Managing People
5UpBehavioral
Remote Biases
Managers That Trip
by Torben Emmerling, Alessandro Paul, and Daniel Seyffardt
June 01, 2021
Illustration by Jennifer Tapias Derch
Summary. Most managers weren’t prepared to lead remote teams, and they’re
expected to adapt to the changing situational demands and to provide guidance
and stability. Managers should take behavioral science into account to ensure the
most effective team... more
In times of uncertainty and seclusion, people seek guidance and
stability. In the workplace, they usually turn to their superiors. It can
be hard for managers to live up to these expectations, and the task of
managing people remotely is one few leaders have been prepared for.
It’s harder to grasp the context in which colleagues work and live
— as well as the challenges they may face — when you don’t see them
regularly. All of this increases the likelihood of misunderstandings
and can put additional strain on team relations.
Research in behavioral science has taught us that we tend to simplify
complex decisions by using “rules of thumb” or heuristics when we
face uncertain situations. While these shortcuts allow us to work
efficiently even in the face of complexity, they can quickly become the
source of systematic and sometimes unconscious errors in our
judgment, also known as biases. These biases are nothing new, but a
remote working environment can make us especially susceptible to
them. Applying a behavioral science perspective, we’ll take a closer
look at five of the most important biases leaders should watch out for
when working and managing remotely, plus a selection of familiar
and scientifically proven tactics to counteract these misconceptions in
this new context.
Confirmation Bias
Offices provided various opportunities to connect and share ideas
with colleagues from different teams and functions, and receiving
spontaneous feedback was easier. In a distributed working world, the
threshold for less-formal exchange and requests is significantly
higher, and the need for scheduling yet another call can dissuade us
from requesting feedback at all. When interacting remotely, people
are more likely to rely on their own judgment and forgo the critical
review by others to get a job done. As a result, the danger for
confirmation bias — i.e., the self-rewarding ways we search for and
interpret information that confirms our beliefs and values —
increases. Less exposure to different ideas and perspectives
consequently increases the risk for poorer decisions.
How to counteract it:
Invite colleagues to individually evaluate decisions from their point
of view and let them speak first before disclosing your priorities
and motivations.
Make sure you take all information into account. Force yourself and
others to gather critical and discomforting points of view, even if
this can prolong the decision-making process.
Get yourself a devil’s advocate, tasked with challenging your
perspective and testing the strength of your argumentation. A
useful side effect of this approach is that it trains critical thinking
within the team.
Attribution Bias
The sporadic and limited interaction in remote work environments
makes it difficult to grasp team members’ individual situations. The
lack of context in which they operate complicates the interpretation
of important signals. Nevertheless, our brains are quick to
compensate for missing information and jump to conclusions about
other people’s behavior. As such, we’re easily prone to attribution bias
— i.e., our ingrained tendency to disproportionately attribute the
behaviors of others to their character traits rather than situational
influences. Being more mindful about the particular set of
circumstances other people might find themselves in, such as a
medical condition or personal issue, can make us more considerate
and less likely to jump to conclusions.
How to counteract it:
Slow yourself down, check your evidence, and reflect. Don’t
assume bad intentions, and remind yourself of the possibility you’re
making false attributions.
To better understand your colleague’s behavior, recall situations in
which you’ve exhibited a similar behavior.
Think of three explanations for why a particular behavior might
have occurred and whether it’s generally representative of that
colleague. This can work magic.
Groupthink
In meetings with many participants, attention is a scarce resource.
Virtual meetings are particularly demanding, as they require us to
stare at screens and carefully follow conversations to identify
important information while being watched — and for a long time. As
a result, employees are often less willing to speak up, voice criticism,
or question decisions more closely. Consequently, individual biases
are easily amplified in the group and distort the decision-making of
the entire team, increasing the risk for groupthink. In general, the
more people there are in a meeting, the more it’s dominated by a few
individuals. The more homogeneous the team and the more draining
the virtual meeting experience, the greater the risk of groupthink.
