Playing With a Concept

Overview

The exercise is typically introduced as a way to learn how controlling the work context and the way that work is carried out affect a variety of behaviors, including productivity and quality (for the timeline and the corresponding stages of the activity, instructions, and scripts, see Appendixes A, B, and C, respectively). We like to begin by announcing that by changing a few “rules of the game” around how work is set up and organized, it is possible to influence student behaviors radically from one round to the next in this three-round activity. We ask students to take notes on two things during the exercise: (a) how the behaviors of participants change from one round to the next and (b) how the instructor subtly changes the “rules of the game” or the way the exercise is set up and organized from one round to the next.

Following this introduction, we choose two teams of three members each that are randomly assigned the roles of “managers” and “workers.” We ask the rest of the class to serve as observers. We announce that the managers will instruct the workers on how to assemble a Tinkertoy® builder set structure and that the workers will not be able to ask managers any questions. We also announce that both teams will face opposite directions and will not be able to see one another. At that point we give the structure to the management team. The structure is deliberately designed to have few pieces (8-10) and to be difficult to visualize, that is, pieces are placed randomly with no logical sequence and no resemblance to any clearly recognized article (see Figure 1 for a design suggestion).

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Figure 1.

Suggested design: Round 1.

We informally keep track of how long it takes to complete the work. After the structure is built, we bring the management team over to the workers’ site to see how the project turned out. The workers’ structure is invariably different from the original design given to the managers. We have the class calculate the quality (in percentages) of execution by dividing the number of correctly assembled parts (including exact positioning and color) by the total number of parts that went into the structure’s assembly times 100.

In the second round, we reverse the roles, assigning the former managers to the worker function and vice versa. ¹ In this round, we permit the workers to ask questions. We also use a different structure that employs about double the number of pieces as those used in the first round (between 16 and 20). The new structure is also more recognizable and symmetrical. A windmill or radar tower work well as a structure for this round (see Figure 2 for a design suggestion).

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Figure 2.

Suggested design: Round 2.

We keep time and at the end of the second round, the managers go to the workers’ table to see the result. Once again, the class assesses the quality of execution using the approach described above. In our experience, the second round consistently takes less time, and the resulting structure is always close, if not identical, to the original design shown to the managers. At the end of the second round, the participants are thanked and asked to return to their seats.

For the third round, two new teams are selected. In the team formation we ask for six students to volunteer, thus increasing the level of autonomy in the third round. The Tinkertoy® builder set is placed between the teams, and the participants are informed that their team will compete against the other to construct, in 5 minutes, the tallest tower to remain standing. At the suggestion of an anonymous reviewer, we have included instructions to assure the physical safety of students (despite the considerable motivation of students to win in the third round, we have never had injuries or aggressive behavior in this activity). When the time is up, we stop the building activities and declare the winning team. We thank our participants and transition to the debriefing stage.

We prefer not to allocate pieces to the separate teams in the third round but rather leave the pieces on the table and observe students’ efforts to secure pieces. There are five major reasons we let the competing groups allocate parts themselves. First, it highlights the disadvantages of introducing competition as a tactic for increasing task significance. Second, it requires assertiveness and quick reaction, which may be seen as adding skill variety that is not present in former rounds. Third, it provides a particularly strong example of how minor changes in the way the work context is set up can effect major changes in worker behaviors and the tone of the work setting. Fourth, we want to highlight the difference between process and outcome control and provoke students to think about the strengths and weaknesses of each type of control. One of the benefits of controlling process in the first two rounds is the reduction of ambiguity and conflict that comes when management controls everything. The free-for-all that results at the beginning of Round 3 illustrates the consequences of monitoring only one outcome and minimizing managerial intrusions. Last but not least, we like to provoke students to think about the consequences of intergroup competition and management’s role in encouraging or limiting it. We stress that setting up intergroup competition increases job significance but incurs costs. This causality is borne out very graphically in the initial struggle for parts and is one of the ways we try to help students to reflect critically about the way job design and organizational context, frequently taken for granted, set the tone for employee behaviors. These features are useful when we are teaching job design and are absolutely necessary when we use the exercise to teach students to think critically about authority and control in organizations (see variations below).

