Topical Musings
August 2019
Our Sadhana
The Vedanta Kesari
50
M
odern work environment has evolved from the ideas of a few, ve r y i n f l u e n t i a l , m o d e r n thinkers. Modern activity involves a person, or a group of persons, who brings in the capital, and develops infrastructure where many more can participate as wage-workers. This gave birth to the modern corporate work culture. The system was excellent and very efficient. Only one issue needed clarification – who gets to enjoy the fruits of the work? Thinkers such as Adam Smith specified that since the promoters of the activity took risk and invested money, they naturally get the greater part of the fruits of the work. This philosophy developed as Capitalism. As opposed to this school of thought, equally powerful thinkers such as Karl Marx held that since it was the labour of the wage-workers that directly brought in the profits, the workers ought to get the greater part of the fruits of the work. This philosophy developed as Communism. The entire modern work environment is a fine balance between these two seemingly opposing forces. We say ‘seemingly opposing’ because, deep down, both are based on a common idea – all aspects of human work can be converted into money. In 2003, Christopher K. Hsee, Fang Yu, Jiao Zhang, and Yan Zhang conducted an amazing psychological experiment in the University of Chicago which reveals an incredible thing about the way we work in the modern socio-economic paradigm.1
They designed two tasks. One was a short task of six minutes. The other was a long task of seven minutes. The six minutes task would get you one gallon of Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream, while the long task would get you one gallon of Haagen Daaz pistachio ice cream. (In Chicago of that time, Haagen Daaz was a very popular brand, and people were known to prefer the vanilla flavor to the pistachio flavor.) People were asked to choose the task they wished to perform. Most people chose to perform the short task since that would get them their favorite brand and flavor of ice cream. This was expected. Then they brought in a minor change in the experiment. They announced that the same short task of six minutes would get them 60 coupons, which they could exchange for one gallon of Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream, and the same long task of seven minutes would get them 100 coupons which could be exchanged for one gallon of Haagen Daaz pistachio ice cream. Notice that nothing has changed except that a coupon system has been introduced. People were asked to choose the task they wished to perform. But in this case, completely contrary to expectation, over 50% of the people chose the longer task, which gave them 100 coupons, which in turn could be redeemed for an unpopular flavor of ice cream! This is the illusion of ‘Medium Maximization’. People will naturally work for outcomes. But, if you introduce a medium into the work, people will work for maximizing the medium and forget about the actual outcome!
