In a previous World of Work post, I said that introducing anthropology to new audiences should include interesting stories. I have found that lecturing about my work experience is not particularly engaging for high-school and college students. My engineering career is a big domain jump for many of them. Scenarios emphasize the breadth of anthropological application and encourage students to offer their own perspectives. This post shares how I used scenarios about business anthropology to engage a high-school audience.
The Scenarios and Discussion
I used anthropological and business terms to develop the scenarios in Table 1. The teacher divided the class of 20–25 students into groups of four or five. Each group had 15 minutes to discuss what they would do for their assigned scenario. One person per group reported out to the whole class.
Table 1: Classroom Scenarios
| Anthropology Topic | Workplace Puzzle |
| Cross-cultural collaboration | You are not sure people at your company want to work together. How would you identify barriers? What kinds of interventions might you develop to address those barriers? |
| In-group /
Out-group rules |
Your industry’s regulating body has strict rules about work that the same person cannot do. How do you assign activities so that you follow the rules but also avoid hiring lots of people who are idle? |
| Novice Initiation | Your company is expanding rapidly. There are very few experienced people. Not much is written down. What else can you do? |
| Societal Collapse | Your industry just collapsed. Products were cancelled; work was stopped; people were laid off, and others left voluntarily. What rituals can help navigate high and varied emotions as the business tries to rebuild? |
I then discussed how anthropology helps address issues like these. Here are two examples from my experience that I shared with the students.
Example 1: Cross-cultural collaboration
Cultural consensus analysis combines qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how cultures cross boundaries like department membership. I used it to analyze survey data for an initiative aimed at improving how people worked together (integrated product development teams). A survey is a matrix of questions and responses. Eigenvalues explain variation in the matrix. Factor loadings compare individual values (survey responses) against each other. Figure 1 shows eigenvalues and factor loadings for a survey about a new way for departments to work together. The managers distributing the survey expected people from engineering would agree with each other, people from operations would agree with each other, and engineering and operations to disagree. However, the first eigenvalue is much larger than the second and the factor loadings are close together. This satisfies the criteria for cultural consensus. For anthropologists, the graph is a means to an end (the finding of consensus). The graph helped my engineering audience understand the finding: people in engineering and operations did not disagree with each other. That shifted attention to a new discussion: both departments were confused about the initiative’s purpose and did not believe there was adequate training.
Figure 1: Graphical Cross-Cultural Consensus (Engineering & Operations)
Example 2: In-group/Out-group rules
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has strict rules for developing airborne software. The rules seek to avoid potential errors caused when someone checking their own work cannot be objective. For example:
- A person deciding what the software must do (requirements development) cannot also confirm the requirements are correct (requirements verification).
- That person can perform roles which make sure the software works correctly, including Source Code Verification, Test Cases and Procedures Verification, and Test Results Verification.
An anthropologist can build a matrix from the FAA’s prohibited roles, transpose it, and then use social network analysis to find cliques (groups of 3 or more roles connected to each other) of permitted roles. It is possible to satisfy the FAA requirements for independent work with a team of 16 people who each perform between 8 and 9 roles. This supports the boundaries of role separation. It expands opportunities by quantifying the work that one person can do.
Reflections
Scenarios like these are useful tools to exchange ideas. The students appreciated seeing the nuance that applied anthropology offers, the non-traditional (for anthropology) example of engineering, and the importance of being multidisciplinary. They grudgingly acknowledged that math is useful for some interdisciplinary work. I appreciated hearing their ideas, and also the opportunity to share about my own college and career choices. These discussions uncover compelling stories and offer tangible career-oriented takeaways within applied anthropology and for the world of work more broadly.
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