October 2, 2002	Volume 2, Issue 40
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Getting Around Hawthorne

by Rick Brenner

The Hawthorne Effect appears when we measure employee attitudes or behavior — when people know they're being measured, they modify their behavior. How can we measure attitudes with a minimum of distortion from the Hawthorne Effect?

f you're a manager, how can you tell how good a job you're doing? Take a survey? Do a 360 assessment?

When you measure something, you influence it. For instance, investors value companies according to their profits. Knowing this, many executives make decisions that favor short-term profits over the company's long-term well being, and some actually fudge the figures.

Applied to organizations, this phenomenon is called the Hawthorne Effect — when people know you're measuring something, they try to make the measurement turn out "right." Most measurements of employee satisfaction run afoul of this phenomenon. How can you measure without Hawthorne distortion?

Begin by looking at what you're measuring. The good news: we measure way too much. We try to measure the immeasurable, and we use those measurements to try to control the uncontrollable. By reducing our overall measurement effort, and accounting for Hawthorne distortion, we can measure less and get a lot more value from the effort. Here are three keys to effective measurement:

• Measure only what is objectively measurable. Judgment isn't objectively measurable.
• Measure only what you hope to control. Have in mind actions you can take that directly influence trends in whatever you measure.
• Understand the Hawthorne Effect: if people know they're being measured, they alter their behavior to optimize the measurement.

Too often, we try
to measure the
immeasurable to
control the
uncontrollableThe name "Hawthorne Effect" comes from some early work (1927-1932) on organizational measurement done at the Western Electric plant in Hawthorne, Illinois, where management tried to determine optimum levels of factory-floor lighting. Because the employees knew about the study, they responded to each adjustment in light level by increasing productivity.

But the Hawthorne Effect can be much broader. In one approach to controlling software quality, we measure defects by severity category. Since software isn't releasable unless defect counts are below acceptable levels, there is pressure to downgrade the severity of any defects in categories that are over threshold.

Measuring with discretion is one route around Hawthorne. Here are some trends you can measure outside the awareness of most employees. Most must be measured per capita per month. Their interpretation depends on your particular situation, though some are obvious.

• Voluntary turnover
• Number of hits to corporate gripe sites
• Posted Dilbert cartoons
• Fraction of posted Dilbert cartoons that involve Ratbert the HR manager
• Percentage use of sick days and vacation days
• Average usage-hours of parking spaces
• Employer-funded education credits earned
• Number of complaints per month about peers
• Number of "Tweaking CC" emails (see "The Tweaking CC," Point Lookout for February 7, 2001)
• Number of known feuds
• Fraction of posted Dilbert cartoons that involve the pointy-haired manager
• Fraction of desks with Dilbert desk calendars
• Vending machine candy consumption
• Percentage of meetings rescheduled
• Project lateness, in dollar-days per capita

Would you like to know trends in any of these measurements? Can you think of other measurements you'd rather make?  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Personal, Team and Organizational Effectiveness:

The Shape of the Table

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Think Before You PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is a useful tool. Many of us use it daily to create presentations that guide meetings or focus discussions. Like all tools, it can be abused — it can be a substitute for constructive dialog, and even for thought. What can we do about PowerPoint abuse?

Poverty of Choice by Choice

Sometimes our own desire not to have choices prevents us from finding creative solutions. Life can be simpler (if less rich) when we have no choices to make. Why do we accept the same tired solutions, and how can we tell when we're doing it?

Encourage Truth Telling

Getting to the truth can be a difficult task for managers. People sometimes withhold, spin or slant reports, especially when the implications are uncomfortable or threatening. A culture that supports truth telling can be an organization's most valuable asset.

Decisions, Decisions: Part II

Most of us have participated in group decision-making. The process can be frustrating and painful, but it can also be thrilling. What processes do groups use to make decisions?

See also Personal, Team and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

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The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarAppleton, Wisconsin: September 13, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarWeston, Wisconsin: September 14, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
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  your calendarCrowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell, CT: September 15, Monthly Meeting, Southern New England Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarFort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.
   

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 5, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 18, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communications: Models and Applications

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program we'll explain — and show you how to use — a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. We'll place particular emphasis on a very tricky situation — saying no to power. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 19, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMarist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601: October 22, Professional Development Day, Hudson Valley Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Lessons in Risk Management for Leaders

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough. But to organizational leaders and project managers, the story is fascinating. We'll use the history of this event to explore lessons in risk management and its application to organizational efforts. A fascinating and refreshing look at risk management from the vantage point of history. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: February 2, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).
   

The Organizational Politics of Risk Management

Organizational politics presents a risk not often accounted for by risk models. It creates one of the many components of risk management risk — the risk that the risk management process itself is inadequate. Political considerations can lead to risk products that seem acceptable but which are fatally flawed; or worse, the risk products are plainly unserviceable, but everyone chooses not to acknowledge the problem. In this program we'll examine how organizational politics influences risk management, and discuss several measures for mitigating its effects. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: September 1, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).