Bitter and better side of ‘law of instrument’ – HR message from animal world

The concept of ‘law of instrument’ which is otherwise called as Maslow’s hammer or golden hammer is considered to be a psychological state of mind where one prefers to use only one tool for example hammer to deal every problem as if all problems were a nail.

The interesting point is that this cognition bias is appears to have present well among animal world as well. The question to be taken for the discussion is not about the presence of the cognition bias, the law of instrument but how it can affect ones further development if such bias is not contained or in other word how it can keep further progress under check. The above correlation should not be seen as absolute science but instead the essential management message that is hidden in such correction should be taken for new learning.

The ‘law of instrument’ states that the tendency of certain people to relay too much upon certain skills or knowledge systems to deal all diverse situations and thereby they neglect other simple possible alternative methods. In other words, people often tend to exhibit similar pattern in dealing different situations and would neglect other options.

Look at the world of herbivores animals. Most of the herbivores animals follow gregarious life style. Whenever they encounter a predator, the first tool they adopt would be to run away from the scene. They use the weapon called escape or flee and this behaviour is co-born with every herbivores animal. May be they resorts to this rule because of another instincts that may be driving them from within called fear. It means whenever they spot a predator, the fear in a stereotypic manner triggers the instinct called escape. Both these instincts can be classified under the ‘law of instrument’. Continuous presence of these instincts makes the herbivores animal to remain as prey animal. It means, the ‘law of instrument’ gives great stability to species identity at the behavioural level. As a result, the predators also enjoy the availability of prey and hence could survive in the jungle.

If we strictly look at the herbivores animals from the over dependency on the law of instrument – fear and escape, it had indeed affected the progress of these animals from overpowering the predator, despite the prey animals having great strength.

However the law of instrument also has helped them to develop enough stamina and strength to run, sense the predator in advance and live as group. In turn, it had helped them to continue to live with the same cognition bias called law of instrument. Although the law of instrument has affected the progress in one direction, but it also has strengthened their ability to swiftly escape from the predator.

The cognition bias – law of instrument is although assumed to limit the progress but it had indeed strengthened the traits that are opposite of the limitations. The fear has increased the alertness and the ability to sense the predator/danger quickly and have also acquired enormous strength to run and escape. This is true for predator also.

In corporate world, the big question is whether the ‘law of instrument’ is limiting people or helping people to develop certain capabilities and grow further. In every likelihood, people in corporate seldom grow or develop any additional skills to deal different situations due to their anchorage on ‘law of instrument’.

Once people fall into this trap, they opts only the same skill or knowledge systems to solve different problems which may require different skills or knowledge or experience. As a result, the people would neither able to solve the problems nor develop great skills to solve them and as a result would continue to live with same situation and problem.

Every psychological aspect or cognition bias may have both advantages and disadvantages. In animal world disadvantages do offer certain advantages but in human world, the law of instrument is unlikely to offer any advantage or benefit.