MIT Sloan School of Management's Juanjuan Zhang and three coresearchers explored the relationship between genetics and sales performance. They studied 117 salespeople at an Asian telemarketing company over the course of 13 months. They cross-referenced employee DNA with performance metrics, such as revenue produced, the ability to identify selling opportunities, and effort. The conclusion: The employees with superior sales performance were genetically different from the rest of the group.
Even when machine intelligence outperforms human workers, when it replaces a human colleague, group productivity falls, a new study found. In addition, the output of people who are simply observers is negatively affected. Managers need to think carefully about the impact that AI has on team sociability, motivation, and trust.
New research looked at the extent to which the employees of a fashion retailer followed the stocking recommendations of two algorithms: one whose workings were easy to understand and one that was indecipherable. Surprisingly, they accepted the guidance of the uninterpretable algorithm more often.