Sharing Sensitive Information: A Hidden Profile Employee Selection Exercise

Overview

This exercise asks participants to review three finalists for a CFO position and deliberate in small groups to recommend a candidate. Participants read information about the company and its values and information about the finalists. Unknown to the participants, each packet contains both shared and unique information; some is relevant to the decision, and some is not. This exercise requires approximately 50 minutes; with more in-depth discussion, it can extend to 75 minutes. This activity is best suited for classes of 15 or more learners, as the debriefing discussion is more robust when there are multiple decision groups. The activity can easily scale to larger classes.

Materials

The specific packets (Appendix A) are based on a master packet designed such that if all information is shared one candidate is potentially weakened based on an old fraud charge, a volatile and aggressive personality significantly weakens another candidate, and the internal candidate is strengthened based on their knowledge of the company. Summaries of the three candidates are provided in Appendix B. Unique information organized by packet, a group decision form, and an information checklist are in Appendixes C, D, and E, respectively.

Step-by-Step Instructions

This exercise is broken into four major elements: review of candidate profiles, the group deliberation and decision, the information sharing checklist, and, finally, the debrief. At the beginning of the activity, the facilitator tells the learners that they will be making a group hiring decision and gives each a packet to read and independently take notes. After 10 minutes, collect the packets while placing learners into groups based on their packet number. Give groups 15 minutes to deliberate and decide on a top candidate, then ask the learners to complete the information checklist individually. This checklist is often their first indication that the packets had different information. Finally, focus the debrief on how information sharing in groups is more complicated when individuals may know highly sensitive or inappropriate information in a hiring context. Timing and details of how to conduct the exercise are given in Table 1. Additional information for conducting the activity online can be found in Appendix F.

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Table 1.

Step-by-Step Instructions and Timeline.

Activity	Estimated time	Instructions
Facilitator preparation	(Before activity)	Prepare and number hard copies of packets (Appendix A) for in-person distribution. For example, with 30 learners, you would need 10 copies (numbered 1 to 10) of each packet. Setup instructions for the online administration of this exercise are provided in Appendix F.
Exercise introduction and individual evaluation of candidates	10 minutes	Instruct learners that they will make a hiring decision in a small group. Tell learners to quietly take 10 minutes to read their packet independently and take notes, as packets will be collected before deliberations. Distribute packets. Warn them; they might feel rushed. Do not point out that the packets are different.
Group deliberation	15 minutes	Collect packets, have learners break into groups by the number on their packet. If your number of learners is not evenly divisible by 3, you can either randomly add the extra learner(s) to a group or ask them to act as an observer. Give the groups 15 minutes to reach a decision.
Groups submit decisions	5 minutes	Distribute one decision form per group (Appendix D). Have groups return the form to report their decision.
Individuals complete information checklist	5 minutes	Distribute information checklist (Appendix E) to all the learners, and ask them to indicate information from their packet and information discussed during the group deliberation. There is no need to collect this sheet, although facilitators can if they wish to explore more detailed patterns of information recall.
Debrief	15 minutes minimum	Debrief the activity based on desired learning objectives, as discussed in more depth below for human resource settings, and Appendix G for organizational behavior settings.

Debrief

Begin the debrief with a general discussion of how the groups approached the task. Learners typically feel that they did not have enough time to read carefully over the packets or deliberate within the group. Explain to learners that this time pressure mimics situations where there are time constraints or information overload in real-life settings. These pressures exacerbate biased processes such as relying on shared information (Bowman & Wittenbaum, 2012). Ask learners when and how they discovered that the packets contained different information and whether the task was more challenging because the information was spread across group members.

The individual checklist (Appendix E) helps learners identify information they did not share and consider whether this was an oversight or a deliberate decision not to discuss potentially biasing information. The checklist also includes four “distraction” items (Items 3, 6, 17, 24) that were not included in any packet. If desired, these items can be used as an attention check and to determine whether learners are drawing conclusions based on stereotypes (e.g., that as a Canadian, Anderson would also be a hockey fan). Ask how participants reacted when they heard information they did not know. Often, reactions are of self-doubt or wondering if they missed it in the packet. Highlight that this is a realistic situation because team members often have different information available or use different contexts to interpret information. Next, discuss the structure of the exercise and how the information was both shared and dispersed. The candidate summaries (Appendix B) and table of unique information by packet (Appendix C) can assist this discussion, and teaching slides for the debrief are available as supplemental materials (available online).

OB Variation

This exercise can also be used in a more general OB setting and can be tied to discussions about groupthink, conformity, and the importance of diverse perspectives in groups. The activity itself is unchanged; however, in an OB setting, the debrief follows a different structure. LOs and instructions for an OB-focused debrief are provided in Appendix G. Teaching slides for an OB focus are also provided as supplemental materials (available online).

Appropriate Formats and Populations

This exercise is designed to be accessible to both student and practitioner participants. We have used both the HR and the OB variants with undergraduate and MBA students as class activities and with working professionals in professional development workshops. Anecdotally, the activity has been very well received in both classroom and workshop settings, with lively discussions during the debrief and requests for having the exercise repeated with other workgroups after the professional development workshops. Both variants have successfully been adapted to both synchronous and asynchronous online modalities.