjoyed for as long as they last.

Obedience

This chapter discusses the life and work of Stanley Milgrim, who created an electrical shock box to see how far the average person would go to appease an authority figure. In his study, the majority of participants followed instructions to the end, putting aside their own reservations about what was ethical and right. Milgrim discovered that obedience could be expected in situations with a legitimate authority figure, established obligations, worthy goals, vague ethical guidelines, limited time to contemplate, and binary decisions. Seeing that these same traits characterize the traditional workplace, questions are raised about whether the average employee can overcome pressures against whistle-blowing and hold their organization accountable for unethical behavior.