One boss by lot, please!

Imagine this: There are three highly qualified candidates in your organization for an internally advertised position with a management function. All three have the same qualifications, are the same age, have been with the company for the same length of time and meet all the important requirements. Who do you choose? For the person with whom you harmonize best on a personal level? Is there another application round for everyone, based on the exclusion principle? Katja Rost, Professor of Sociology at the University of Zurich, says: "Success often has to do with a bit of luck" and brings the concept of the "qualified lottery" into play at this point.

Is chance fair?

Think back to your own childhood. Especially among siblings, you often found yourself in a situation where you wanted to decide what to play or which dessert you could order together. As they simply couldn't agree, the parents were happy to say: "Just sort it out between you two".

The lot as an impartial random element should therefore decide for both parties. The advantage of voting by lot: chance has no favorites! In situations in which different election outcomes are possible and you don't want to disadvantage anyone in the decision-making process, chance seems to have an interesting area of application. It can be assumed that hardly anyone would object to children making certain decisions amongst themselves or having them drawn by lot. The fact that chance does not take into account previous outcomes, for example that the same child was always allowed to choose dessert the last three times, is neglected at this point. It is therefore important how random elements are used. What if your future supervisor was chosen by lot?

Lottery procedure for the allocation of management functions

Random selection for management positions is not a new trend from Silicon Valley. Random selection was already used in ancient Greece, in the election of the Doges in Venice and in the awarding of professorships in the 18th century* at the University of Basel, the oldest university in Switzerland. In these cases, chance was used to curb nepotism and collusion between candidates* and electoral bodies.

Anyone who now thinks that just anyone can stand for election is wrong. At the University of Basel, for example, candidates first had to prove their suitability before they could even enter the race for the professorship. Only then could they be elected in the so-called "election of three", the election of the final three candidates, among whom the appointment of the new professor was then decided by lot. At this point, you may still be wondering what exactly professors in the 18th century have to do with filling leadership positions today.

In this interview with Katja Rost, professor of sociology at the University of Zurich and an expert in this field, you can find out what this is all about.

Chef by lot - Interview with Katja Rost

Great Place To Work: In the paper "Chef per Los?", which you co-authored, the idea is presented that managers should be elected by lot. How did you come up with this idea? And what advantages do you see in this procedure?

Katja Rost: The idea arose from an article by Margit Osterloh and Bruno Frey; they have been proposing lottery procedures for filling positions on committees in organizations or for citizen participation for some time. For expert organizations, I always found the idea of pure lottery procedures too undifferentiated: we don't want just anyone here, but only people who are qualified for the position. At some point, Margit and Bruno mentioned the "election of three" in Basel in one of their contributions; I found this exciting and much more plausible than a pure lottery procedure in which the qualifications of the participants play no role. This gave rise to the joint idea of taking a closer look at lottery procedures with pre-selection, which we call qualified lottery procedures. The advantages of qualified lottery procedures are manifold, among other things because people know that a portion of luck also plays a role in the selection decision. This also prevents hubris on the part of managers, for example, i.e. overestimation of their own abilities and subsequent abuse of power. In addition, significantly more minorities apply for positions, such as women or people from lower social classes. In lottery procedures, these people - rightly - believe they have better chances.

"[For open positions that are filled by qualified lottery] significantly more minorities apply for positions, such as women or people from lower social classes. This is because these people - rightly - believe they have better chances in lottery procedures."

And rightly so, because it is assumed that managers like to recruit people who are very similar to them in terms of their personal characteristics, in line with the motto "birds of a feather flock together" - despite existing control mechanisms that are intended to prevent the usually unintentional similarity bias in recruitment. So do you see the lottery procedure as having the potential to break up the "old boys networks" that still exist on the executive floors?

Katja Rost: It may be some time before the process is used in executive suites. Although there has recently been a growing realization in "Winner take it all markets" that success also has a lot to do with luck. This development could favor lottery procedures. Nevertheless, the elite in particular are resisting such procedures - power can then no longer be inherited and leads to the disempowerment of the elite. Also, if the procedures are carried out well, they cannot be manipulated. For this reason, lottery procedures, which were often used in the Middle Ages, were also abolished with the Enlightenment. The nobility and the upper middle classes of the time were able to save their privileges for the modern era. Education now counted instead of titles. However, there is still no equality of opportunity. People with the wrong social background are unable to rise through the ranks, partly because they lack the social capital and the habitus. Lottery procedures would break this cycle. These are good for talented people, but harm the elite. And the elite decides whether these procedures should be used or not. [LD1]

On 28.11.2021, the Justice Initiative was rejected by the electorate and the election of professors at the University of Basel in the 18th century was also abolished by lot. In other areas, however, such as the awarding of excellence scholarships at universities, funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation or the allocation of apartments in the city of Zurich, random selection is well established. Why is society prepared to rely on random procedures in certain areas, but not in others? Are certain stigmas still at play here?

Katja Rost: This has a lot to do with the mechanism of maintaining power just described: is the power of the elite at stake or is it about less decisive aspects of the war? If there is little at stake, there is indeed something to be said for the lottery procedures today. For example, they are perceived as fair when rational decision-making criteria fail. As in the selection of good - but not excellent - research proposals, only half of which can be funded. When it comes to awarding positions of power, such as judgeships or CEO positions, on the other hand, the elite have a lot at stake. Why should they voluntarily give up this power to the lottery? In this respect, it will take some time before positions of power are also awarded by lot in the future.

"Excellent idea, but not for us"

Katja Rost's explanations show that there are certainly areas of application for random voting in today's world. However, especially in areas where there is a certain "elite", there seems to be little interest in losing this power by handing over voting decisions. The Justice Initiative failed miserably and organizations do not yet seem interested in electing CEOs by lot after a pre-selection.

Katja Rost: In my Master's thesis, I looked specifically at the election process at the University of Basel in the 18th century. Over a period of almost a hundred years, the aforementioned election of three people took place. It is interesting to note that in the "supreme discipline" of the time, the professorship of theology, there was no election by lot and new professors were still elected directly by the electoral body. The historical example, as well as the current examples, show that decision-making power in some areas is often held in a small circle. Or as Cersei Lannister so beautifully summed it up in the series Game of Thrones; "Power is Power".