This past summer I interned at Aon Hewitt as a Setup Configuration Specialist, where within my team and among the interns I developed a reputation as a reliable team member who could make contributions on complicated projects. This role was primarily technical in that my responsibilities generally included database testing and configuration. However, there was a communication component to it, in that I had to work vertically and horizontally with senior members of my team to help them with their tasks. Once I became familiar with the system, I took it upon myself to manage my time well so that my primary tasks would be done early so that I could reach out to other members of the team to help them with complete their tasks.
Essentially, I just worked hard and resisted shirking in an environment and role where I could have done so easily without being detected. Many of my fellow interns often shirked or just chose to work slowly and only do the work they were given because that was the expectation set by our managers. Of course, I would sometimes wish that I could just relax and take it easy like them, but I didn't allow myself to do this. I set expectations for myself that I would work hard and prove that I had a lot of potential as an employee going into the internship. I did this because I was uncertain about the level of competition that there would be among the interns for a full time offer, and as such wanted to put myself ahead of the pack so that I would increase my chances of "winning" an offer. A large part of this was to maintain a high level of productivity and to make myself noticed within the team by constantly reaching out to help others with their work. This slowly built my reputation as a competent employee and new expectations were set to match my level of performance. I generally worked to enhance it further by negotiating with more experienced team members to do some of their clerical or meaningless work in exchange for putting me on more advanced projects. The conversation generally went like this, "Hey Jared, I see that you have to do four test plans by the end of the day, but that activity setup looks interesting. If I do those test plans for you could you put me on the setup," which almost always resulted in a sigh of relief and a yes. I think this helped me to further improve my reputation because it showed that I wanted to learn more and take on more responsibility. This reputation was important to maintain for me because I wanted to have the assurance that if I ended up winning and accepting an offer, that I would have a good head start on my career to move up the ranks faster.
I never did "cash in" my reputation, but building it did serve to get me the job offer. The competition was not as fierce as I had anticipated, half of the interns received offers, but building my reputation there made me feel very comfortable as I searched for alternative offers. Upon letting them know that I accepted an alternative offer, some were rather gracious in my decision while others were fairly upset, but I guess that was to be expected regardless.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Principle Agent Problem
Last week I posted about a time that I experienced conflict in the workplace, and for this week I intend to analyze it from the perspective of the Principle-Agent problem. To recap, I worked as a telemarketer soliciting donations. For each call we were supposed to do our best to capture the donations and to run through a script in order to do so. All calls were considered equally. On one particular call, I felt that it was morally wrong to convince this woman to give her money to the foundation because I knew she didn't have much she could spend and I felt that I was taking advantage of her emotions in order to take her money. I complained to my manager and they made me go through with it. Tensions escalated and after a dispute with my manager and some rather passive aggressive actions on their part, I decided to leave the company.
This is a classic example of the Principle-Agent problem, where my manager was the "Principal" and I was the "Agent". From the perspective of the Principle, it was the Agent's job was at the very least to run through the three ask amounts of the script and follow the standardized guidelines for all callers, and also for the agent's to do their best to capture a donation. These values can be broken down to serve two purposes, the first to maintain control of the process and create a standardized sense of order among the Agents, and the second as a function of revenue collection. According to the Principle, those two values were to guide the Agent's actions while on a call. From the perspective of the Agent, these values were quite clearly communicated, and more often than not did not cause a problem.
However, in this situation, in my interaction with the donor, identified a moral hazard that I did not want impose on them. By doing my job as instructed, I would collect a donation and satisfy my responsibility but I would put a significant financial burden on the donor that I did not think was ethical to do. As the only point of interaction with the donor, my self-interest challenged the Principle's expectations of my role as the Agent, and accordingly, a conflict emerged. To that extent, my problems with how the call was going was breaking the two rules that Principle set forth and thus could have been seen as a subversion of their power. This obviously upset the Principle, and put tension on the relationship between the Principle and the Agent that was eventually escalated to the point where I, as the Agent, had to leave that company and the working relationship.
Having experienced the Principle - Agent first hand, I feel that the only way to resolve that problem is to establish a feedback based, Agent - Principle relationship. Although I understand why the Principle was upset, their failure to address my complaints in engaging in the moral hazard is representative of a failure on their part to be receptive to the Agent- Principle dynamic of the relationship. Had they been more receptive to feedback, the problem would likely have been resolved rather than escalated.
This is a classic example of the Principle-Agent problem, where my manager was the "Principal" and I was the "Agent". From the perspective of the Principle, it was the Agent's job was at the very least to run through the three ask amounts of the script and follow the standardized guidelines for all callers, and also for the agent's to do their best to capture a donation. These values can be broken down to serve two purposes, the first to maintain control of the process and create a standardized sense of order among the Agents, and the second as a function of revenue collection. According to the Principle, those two values were to guide the Agent's actions while on a call. From the perspective of the Agent, these values were quite clearly communicated, and more often than not did not cause a problem.
However, in this situation, in my interaction with the donor, identified a moral hazard that I did not want impose on them. By doing my job as instructed, I would collect a donation and satisfy my responsibility but I would put a significant financial burden on the donor that I did not think was ethical to do. As the only point of interaction with the donor, my self-interest challenged the Principle's expectations of my role as the Agent, and accordingly, a conflict emerged. To that extent, my problems with how the call was going was breaking the two rules that Principle set forth and thus could have been seen as a subversion of their power. This obviously upset the Principle, and put tension on the relationship between the Principle and the Agent that was eventually escalated to the point where I, as the Agent, had to leave that company and the working relationship.
Having experienced the Principle - Agent first hand, I feel that the only way to resolve that problem is to establish a feedback based, Agent - Principle relationship. Although I understand why the Principle was upset, their failure to address my complaints in engaging in the moral hazard is representative of a failure on their part to be receptive to the Agent- Principle dynamic of the relationship. Had they been more receptive to feedback, the problem would likely have been resolved rather than escalated.
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