Comments on: How can you stop free riders and games of chicken? Try changing the game

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:36:39 +0000

The issue with your solution is that if you NEED 5 extra people to handle the calls, then scheduling individuals to help out is effectively increasing your phone answering group by 1, which is hardly enough. It is a problem that would be easy to fix with better technology, but without it each ring is a turn of a prisoner’s dilemma variant which looks like this:

2,2 | 2,4
———-
4,2 | 0,0

You have two Nash Equilibria at B and C, but because of imperfect information and the fact your “daredevil” personalities (those which will gamble getting nothing, on the possibility of gaining more, instead of taking the safe guaranteed route) count against the total of “Helpers.” (If you have 5 “helpers” and two are daredevils, you effectively have 3 helpers, since the daredevils can be counted on to ignore the phone.)
The only proper solution is to identify your daredevils and eliminate them from the game or change the stakes of the game to make the gamble to severe for any rational actor.

…

Which is just a long version of the comment above:
“Fire one of them, that’ll fix it.” (Don’t do it at random though, you are unduly punishing the innocent in that case.)

By: Steggs

Steggs — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:03:24 +0000

If 5 people won’t answer the phone, fire one at random. The attitude of the others will change dramatically.

By: Game-Changing: A Different Game | I Could Never Sell

Game-Changing: A Different Game | I Could Never Sell — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:58:37 +0000

[...] Game-changing puts you into a different game. Your kind of game. Do Not Hate People, Change the Game: [...]

By: Ernst

Ernst — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:51:43 +0000

Not practical. Anyone who works in an administrator role is pulled in many directions and is not able to allot their time, in most cases, like that. Priorities shift throughout the day (sometimes many times in an hour) and they need to be fluid and to limit their ability to adjust to changing needs would cause more issues than it would solve.

I do agree that the majority of phone calls should and will be answered by those hired to do so and if you have an on-going issue with regards to them not answering the phone, then you go through the normal poor-performance corrective steps in order to help them perform better.

One issue you don’t want happening is a 100k salaried person answering phones all day, that would be an expensive use of your available talent. But, with that said, everyone should and could help out when necessary.

If someone is “playing a game of chicken” it will not be limited to answering the phones and in reality, you just have a management team not willing to resolve a staff issue which will mushroom into something much worse than not helping out to pick up the phone.

Avoiding staff issues is a disaster waiting to happen. Make everyone accountable for their ability to pitch in and help out when necessary. Some days people can’t, but it is very easy to spot those who help out and those who need to work somewhere else.

By: Presh Talwalkar

Presh Talwalkar — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:07:22 +0000

@Ernst: Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree that team environments should remove egos, but I still think there are practical problems to asking people to help out when they are playing a game of chicken.

The problem is that that incentives are not always aligned like we want them to be. The entry level employees told to answer phones are probably paid on a salary and leave in a few years. They might not care to spend their time promoting long term relationships with clients. And there is a problem with firing people: whom do you fire if there are five people around and no one answers the phone?

I think people would act as though they were responsible if you assign clear obligations and penalties, say, by using a schedule with one person’s name per hour. Maybe if someone gets three strikes they are fired. That would send a message that big egos are not tolerated, and I think it is pretty economical and professional.