How to counteract it:
Pick a small and heterogeneous group, and allocate clear roles and
responsibilities when you need to make an important team
decision.
Create room for anonymous brainstorms and independent
evaluations before and during team meetings. Ensure variety in
speakers, roles, and topics and schedule regular breaks.
Use remote collaboration tools to your advantage — for example, by
first encouraging critical dialogues in breakout rooms before
sharing insights with the whole team. This can create safer spaces
where team members feel more comfortable speaking up.
In-Group Effect
In an online-only environment, it can be more difficult for new
colleagues to settle into your team. Physical distance reduces
exposure to people, limits opportunities for spontaneous and informal
exchanges, and diminishes communication across the organization.
Virtual setups simply lack opportunities for the short but important
water-cooler chats or casual cafeteria meetings. As a consequence, it
can be more difficult for a team to form, bond, and cohere. This
should be taken seriously, as group cohesion is positively related to
team performance, and people generally exert more effort for
colleagues they care about. Investing in social integration and cross-
functional exchange early on can therefore have a great impact on
virtual team performance down the line.
How to counteract it:
Bridge physical distance through regular meeting rituals.
Encourage everyone to speak up and candidly share their current
activities and contributions inside and outside of work.
Plan time for personal and professional check-ins. Actively inquire
about the well-being of your colleagues beyond current work tasks,
just as you would in a normal office setting.
Experiment with creative approaches to fostering team cohesion
and performance in a safe and positive environment that provides
opportunities for exchanges and bonding experiences in virtual
settings.
Peak-End Effect
In a virtual context, impressions of others’ work effort and time are
usually more selective and limited than in physical interactions.
Meetings are almost exclusively convened to discuss results but rarely
provide insight into the effort and methodology used to achieve them
from home. This lack of visibility increases the risk of using isolated
recent information (rather than representative information) to
evaluate the performance of team members, a bias often referred to as
the peak-end effect. The origin of this powerful misconception lies in
our tendency to memorize the most intense moment of an experience
as well as its end. It has the potential to quickly, subconsciously, and
unjustifiably distort team members’ performance evaluations in a
significant way.
How to counteract it:
Account for individual work preferences. Virtual setups allow for
greater flexibility in working hours, enabling team members to
work when they’re most effective. Availability is no proxy for
quality.
Plan regular short, virtual performance evaluations — for example,
15 minutes every two weeks. Take notes in between to be able to
provide a balanced and well-informed picture of the time in
between sessions.
Actively inquire about the path to a specific result and discuss
particularly positive and negative performance right away.
A change in context almost always leads to changes in behavior, and
consequently also in the ways we work. Leaders are called upon to
adapt to the changing situational demands and to provide guidance
and stability. In this process, scientific insights about human
judgment and decision-making should be taken into account to
ensure the most effective team management in situations of increased
uncertainty. Assessing and addressing this non-exhaustive checklist
of the five key biases can help leaders on their way — not only in
remote work environments, but also in their personal lives. As the
saying goes, never waste a good crisis. The current one certainly has a
lot to offer.
Torben Emmerling is the founder and managing
partner of Affective Advisory and the author of
the D.R.I.V.E.® framework for behavioral insights
in strategy and public policy. He is a founding
member and nonexecutive director on the board
of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural
Scientists (GAABS) and a seasoned lecturer,
keynote speaker, and author in behavioral science
and applied consumer psychology.
Alessandro Paul is a behavioral scientist and
consultant at Affective Advisory. He holds a
Master (MSc) in Social and Organizational
Psychology from Leiden University, was a visiting
researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Policy
Research Group, and coauthored several
behavioral science publications related to
decision-making, financial choice, and public
policy.
Daniel Seyffardt is a behavioral scientist and
consultant at Affective Advisory. He holds a
Master (MSc) in Applied Psychology and
Economic Behaviour from the University of Bath
and has extensive experience in conducting and
translating scientific research and theory into
practical models and tools for practitioners.
