My university runs an annual cornhole tournament at the end of the Fall semester. A colleague from the School of Business and Economics and I entered the tournament for the first time. We didn’t make it past the first round. We were annihilated by a team from the Admissions Office. Our defeat was quick and decisive. In truth, I was a piano on the back of my colleague. I was nowhere near the target with my errant throws, sometimes missing the entire board. As I thought about my poor performance, I realized there were several lessons any manager can take away from the entire event in general and my poor performance in particular. What can you learn from a poor showing at a cornhole tournament? Well, maybe a few things…
Teamwork and morale building exercises are great tools and contribute to successful organizations. The tournament was a celebration at the end of the semester. All staff and faculty across the entire university were invited. Over thirty teams showed up to compete for minimal, even seemingly trivial prizes. The real prizes ( and joy) were the friendly competition and being in the presence of colleagues from other departments we don’t get to interact with during the semester because we are all too busy. It was a magnificent team building experience. A simple event like this spread goodwill and enjoyment throughout the organization at a minimal cost. Even though we were shellacked, my teammate and I felt good about participating and being part of the university community.
The regression to the mean is a powerful force but has a common exception.. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work in decision analysis. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow. He tells the story of how Israeli Air Force pilots were expected to repeat exceptional performances. They routinely failed to do so. Kahneman pointed out our performances all regress to our mean performance over time. If we do something extraordinary (defined in a cornhole tournament as hitting the target hole with our bag), the expectation is we should be able to do that again and again and even improve on our performance. In reality, we should expect to perform worse after an unusually good performance. We tend to regress to our mean performance. In my case, that means just plain missing the hole, or even sometimes the entire board after previously sinking the bag into the hole on the previous throw.
Another common example of this principle is the awesome batting averages major league baseball players have at the beginning of the season. The players can keep their performance at a high level for a short streak, but over time they will perform at their mean batting average. In our case, my partner and I hit bullseyes a couple of times but were not able to repeat this with any regularity.
There is one caveat to the regression to the mean theory. Repetitive tasks can tire you out over time. Economists explain this as the difference between the short run and the long run. What works in the short run may not work in the long run. In the long run you tire out and you can’t keep your performance level up. Your performance degrades until it is below your mean performance simply because you get tired. A friend of mine claims a round of golf should only be fourteen holes. He gets tired and his performance diminishes drastically over the last four holes. He gets tired and loses his concentration. The baseball season is 162 games. Players get tired or injured over time and their batting averages decline. In the cornhole tournament, I felt my concentration declining as the game wore on. In short, don’t expect your employees to repeat unusually high performances and don’t ignore the toll that repetitive action and time will have on your performance.
Keep in mind the difference between noise and bias. Kahneman, in his book Noise, uses a bullseye and the resulting shot pattern of misses around the bullseye to demonstrate the difference between noise and bias. A normal distribution of misses around the target is an example of noise. Misses that fit into a discernible pattern are an example of bias. This was a useful insight to me as I kept “missing to the left” when I was throwing the bag. I moved to the right and was able to make an adjustment to my throws that eliminated that bias. The noise is not so difficult to overcome. In my case, I still kept missing. Practice is the only way to overcome the noise.
Who knew decision analysis theory could be so useful in everyday life?
Mark Koscinski CPA D.Litt. 