Accessible text version. Each heading below is one slide, in order. Instructor: Ryan Lamare.
LER 565, Week 5 live session: Information Asymmetries at Work. Instructor: Ryan Lamare.
One: a quick recap of this week's content on information asymmetries. Two: the main event, Closed Session, a hidden-information hiring game. Three: Azee match number four to close out the night. Four: nothing is due this week except the Week 5 quiz, due Sunday August 2.
We drop a key assumption from earlier weeks: that both sides have complete information. One side almost always knows more, about effort, risk, quality, or true loyalty. Three devices respond: signaling reveals, jamming conceals, and screening forces it out. When everyone sends the same signal it separates no one, a pooling equilibrium.
A company is hiring a new team manager, and you are the hiring committee. Everyone plays: twelve to thirteen of us, and we run the whole panel. Roles: Committee Member, Booster times three, Compliance Officer, and Chair. Two phases each round, day and night; I play the Head of HR and run the game.
Marcus Cole, the proven performer: elite track record and delivers under pressure, but abrasive with peers. Priya Nair, the people leader: an exceptional developer of people with high trust, but lighter on technical depth. Tom Reilly, the steady hand: dependable all-rounder, solid everywhere, but with no standout strength. Zoe Chen, the fast riser: steep trajectory and fresh playbook, but junior and a flight risk. The candidates are balanced on purpose: the game is about the members, not the finalists.
You are an honest member of the search, here in good faith to hire the best candidate. Your job: spot the colleagues with a hidden conflict and get them recused before they take over. You have no special power, just the discussion and your read of people. If I don't private-message you a special role, you are a Committee Member.
By day you look like any other member, but you secretly back one candidate. I will private-message you your candidate and the identities of your fellow Boosters. Each night, jointly file an anonymous conflict report against one honest member, and I stand that member down pending review; they never learn who filed it. You win when Boosters are half the committee; never reveal your true loyalty.
An honest member who can request a confidential conflict check on a colleague. Each night, name one person and I will tell you their true role. Your read is always accurate, but you can't prove it, and a Booster can claim to be you. Say what you know and you become the next name in a conflict report.
The one member who can vouch for a colleague on the record. Each night, name one person, and your word makes me dismiss any report against them. You may vouch for yourself, but not for the same person two nights in a row. Keeping the Compliance Officer in the room is often your most important job.
Cameras and mics on; everyone introduces themselves before the first session. Each day the committee debates: who deserves the job, and who isn't acting in good faith? Accuse someone of a hidden conflict and the committee votes to refer them for recusal, majority wins. Anyone recused leaves the panel and reveals their true role.
Cameras and mics off; every move happens by private message to me. The Boosters agree on one honest member and file a confidential conflict report. The Compliance Officer requests a conflict check; the Chair vouches for one member. A vouched-for member has the report dismissed; otherwise I stand that member down.
Rounds continue until one side wins. The committee wins by getting every Booster recused, a clean hire. The Boosters win by reaching half the committee: they railroad their candidate in. Then everyone reveals who they were, and we debrief.
Committee: what actually counted as proof that someone was a Booster? Compliance Officer: did anyone believe your read, or could a Booster fake it? Boosters: what made your deflections land? Everyone: the conflict channel removed honest people all game, so who was really using it?
You saw colleagues' words, never their true loyalty, and anyone can say the words. Unlike a prisoner's dilemma, the type was hidden, not just the choice. Both types argued alike: a pooling equilibrium you couldn't separate. A perfect read is useless if it can't be credibly shared; talk is cheap.
Hidden conflicts run through hiring panels, references, promotions, and performance reviews. Screens try to surface them: disclosure forms, recusal rules, outside reviewers. But every safeguard invites gaming: a check that becomes a target gets played to. This is hidden-motive bias, distinct from the unconscious bias that also skews selection.
Your fourth Azee match, same five-minute clocks as before. Notice what your tile choices signal to opponents about your plan. When is it worth hiding your intent, or feinting toward a move you won't make? Nothing to submit this week beyond the Week 5 quiz, due Sunday August 2.
Our final week: strategic moves, shaping the game before it's played. Commitment and credibility, threats and promises that actually bind. First-mover advantages, reputations, and burning bridges on purpose. This week, just the Week 5 quiz, due Sunday August 2.
We play twice: same people, brand new roles and a new brief. Reassign every role by private message to new people. Pick the Boosters' candidate at random, a different finalist than Round 1. The new brief: the panel is now hiring an HR Business Partner.
The Round 2 shortlist for the HR Business Partner role. Dev Malhotra, the analyst, is data-fluent and builds the evidence leaders act on, but is junior for a high-stakes unit. Andre Bello, the insider, is leaned on for judgment and reads politics deftly, but is too close to the leaders he must challenge. Carol Nakamura, the operator, is compliant and audit-clean and has run an integration, but rarely pushes the business. Renata Vossen, the challenger, runs scaled HR and pushes back on leaders, but bulldozes stakeholders. An open-the-dossier link to the Round 2 shortlist is on this slide.