Debriefing

The debriefing part of the exercise contains three distinct parts: (a) identifying behaviors and their change from one round to the next, (b) identifying manipulations or changes in work context and organization that influence behaviors, and (c) connecting the elements of JCM to the exercise. The first step, identifying behaviors across the three rounds, is the most difficult. Students will tend to identify manipulations in the exercise such as absence of communication and introduction of competition, as behaviors rather than as elements of the work context that we (the instructors) manipulated. After a few clarifications on the part of the instructor, students will begin to make comments about specific behaviors. For example, we have heard, “When the managers gave an instruction, they paused as if they were waiting for the workers to respond,” or “In the first round I saw the workers shrug their shoulders a lot.” Other frequent comments include, “One person did most of the talking in the management team, but the workers all talked about the same amount” or “The work was finished faster in the second round.” A point to make here is that several behaviors, such as passivity or playing around on the job that are attributed to workers’ attributes or traits, may actually be caused by the context imposed by the management or by the organizational practices themselves.

It is also useful to ask participants in the exercise what their thoughts and feelings were at certain moments in the exercise. Workers would frequently mention frustration at manager’s slow or unclear instructions, and managers would express anxiety about how their instructions were being received. Participants in the third round might mention excitement or an “adrenalin buzz” as they tried to build the tallest tower. This kind of probing primes the class to think about Hackman and Oldham’s (1976, 1980) critical psychological states and to what degree these states become transformed into observable behaviors.

To guide the discussion about JCM’s output variables, such as quality and productivity, we post on the board the number of pieces, the time, and the quality of the structure produced in each round (Appendix D provides a summary of the variables in the Tinkertoy® builder set exercise addressed in the initial steps of the debriefing). We stress that these variables, too, are behaviors, in which managers and organizations have a vital interest.

Although identifying manipulations or changes in work context is key, an additional teaching benefit comes from identifying the significance of the manipulations. When students note, for instance, that the last round did not involve management, but rather two competing teams, we ask, “Why do you suppose I did that in the third round? How might this affect people’s behavior or mental state?”

We also discuss the less obvious differences in the set up between the rounds. Often, students do not remember or do not perceive the significance of the fact that the structures in the first two rounds were different not only in number of used construction pieces but also in overall design. Occasionally, workers from the first round will complain that they had a more difficult structure to build. This comment can be exploited by responding that there were double the pieces in the second round, so logically there was less work to do in the first round. Any discussion around differences in the design of the structures in relation to ease of assembly or satisfaction will help prepare the class for understanding the concept of task identity, which we believe is the most difficult component of the JCM to understand and remember.

Another point that tends to elude students is that the structure designs were predetermined and imposed in the first two rounds, whereas in the last round the design of the structure was delegated to the students. Every point of this kind that students miss and the instructor needs to introduce can be used to illustrate how people tend to be rather uncritical and insensitive to contextual factors in the work or organizational environment that can have considerable impact.

Next, the instructor introduces the JCM framework while tying it to the game. The instructor begins the discussion of the JCM by evaluating the three rounds of the exercise in terms of the core job characteristics—skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback—while simultaneously providing definitions of the terms. Students will note that although the first round required encoding and speaking skills (for the managers) and listening and decoding skills (for the workers), the third round required a greater variety of skills for both teams including design, communication, speed, material optimization, and assertiveness. Similarly, students will note that task identity was minimal in the first round and high in the last two. They will note how the progressive delegation of communication, design, and quality control functions from the first to the last round increased autonomy. Finally, students will note that visual feedback was withheld until the end of the first two rounds, while it was constant during the last round, as one needed only to look at and compare the two groups’ structures to know how one was doing.

After the parallels between the exercise and the core job characteristics are established, we introduce and tie in the concept of the psychological states. After we describe the model’s psychological states we discuss whether the changes in core job characteristics that occurred from the first to the third rounds influenced “what went on in participants’ minds” (i.e., critical psychological states). We also lead our discussion on the job specific outcomes such as intrinsic motivation, reduced withdrawal, higher quality, and productivity. In other words, we use the experiences of the exercise to attempt to assess critically whether the JCM “works” as the textbooks would predict.

