7 - An Alternative Approach to Organizational and Psychological Transformation

Summary

Table 7.1 provides an overview of the central findings of this study, summarizing the empirical patterns and central concepts developed in the preceding chapters. This chapter first reviews these findings, drawing together our central claims about Individual Bank and Organization Bank. It then describes the central contributions of the book – the counterintuitive but productive strategy of uncertainty amplification, the benefits of persistent uncertainty, the unusual cognitive and developmental approach of clearing away the self, and our treatment of psychological theories as practices in the world. Throughout our discussions of these topics, we offer advice to practitioners who are working to manage uncertainty in their organizations.

The two banks had different business models that required them to manage bankers' cognitive uncertainty differently. Individual Bank sold the idiosyncratic expertise of its individual superstars. Because high uncertainty overwhelms the cognitive resources of an individual and can impede decision making, the bank had to reduce cognitive uncertainty. New Individual Bankers thus experienced cognitive uncertainty as transient, with significant uncertainty over their first months declining to manageable levels by the end of their first year. An integrated system of carefully articulated role expectations, matching training trajectories, supportive mentoring and feedback, and banker assignment to familiar projects ensured that bankers could solve problems in the independent manner demanded by the bank's superstar culture. This system further reinforced the bankers' orientation toward abstractions, a tendency that they brought with them from prior experience in schools and other workplaces.