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The Green Bay Packers' Aaron Rogers points as he calls out signals at the line of scrimmage during the NFC Championship Game against the Chicago Bears on Jan. 23. The Packers defeated the Bears to advance to the Super Bowl.
Assuming the score is remotely close, expect the losing team to go for it on a fourth down, as time runs out in the Super Bowl on Sunday, according to new research.
For football fans, the finding isn't too surprising. With plenty of time left on the clock, a punt is clearly the safer play. The riskier fourth-down conversion only begins to make sense when a losing team needs to shake things up to put points on the board. But the research may provide business managers insight on motivating their workers.
Researchers studied 22,603 fourth-down decisions over five NFL seasons to understand when teams are more likely to risk making a fourth-down conversion. Though an option throughout the game, "teams only use it seriously towards the end," Ranga Ramanujam, an associate professor of management at Vanderbilt University, told me today.
Motivating underpeformers
Ramanujam and colleague David Lehman at the University of Singapore looked to the football field to understand when an underperforming organization is more likely to take risks in order to meet targets, such as analysts' earnings estimates.
"Our data suggest they would start doing it at the end of the quarter," Ramanujam said, noting that a business decision to take a risk often involves input from several people. This is similar to a football game where the offensive coordinator, head coach and quarterback may each have a say.
While the researchers' data show football teams are unlikely to go for it earlier in the game, their findings may be of use to managers looking to motivate their workers.
"Organizations in general have a tendency towards inertia. They just do the same thing over and over again," Ramanujam said. That's like a football team always punting on fourth down until the end of the game is near. "So, when you want to push people towards trying something different, deadlines seem to help."
The take-home lesson for business managers is to use firm deadlines to spur a team to try something different, such as design a new product. Of course, Ramanujam cautioned, deadlines can cause people to cut corners, which often happens in the construction trade, for example.
"Poor performance and deadlines can act together to make organizations deviate," he noted. "Sometimes that deviation leads to innovation. And sometimes the outcomes can be adverse."
Saving face
At some point, in business as on the football field, a team can fall so far behind that taking a risk becomes a less desirable option than simply trying to save face. In football, that happens when the losing team is more than three touchdowns behind.
"At some point in time I say, 'You know what? I've fallen so far behind I don't really want to do anything that is going to make it worse,'" he said.
The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Organization Science.
More stories about football and science:
- Are you ready for some football science?
- Going deep: Future technology in the NFL
- Super Bowl science snacks
- Scientist debunks football strategy
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
Well, I don't mean to insult anyone personally, but I can't help thinking how stupid this article is. This is a case of analysts relying to much on sports analogies to pronounce a new gimmicky business strategy. I'm surprised they didn't come up with some catchy name for it, like "Super Bowl Go for IT", but it might is well be called "Hail Mary Shoot the Dice". I guess if you want to get up in front of a bunch of sales guys and use the analogy as one of the thousand cliche's you can say, it's fine. But it can be downright dangerous to assume that making desperate strategy changes just because it's the end of a financial reporting period, not because it would make sense otherwise, will do more good than harm.
The game of business and life should really be viewed more like regular season football, the war is long, the battles are many, NOT a risky "got nothing to lose because I'm already behind" mentality. In the Super Bowl, it may not matter if you lose by 6 pts or 14, but in business it does.
A better business-sports analog (one that businesses might choose to avoid) would be pro soccer’s proclivity to adopt a defensive strategy whenever they get a slight edge and generally play the game not to win but to not lose. The obvious results, of course, are their huge numbers of low-scoring tie games.
This is the dumbest thing I ever read. If a team is losing and its a 4th down with time running out you go for it or lose then obviously you go for it.
I read a lot of worthless stuff, but this is pushing it so far that it actually is making me mad. Sometimes I read an article and when I am done I think, "Wow that ended up being a waste of time" and I truly regret the time spent..
This time around, I read the TITLE and was MORE upset about wasted time in reading it, than I ever have been upset over reading an entire worthless article. I am so irritated, I have to vent that irritation by writing this, and hoping that the author of this article and the editor of this news page are so ashamed of posting this that they cry themselves to sleep.
