cognitive biases essay

It can be assumed that my co-worker’s opinion was influenced by the following cognitive biases:

• an interviewed candidate was working for our competitor and was fired because of lack of experience and skills;
• an interviewed candidate was working for our competitor and was fired because of some project failure;
• an interviewed candidate was working for our competitor and her discharge is a ”˜mask’ but indeed he tries to be employed by our company to perform sabotage and espionage;
• personal enmity to the competitor.

Of course anybody can think in the same way as my co-worker but all these biases can be contested and I think that this candidate will have more advantages than disadvantages finally. For example, commenting the first bias it can be said that an employee worked for a company for twenty years can not be discharged because of lack of skills ”“ in such case this worker would not be even able to pass the evaluation period. Commenting the second bias it is necessary to take into account the fact that even if this candidate has failed some project then she gained much experience from this failure and most probably would not make the same mistake in the future. Moreover she became wiser because people profit by mistakes of others and themselves. Espionage and sabotage is possible but it can be made sure only in the case of hiring this candidate. It is very important to know if the competitor tries to use nonmarket methods in order to force our company out. But personally I consider that a person with twenty years experience and master degree has a good ethics and would not be involved in such a immoral actions and methods.

As about the enmity to the competitor I can say that all good managers should not care about personal opinions, likes and enmities to its co-workers and subordinates ”“ such a behavior is inadmissible. But if this occurs then it would be another challenge which can help this manager to overcome his enmity, became a better manager and take one more level-up in his professionalism.

So in order to convince my co-worker I would try to discuss all these biases and comments to them. I think that it would help for sure.