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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Sway: The
Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Undercurrents Brothers
Ori and Rom Brafman combined their skills to write an interesting book
titled, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. Ori is a business
expert, and Rom is a psychologist, and together they provide a spate of
stories about irrational behavior, each of which imparts a lesson about our
biases and how the mind works. Here’s ab excerpt, from
the beginning of Chapter 7, pp. 132-4: Whether
they're Fortune 500 CEOs or high school principals, managers are always
looking for ways to better motivate people. But is there a hidden side
effect of bonuses and incentives meant to spur performance? What are the
unintended consequences of offering people a financial carrot? To get a
unique angle on the relationship between motivation and reward, let's travel
to the University of Zurich, where researchers made some surprising findings. Switzerland
conjures up images of idyllic green pastures, snowy mountain ranges, and men
in lederhosen blowing alpenhorns. The last thing that comes to mind is a
mound of containers filled with toxic sludge. In
the 1940s, alarmed by the atrocities of World War II, Switzerland's political
leaders began developing a nuclear program. In typical Swiss fashion, the
program priorities soon shifted to the more peaceful goal of creating nuclear
power: five plants now provide about 40 percent of Switzerland's electricity.
The country has a relatively clean energy program, but with any nuclear power
comes nuclear waste - waste that has to go somewhere. In
1993 the Swiss government identified two small towns as potential nuclear
waste depositories, but they didn't know how the townspeople would react.
Would they be outraged? Or, understanding the importance of the nation's
nuclear energy program, would they "take one for the team"? Two
University of Zurich researchers were equally curious and decided to try to
get some answers to this question. They asked the residents of the towns:
"Suppose that the National Cooperative for the Storage of Radioactive
Waste (NAGRA), after completing exploratory drilling, proposed to build the
repository for low- and midlevel radioactive waste in your hometown. Federal
experts examined this proposition, and the federal parliament decides to
build the repository in your community." In a town hall meeting, the
townspeople were asked whether they would accept this proposition or reject
it. Naturally,
many people were frightened by the prospect of having the waste facility so
close to their homes. But at the same time, whether out of social obligation,
a feeling of national pride, or just a sense that it was the fair thing to
do, 50.8 percent of respondents agreed to put themselves at risk for the common good. The other
half of the respondents, however—those who said they would oppose the
facility—still represented a significant obstacle for the government. To see if this problem could be
resolved, the researchers tested out a seemingly rational solution to bring
the nuclear waste dump opponents on board. They talked to a new group of
individuals from the same community and presented them with the same
scenario, but added, "Moreover, the parliament decides to compensate
all residents of the host community with 5,000 francs [about $2,175] per
year and per person . . . financed by all taxpayers in Switzerland."
Once again they were asked, in a town hall meeting, would they accept this
proposition or reject it? Now, from an economic
perspective, a monetary incentive should make the proposition of living close
to a nuclear waste storage facility easier to swallow. Indeed, we naturally
assume that the best way to get someone to do something unpleasant or
difficult is to offer some kind of financial incentive. It's why employers
give bonuses when their employees take on more challenging or time-consuming
work and why parents tie their children's allowances to performance of specific
chores. Along this line of reasoning, the higher the compensation, the more
likely it should be that people would do what you were paying them for. After
reading Sway,
I became more alert to the ways in which many of my decisions come from
biases and are often irrational. Steve
Hopkins, September 20, 2008 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the October 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Sway.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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