Even Fairness is a Science

If there was one thing Associate Professor Michael Bashshur wishes more people would realise, it’s the fact that organisational behaviour is not a “fluffy” subject. In fact, there exists decades of hard science and evidence across research from many different countries, proving formulas that work best when it comes to leading and motivating people.

“It’s something I hear every time I teach a class. It’s one thing unique to our field, because managers don’t need a certificate in organisational behaviour to be managers. They become managers because they were good at their last job. So they may be a good coder, or good at IT, but managing people is a very different job,” says the Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB).

“You could read books about what famous leaders did, but that might not apply to what you do. (So) some people just muddle through. (But) I think if more managers were aware of the science and use that knowledge, it would improve their outcomes in managing people,” he adds. 

As a child, Professor Bashshur had originally wanted to be a pilot – a career that’s worlds apart from his current focus on industrial organisational psychology.

“My whole family was in academics, so I wanted to avoid going down the same path. I took flight lessons and everything, but later realised flying wasn’t for me. Eventually I ended up in the ‘family business’,” he says with a chuckle.

He gained an interest in psychology after meeting mentors during his studies, and realising their work was both interesting and important. For him, it was the idea of organisational justice and fairness that really got him hooked.

“Fairness is important, but we underestimate it quite a bit,” explains the professor. “As people, we expect fairness. When we’re treated fairly, it’s no big deal. The flipside is when we’re treated unfairly. That comes as a shock to people. They don’t sleep, they stew, and there are studies looking at unfair treatment at work and health outcomes like insomnia. It’s a powerful phenomenon because work is a big part of our identity.”

Unfortunately, he admits it is quite impossible to be 100 per cent fair in any situation as it would be too time-consuming and costly. For example, in order to be completely fair when selecting an employee to give a big bonus to, “I’d have to sit down and look at the merits and demerits of every person, set aside my biases and preferences, quantify the evaluations, put it in a spreadsheet, then pick the ideal person,” he says.

However, what managers could do is at least be aware of their own unfairness and biases, so they can make decisions based on defendable and logical reasons.

Another thing he finds fascinating is the possibility that even artificial intelligence (AI) will be prone to making decisions that are influenced by human biases, as AI  learn from information provided by humans. Ergo, AI will learn biased information.

At the end of the day though, it seems the only true recourse is to accept that biases are part and parcel of human life. For students who want to gain insights though, Professor Bashshur recommends two books – The Halo Effect by Philip M. Rosenzweig, as well as Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense by Jeffrey Pfeffer,  Robert I. Sutton.

He says: “Nothing is simple. I teach this and yet it’s hard for me to be fair all the time. It’s all about learning the evidence and practicing, because being more fair is a lot less simple than it sounds.”