Member-only story
Framing Bias, Examples, and Decision-Making in Business
In the Moneyball movie, Oakland Athletic’s General manager Billy Beane is upset by his team’s loss to New York Yankees in the elimination round of 2001 season. He sincerely wanted to win the championship. Another sad news is that Oakland Athletics is losing three of his star players — Damon, Giambi and Isringhausen to rival teams.
The next challenge, Billy Beane had was to assemble a competitive team for 2002 season with a measly budget of $38million compared to New York Yankees’ budget of $120 million to spend on recruiting players. Billy had to find a solution.
In this scenario, due to anchoring bias, some people from the top management had framed the problem faced by Oakland Athletics as “how to find replacements for the guys we lost, with the money that we do have”.
Later, in one of the scenes, in Oakland Athletic’s Scouting room — Billy Beane and 10 older men(selectors and the senior management team), all former players is sitting around a larger table, were discussing the problems and trying to find solutions.
One of the former players, Grady, “Ok.Guys. We have got three big holes to fill….we will go around the room. I like the player Geronimo. How about him”
We could see how the selection panel is anchoring their discussions around the way the problem is framed -filling the spots vacated by the players.
As the selection members continue to discuss new players, Billy Beane becomes restless and shows his disgust. One of the selection members asks Billy’s suggestion.
Grady: We are trying to solve the problem.
Billy: You’re not looking at the problem.
Grady: We’re very aware of the problem.
Billy: Okay, good. What’s the problem?
Grady: Look, Billy, we all understand what the problem is. We have to —
Billy: Okay, good. What’s the problem?