One point that we like to mention in our debriefing is the use of competition as means of inducing task significance in a work setting. It is clear to most students that by pitting two teams against each other in the last round and placing the construction pieces in a shared space, what was just playing with a child’s toy suddenly becomes an important task that needs to be accomplished. This realization leads to a discussion of the motivational, psychosocial, and ethical implications of fomenting competition in organizations and the degree to which it is compatible with the culture of job enrichment or high involvement.

Variations

We have also used the exercise to orient a discussion on the nature and implications of process versus output control strategies in organizations. The overall structure of the exercise remains the same as well as the first two debriefing steps of identifying behaviors and manipulations across rounds. However, in the third step of the debriefing, we describe how the first two rounds involve rather complete control over the work process. We explain that we imposed a division of labor, isolated labor and management, controlled communication, and stipulated product design in the first two rounds, whereas in the last round we provided unambiguous output goals (maximum height and a 5-minute deadline) and delegated process details (such as division of labor, design, and parts acquisition) to the teams. We then lead a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of each type of control including implications for the distribution of power in organizations (the discussion points using this variation are tabulated in Appendix E).

For some audiences this discussion could also be used as a starting point for transaction cost theories of organization and culture such as those of Williamson and colleagues (Ouchi, 1980; Wilkins & Ouchi, 1983; Williamson, 1996, 2005) or critical theories of labor relations (Braverman, 1974; Spencer, 2000). The exercise and discussion of process versus output control can be accomplished within an hour’s time.

Another variation of our Tinkertoy® builder set exercise involves expanding the debriefing section into a discussion on the relationship between the JCM and Quality of Working Life issues. After presenting the exercise as initially described, we ask how the changes we engineered across the three rounds could actually be implemented in real organizations. This question leads into a discussion of Hackman and Oldham’s implementing concepts such as forming natural work groups, opening feedback channels, vertical loading, horizontal loading, and establishing client contacts. We place these concepts on the board to the left of the core job characteristics and discuss how each implementing concept might affect one or more core job characteristics. We then relate accounts of each implementing concept applied in a real organizational setting and discuss the cultural, logistical, and political implications of each concept. Finally, we sum up the session with a detailed discussion on the pros and cons of job enrichment and high involvement techniques.

The Exercise Creates Fruitful Suspense

Immediately when the student observers see one complete structure on one side of the room and a pile of unattached parts on the other side, they become anxious to see how the round will turn out. Because the first round never ends with a correctly assembled structure, and because the management and worker roles are reversed, this suspense carries into the second round. In addition, the third round is suspenseful because of the time limit and competition. We speculate that suspense combined with subsequent differing outcomes and behaviors contribute to students’ curiosity about why the game unfolds the way it does.

The Exercise Contains Short, Contrasting Rounds That Are Easily Analyzed

Each round is comparatively short (about 5-8 minutes), so there is not enough time to get bored. Furthermore, the three rounds contain clear similarities and differences that have analytical implications, even if all of the implications are not immediately obvious.

The Exercise Creates Convergence Between Emergent Dynamics of the Game and Formal Theory

As students observe the three rounds, it is clear to them that the instructor has “stacked the deck” to achieve certain outcomes. Moreover, some of the changes across rounds, such as the introduction of two-way communication and competition, are so obvious that few will miss their significance. Other changes, such as the change in designs from Round 1 to Round 2, are apparent but harder to interpret. By the end of the third round, students are aware that changes in the rules in each round change behavior significantly, but they do not have concepts or specialized vocabulary to explain all of these changes and their impacts. The JCM helps explain, interpret, and, perhaps more important, “name” or classify specific manipulations that the instructor carries out, and for this reason, students’ assimilation, recall, and application of the theory are enhanced.

The Exercise Combines Concreteness and Visibility With Theoretical Insight

Because the exercise uses physical artifacts and spatially separated groups, it is both visual and concrete, which facilitates attention. Because the nature of these specifics—who speaks and who can ask questions, control of the design process, and so on—changes very clearly and affects behaviors from round to round, it is natural and easy for students to create mental categories for the different rounds, which they subsequently associate with the categories of the formal theory.

In closing, we hope that our fellow instructors will experiment with the activity described here and suggest amendments, variations, and principles that will improve our work.