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Immigration Daily News Migration agent collaboration leads to better decision makingAustralian Immigration Daily News
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Migration agent collaboration leads to better decision making
After years of making decisions for Australian immigration clients, and hard decisions at that, I thought that I would share what I have learned from the decision making process.
Most decisions we make, we make with other people. It is my view that it is genuinely better to make decisions collaboratively. The reasons for this are as follows:
- The risk is spread
- The decisions are mostly better
- Individual shortcomings are mitigated
- There is a shared vision and shared responsibility
- There can be the building of consensus and buy-in
- People feel included which increases motivation
Whilst decision making is hard to evaluate as we can't see the alternative universe, what I have learned to be true, is that if you average the decisions of a bunch of people then you reduce error.
Across a variety of domains and indeed decisions which relate to the strategy for an immigration case, aggregating the decisions or judgements of a few RMAs will give the best results.
From my experience, using 3-5 people to make a decision is great. The best is to use 5 people.
What I always look for when making big decisions is 5 people, extracted from both within and outside the organisation. I am looking for heterogeneity. Essentially in plain English that means some experts and some outsiders. The better decisions always come as a result of mixing the following:
- Diversity
- Independence
- Decentralisation
- Aggregation
To date I have not failed when I have aggregated decisions to come to a good judgement. It becomes a consensus judgement.
I came to this because for a long time I thought that I was twice or even up to three times more accurate than everyone else. Apart from having an over-inflated sense of my own ability, my decisions were not yielding me the results I was looking for. They were often off-target and less than optimal. A few times I had not seen slight variances which impacted a client's matter. Had I used my formula at the time of making those decisions, mistakes could have been avoided. I was too attached to my view of the world.
It really hit me in September 2009 when I was sitting in a meeting with an Accredited Specialist migration agent. It was about a subclass 820 visa strategy decision. Both me and another migration agent thought we had the more accurate strategy. Both of us had differing ideas and opinions and we each thought our own opinions were far, far more superior than the other.
It was then I thought to trial the power of averaging; To make the process a little more mechanical, and to remove the beliefs we held about the validity of our own views. I discovered that the more two people disagreed, the more they are able to benefit from averaging. I took a look at what I was dealing with and this is what I saw:
1. I am right
2. They are right
3. We are both wrong
I also realised that the more faith I had in my own judgement, the less likely I was to move towards the other agent's view. The more I talked about what I believed the better it sounded. The more I heard what the other person believed, the worse it sounded. By adding more agents to the decision making process, the more I realised that I decreased the errors.
I also realised that the first five agents in the decision-making process were super valuable. After that, by adding more agents to the decision-making process, the results began to plateau.
Finally, something which made me laugh.... I realised that two rational people simply cannot agree to disagree.
Comments
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Tuesday, 26 May 2015Allen, Interesting thought though in reality I'm not sure of you location though I have just returned after a 2,000km round trip just outside Brisbane through some regional communities and their are plenty of Employers who may disagree with your theory. So much so many have told me "Mark, we are having difficulty attracting and securing people to our region"
Change is happening around us and so is the market and any moratorium in my opinion would only stifle those who are already struggling. A rethink maybe, though closing the door would - Close the doors on many small/med business across Australia and this does little for the economy as a whole.
regards
Mark Weare
Act Now Recruiting -
Friday, 29 May 2015
Thanks for providing knowledge on regular basis.
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Monday, 01 June 2015
Hello Mark, I am near Bairndale Victoria. Your comment's reflection some of the views on Landline a few weeks back. They even had a group of oversees worker as part of alocal discussion group. The one thing landline presenters did not ask, was local peples opinion. I live here and I can tell you local folks are not happy with this government policy that sees them out of work. I have traveled all over Australia and found this same feeling in many regonal areas. So Mark I stand by what I said, I will be putting forarforward the idea for a moritoriam on imigration.
Regards Allen from OZ. -
Wednesday, 03 June 2015
Yup close the doors to migration and I will hire any unemployed person to cut your hair or take your liver out Allen.
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Tuesday, 09 June 2015
Folks the purpose for this forum is to shear.
You do not have to agree but discuss.
My statement stands. Close the door to imigration.
OZ has enough people and way to many of them unemployed & many living on the streets. IT IS TIME FOR OZ TO CARE FOR OZ. Allen from OZ. -
Thursday, 04 June 2015
Allen,
It’s great that we live in such a free and democratic society called Australia and we all have a different views and opinions. We can’t stop you or anyone putting forward the idea for a moratorium on immigration though unless you are in the position of directly or indirectly hiring personnel and the challenges that go with it.
The reality as Australian we have the choice to live where we want, work where we want and that’s important though that doesn’t help to employers that struggle identifying skilled staff for their business and Amazed of Australia has a point, No one wants an unskilled person hacking of your hair or organs.
We all agree it’s vital we employ locally and as a recipient myself of doing an apprenticeship many years ago I shop locally and when I can’t identify individuals locally who are willing to take on the roles I am grateful we can harness skilled individuals from around the globe to carry out such tasks and I for one would not be in favour of any such moratorium on immigration.
cheers
Mark -
Saturday, 06 June 2015
Liana the idea of 5 people collaborative process is great. I think it could work well for sole practices. Iam interested to be part of such a circle.
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Tuesday, 09 June 2015
Great Linda. Look forward to your comments.
Regards Allen from OZ.
Immigration blog
Though I respect you human and collaborative approach I ask that OZ close immigration door.
We have enough people. I would like to see a 10 yr moritoriam on all migration.
Allen from OZ.