This week we look at working online, including those who could have worked at home for some months this year.  There are many interesting questions related to productivity, effectiveness, and knowledge gleaned from this online work experience.  These questions feed into some of the broader questions facing society. Thank you for subscribing, and if you enjoy reading this, please forward the newsletter to your friends. ~ KevinP.S. What game makes you think?

“There is no known way to sell a share of stock-even a share you do not possess-except to somebody who buys it.  And no way to buy except from somebody who sells.  The people who refer to a selling wave mean something; but it is occasionally necessary to remind ourselves there can be no “wave” of selling unless there is equivalent buying, whether we call it “wave” or not.” ~ Thomas Schelling Working Online and Lessons from Chess Tournaments “I'm so much cooler online,” is the funny tag from a Brad Paisley song, but really how cool is it to be online?  This year a high percentage of employees who can have transitioned some of their work to online.  This, of course, is in response to mitigation practices against COVID-19.  With outbreaks occurring across several parts of the United States, there are a range of scenarios regarding how the workplace will adapt to these conditions.  While examining these scenarios, it is important to consider the existing insight we have on how the mind works during online activities versus how it works in person.  While online work and activity is undoubtedly unique, it is not clear how distinct the effect is, given how adaptive humans and communities are.  The differences could be seen as modest across various workplace conditions, but how disruptive we expect things to be may also have an impact.  However, there is also continuity in many of society’s spending habits, relations, and preferences.  As I often point out, it is important to consider the influence of unchanged conditions.  In this newsletter, we will focus on how the mind operates in different environments.

A recent article, “Cognitive Performance in the Home Office - Evidence from Professional Chess” by Künn, Seel, and Zegners, compares the performance of top chess players in an online tournament organized by chess champion Magnus Carlsen to the performance at an in-person tournament.  Like other forms of research, the approach seeks to control for variables like player strength, prizes, and the time it takes to play a game.  As a result, the researchers aim to determine the influence of online activity.  They also point to existing cognitive and behavioral findings that are not conclusive regarding the differences between those working online from home and those who perform their duties at an established workplace. The different tasks we perform throughout a day may also be a factor. The literature they cover suggests that some work, like data entry, may be more productive in an office, while other tasks involving creativity may be better from home.  But what about chess?

“The analysis is based on comparing the performance of elite professional chess players competing in a recently organized online tournament to their performance during recent offline tournaments,” the authors point out.  Their approach looks at all of the moves within games.  It then measures the errors within each move through a top chess program.  This approach is applied to examining those games played in person and those online.  They find that playing games online, “increases the error size by 16.8% which corresponds to a loss of 219 points of ELO rating.” In the chess world, this is a considerable number. This is insightful, but how many of us engage in the same amount of mental strain (on or offline) as chess games?  I have played chess tournaments and know the intensity of thought is generally higher than most work or classroom experiences.  If that is true, would errors like those identified in this study be more or less prevalent when applying these lessons to the workplace?   In chess, the accumulation of mistakes works significantly against a player.  Most of the errors are very small and may or may not play out similarly in the workplace.  For example, some workplaces would have consequences for ending a sentence with a preposition.  Other errors may be less consequential, if they are noticed at all.  With chess, what makes the errors consequential is that the opponent notices them and capitalizes on the vulnerability.  At the same time, a small business owner who makes a series of small mistakes may also face repercussions. 

It may help to look deeper at the type of errors involved in all of these tasks.  I am also concerned about an assumption in the analysis in the article.  First, they excluded the moves from the opening of the game.  At top level play, these moves are universally well known but are also less likely to produce the same variation in errors.  By excluding the opening moves, it seems they magnify the number of errors.  This approach is like emphasizing all the errors we first make when learning how to ride a bike instead of looking at a lifetime of riding. I am also not certain about the way the researchers estimate the loss in rating.  While the errors happen, they are occurring for both players online. When sorting through the outcomes, there will be the same number of winners and losers as if they had been playing in person, so the effect is not the same on the rating estimate.  This point is similar to the Schelling quote at the beginning of the article. Overall, this work is fascinating for what it shows about the errors that occur in top-level thinking during online chess games. At the same time, this should be read in the context of other tasks.  In turn, this complicates the applications when employers consider the overall performance of the firm's workforce.  With existing information being inconclusive about working from home, it is hard to see this paper shifting any argument about working online. Rather, it can further our discussion on types of thinking involved and what errors may differ depending on the environment.  Again, I think this should lead us to focus on understanding the complexity of the mind and how it works, rather than assuming other variables, like where the worker is located, forever alter the mind’s performance.

If you want to hear the funny Brad Paisley song:

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I am enjoying the chance to share these newsletters with you in the form of the new podcasts and appreciate your continued feedback. You can reply to this email or leave your comments below.  I sincerely enjoy chatting and learning what folks think. Thank you ~ Kevin

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