Disclaimer — Views expressed below are author’s personal views and not pertaining to any organization. A reference to any organization or an individual in this globe is purely coincidental and the author would be ready under reasonable circumstances to take down any reference that suggests so.

A typical organizational hierarchy chart

Organizational heirarchy charts are in place to specify relationships between employees to help them understand their roles and responsibilities. However do you feel there is a deeper purpose to it? I would request you to take a pause here, and really think for a moment, as to how do you feel looking at the visual below.

A typical Organizational Heirarchy Chart

What does the hierarchy mean to you? What does your position in your organization mean to you? Where do you see yourself 5 or 10 years down the line? What are your aspirations ? Do you have what it takes to reach the top? The visual of the hierarchy chart brings up all such questions in a working professional’s mind and one cannot help but locate oneself every now and then in this chart.

How does it appeal to the mind

The image below describes my true feelings when I look at the chart and think about my career in the organization.

Actual interpretation of the Organizational Heirarchy Chart by the mind

I can’t help but be drawn to the coveted climb. The thrill is enticing and intoxicating. Do you also relate to this feeling? Are you an individual trying to make an upward progress in life? What does the summit mean to you? Is it one of the following —

1. Happiness
2. Money
3. Responsibility
4. Respect
5. Victory
6. Social Acceptance
7. Power

These are subconscious desires (not exhaustive though) which we are all drawn to in our lives. They serve as motivations in our life to do something and not just sit back and see life pass by.

Money motivates

Somebody who is financially weak, money is an important motivating factor to do something that brings in financial independence. With a higher position comes in more money.

Competition fuels progress

For some others going up could simply be addressing their ever persistent desire to compete and win. Comparing oneself with others and trying to be like someone you idolize and defeating somebody you envy brings in a sense of satisfaction and victory.

Leaders are influential

Some people are inherent leaders and are drawn to power and influence. Moving up the ladder could open up doors to leading and managing people and exercising control over important decisions.

Organizations know this human psychology and develop tools and interfaces that motivate individuals to work hard and fulfil the organization’s dreams. One such tool is the Hierarchy Table of the organization, letting an individual locate himself/herself within the organization. The visual of the table hits the aforementioned subconscious desires in a very subtle yet effective way.

Does the above quote ring a bell?

Look at the hierarchy everyday, assess your position and remind yourself that you need to level up. Thereby reminding yourself to work hard and create value for the organization. The Hierarchy Table, thus, serves as a sacred tool of motivation for the employees of the organization.

In psychological terms, the visual of the hierarchy chart serves as a stimulus generating a motivation (response) in the employee (the subject) to work hard. However, in order to sustain the response it must be rewarded. This is achieved through operant conditioning. In the following section we look at what operant conditioning is and how organizations use it to inculcate a desired level of performance in their employees.

Operant conditioning

The learning of an association between actions and rewards/punishments. An individual learns to adapt its behaviour according to the feedback of its environment as to what sort of behaviour reaps rewards and what behaviour stems punishments. This is called Operant Conditioning.

Operant Conditioning (courtesy — https://www.verywellmind.com/operant-conditioning-a2-2794863)

So you may ask now how do organizations make use of this principle to function effectively? Organizations must reward the desired employee behaviour for it to last (in psychological terms positively reinforce it).

Reinforcements

There are 2 types of reinforcements that can shape behaviour— Continuous and Partial.

Continuous reinforcement occurs when the behaviour is rewarded every time it occurs. Disadvantages —

1. Drainage of organizational resources. Employees can’t be rewarded everyday.
2. Reduction in the value of rewards. If you get something easily, it is perhaps not all that valuable.

Therefore, the desired employee behaviour would cease soon.

The partial reinforcement effect
In order to make the behaviour last longer, the best way is to reinforce partially — not everytime — but every now and then — at some intervals/periods. The employees think that their reinforcement is round the corner and they must keep working hard (showing desired behaviour) to receive the reinforcement.

Think about teaching a dog to shake hands. Initially we must reward it everytime it shakes our hand. Once it has learned to shake hands and we want the behavior to last we must not reward the dog everytime it shakes the hand. This generates in the dog a desire to acquire the reward, hence it will shake hands on a regular basis hoping for the reward. One must reward the dog once in a while so that dog is re-motivated to shake hands when an opportunity arises in hope for its next reward.

Continuous Reinforcement vs Partial Reinforcement (courtesy — https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-schedule-of-reinforcement-2794864)

I am not saying that the process of “developing” an employee is analogous to a dog being trained, however for pedagogical purposes we can draw an inspiration from the above visual to understand how organizations shape their employees. I myself am a working professional and have grown immensely as an individual in the past few years because of the learnings acquired at my workplace.

The employee behaviour is shaped with awards, long awaited vacations, performance discussions and feedbacks, salary hikes and promotions etc.. This helps the employess reach the desired level of performance just like a dog is trained to shake its masters hand. Sounds funny? What do you think? Have you been shaped? Just for fun try recalling your rewards (not just in your professional life but in general right from childhood) and the way that they may have shaped you.

Conclusion

What does a simple graphic mean in today’s digital age

Its hard to digest that a simple piece of graphic such as an Organizational Hierarchy chart could have such a deeper purpose and be able to act as a stimuli of motivation that appeals to the deeper psychological subconscious goals of individuals. Selectively reward the responses/behavior (with salary hikes and promotions) and you can shape the expected behaviour into the second nature of the person so that they act and behave to fulfil the goals of the organization.

Come to think about it in the larger context — the dawning social media age — we are consuming information today like we have never before and we’ll continue to do so in the future in ways you and I can only envision. Think about it. What sort of a digital stimuli are you hooked up to? Do you feel rewarded and relaxed once you check your favorite app? Do you feel anxious if you fail to do so? Is it wrong to say that we are tirelessly scrolling for our rewards?

The question that comes to my mind is that, how do we identify these digital stimuli — and the digitally enabled psychological rewards and punishments that are shaping our society? And what shall we do about it if the shaping is to cater to the greed of the few?