And P.S.
Yes I did read the article itself just to make sure it was a stupid as it sounded, and it was.
P.P.S.
"For football fans, the finding isn't too surprising. " - Wrong. For EVERYBODY, this finding isn't at all surprising.
Which is why it was a HORRIBLE idea to choose this as a topic for an article. Why not just report on water being wet?
This is probably the stupidest articleI've ever read on this site.
And JoshuaL is correct...NOBODY is surprised by that conclusion. It's like saying "Assuming a person has a loaded gun pointed at their face, most people will not goad the attacker into shooting them in the face, according to new research".
What's even worse is that this "research" was accepted for publication in the journal Organizational Science. I guess it was a slow news day at MSNBC.
If it is anything like I have experienced...
The Editor, in his infinite wisdom and originality, assumed that because the super bowl is around the corner, it would be "fun" to have a science article tie into football. He assumed that his reader base is apparently comprised of a bunch of drooling invalids who would "eat this stuff up."
Brilliant reporting! Insightful .... Provocative .... Meaningful .... Ground breaking .... Earth shattering .... I'm stunned!
Yes, it sounds like one of those "obvious conclusion" studies ... But it does address risk management issues as well. It works in as well with what Boa38 said about organizations that perceive themselves as being in the lead being more risk-averse. It's only natural that the organization with a perceived advantage would try to "run out the clock," while an organization that's at a slight disadvantage would take more risks, because the potential payoff (taking the lead) is high compared with the potential risk (remaining the losing team, losing face). But why would the losing team not take the same risk when it's far behind. It's because the perceived payoff is small (being not quite as far behind) compared with the risk (loss of face). At least that's what the researchers suggest. )I'm not sure the researchers are also taking into account the risk of injury.)
We do see this type of behavior in industries, as well, where there's a perceived "lock-in" factor in a market. (For example, Hertz is No. 1, Avis is No. 2 ... but tries harder.) It takes a change either in technology or perception (for example, new management that perceives the "game" is closer than it once appeared) to shake up the game and spark more risk-taking.
Sorry if this all seems so common-sense that the article ends up being a turn-off. In any case, let's hope that today's game is an interesting one ... and that there'll be less booing from the stands.
I wonder if writers and editors of such trash ever read the comments or do they just go on their way thinking how clever their articles are
Yes, of course we read the comments. Sorry to hear this one didn't strike your fancy. I hope we'll provide other offerings you'll find more worthwhile.
Major props to Alan for posting on the comments and replying to feedback, most people don't bother engaging the audience. Now I feel bad for lashing out so harshly on it...it's always different when there's a human on the other end.
Honestly though, the article sounds like something out of The Onion. This is just what struck me personally. :)
Thanks, Craig ... Maybe this link will help make it up to you ;-)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/department-of-health-and-human-services-recommends,19000/
Alan, maybe some of this article's critics view it as "obvious conclusion", but if you think that's what I was saying, you didn't understand my post.
The main problem with the Super Bowl analogy is that it assumes a business must go for broke trying to beat a competitor when it is behind, when in fact that rarely is the case. 4Q gimmickery to make the financials look good and improve bonuses are just what is wrong with most business.
Businesses do ultimately compete with one another, and it's good to light a fire once in a while, as well as brainstorm on what the competition is doing right and what we can do better, but in reality, in business you don't have to be #1 to be a successful winner, and deadlines are artificial. Sure, pump your sales team with all sorts of meaningless motivational cliches (Dilbert would be proud), but careful with desperate "go for it" strategy changes. It's most often about executing strategy well on a consistent basis. Strategies that didn't seem wise when calmly analyzed should not suddenly be more appealing as an act born out of desperation because the quarter is coming to an end, or it is likely it will do more harm than good.
And in the example of Avis trying harder, is that really the case that can be supported by metrics, or is it just a catchy marketing platitude?
Also, why is this a science article, and not business? It's certainly not science.