The Psychology Archives at the University of Akron will continue its fall colloquium series by welcoming psychologist Dr. Florence L. Denmark, on Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 2 to 4 p.m., in Student Union 312. Denmark’s lecture, “The History of Women In Psychology and the Development of the Psychology of Women,” is free and open to the public.

Denmark is an internationally recognized scholar, researcher and policy maker. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in social psychology and has five honorary degrees. Denmark’s most significant research and extensive publications have emphasized women’s leadership and leadership styles, the interaction of status and gender, aging women in cross-cultural perspective and the history of women in psychology.

For some reason my reply button for responding to comments does not work. So I am replying here to comments received from Mark and Tim to a previous blog.

In response to Tim, my powers of prediction were based more on history than on moral hopelessness. For some reason, the courts have consistently drawn a distinction between age and other forms of discrimination. Given the only protected class I fall into is age, this does upset me some, but nevertheless it exists. So I do not believe it has anything to do with laissez-faire doctrine or Reagan, it has do do with the courts consistently drawing a distinction between theories of age discrmination and for example sex and race discrimination. Is this distinction based on any science? Harvey Sterns and I point out in our chapter on the law and age that there does not appear to be any theoretical or scientific basis for this distinction. Of course, we have not really conducted research on the difference in theories in this realm, so perhaps it is we psychologists who are at fault.

I would add that most people do seem to believe that a company should take age into account in making personnel decisions. See for example our emphasis on workforce and succession planning. But that is another issue.

As for Mark’s comments, I would not be the first to point out that the so-called balancing of burdens of proof is more of a legal theory than a courtroom reality. the burden is more of a subtle weighing carried out in the processing of information than a matter of one team being the offense until the punt (to poorly use a football analogy).

Anytime a factory closes, there is a tremendous social cost. The question then becomes one of how, if at all, should we compensate those hard working individuals who suffer as a result of the changing fates associated with capitalism. In the US, our solution has been to let them sue, often arguing that they were terminated as a result of discrimination if they belong to some protected class. I think this is the issue Mark is addressing, is this then the best use of the courts? Is this the best method of determining who should be compensated and how much they should receive?

The fall series of meetings is starting. Start marking your calendars. The next local IPMA-HR meeting will be held on Thursday, October 22nd at 8:30am at the Brecksville Community Center. The speaker will be Karen Seidman, R.N., M.P.H., consultant to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, who has been working with the various aspects of pandemic influenza preparedness since June, 2006. She will review the basics of seasonal flu and pandemic flu and share current information about vaccine and antiviral medicine. There will be an opportunity to discuss issues and concerns related to pandemic flu in your business environment. Cost will be $10 for members and $15 for non-members which will include breakfast.

From the Washington Post, a short article on the issues in writing employment tests. The article does not say anything new nor does it really spell out the issues, but it does highlight the continuing conflict between the demands of public sector testing for merit and security and the pressures for equal outcomes in employment results.

And is relevant because I will be giving a brief talk on related matters to an HR class at John Carroll on Thursday.  Always great to get back to John Carroll.

From Bryan Baldwin and the excellent blog at HR Tests.

Case in point: the state of Washington recently decided to abandon their efforts to implement SAP E-Recruiting after nearly three years and millions of dollars. The state will now go with a hosted solution which is estimated to be $700-800,000 a year cheaper (and hopefully much easier) to maintain.

Having been ringside for some of this, I can tell you the problem was not with motivation or energy, or even IT knowledge. I suspect that a lion’s share of the problem was related to the complexity of the program. This would match reports I’ve read that a significant number of organizations are moving away from single-vendor HR solutions and going with simpler, targeted products. Having heard about this program for a number of years, I have two thoughts:

1. As I commented the other day on another site, a problem in HR today is letting technology be the driver rather than scientifically sound HR practices. That is not to say that the State of Washington’s program was not based on sound practices, but a more general observation about issues with technology today in HR.
2. Again not specifically aimed at the State of Washington program, but a general observation, it is simply interesting how many times you see programs that receive a great number of accolades and attention, only to quickly slide into oblivion or be quickly replaced with the next hot program.

Before going much further in this discussion, I need to explain my emphasis on “behavior.” OK Tim, you say, “what about attitude?” Frankly, as a manager in the workplace, I didn’t give a tinker’s damn about attitude (except possibly as it might be expressed in behavior). I can’t see it, I can’t measure it, and unless it is expressed in undesirable behaviors in the workplace it is not my business. “Yah but psychologists can assess peoples attitudes!” That’s right and there are appropriate psychological assessments (e.g., as part of selection) that qualified (e.g., licensed psychologists) people may administer. However, the typical workplace manager or executive is not qualified nor has any business assessing attitude or personality, except as they are expressed in workplace behaviors. This is what the typical manager is or at least should be qualified to assess; work performance or other behaviors germane to workplace functions. Behavior can be observed, measured, and documented as appropriate or necessary by those knowledgeable of the work and the organization.

The task of addressing workplace behavior can be daunting, in and of itself. I’ve seen too many in positions of workplace leadership who are either afraid to deal with behavioral and performance issues or haven’t been properly trained to do so. In the US most companies have a “top-down” modus operandi. That is to say that the chain of command and decision making begin within the higher echelons. We shoot our mouths off about democracy (if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “employees are our most valued asset”), but in practice we don’t believe in it. It is the rare organization that empowers employees to be truly self-directed (a discussion for another day). So, in the status quo, the success of subalterns within the organization becomes the responsibility of those that manage/lead them. I believe this responsibility goes beyond an obligation to the organization , but to our fellow humans in general.

The astute manager will counsel employees as to specific behaviors that do not contribute to their success (e.g., performance), and what specific behaviors will in turn support their success. For example, telling an employee that they don’t deal well with or perhaps don’t respect their fellow workers is not sufficient. Beginning with this general critique, but then defining by specific incident/behavior what is meant (e.g. interrupting Mary before she finished expressing her thoughts) and specifically what desired behavior should take its place (listen to others opinions before interrupting with yours). Needless to say, in general, the manager should document a pattern of behavior before addressing it and provide some reward as the desired behavior is expressed (maybe as simple as recognizing the new behavior).

Effectively managing people toward success in the workplace, is hard work, but the greatest reward is helping people develop behaviors that will insure their continued success in the workplace. One caveat, especially in dealing with maladaptive workplace behaviors, is that there exists the latent possibility of personal problems/behaviors that occur outside the workplace but contribute to workplace issues : generally you as a manager should not and are not qualified to address outside issues/behaviors, but without suggesting specific problems (marital, financial, substance abuse, etc.) any available employee assistance program should be discussed and offered when addressing maladaptive workplace behavior.

Coming will be more discussion of reward types and related “laws” relative to the workplace, while beginning to frame this discussion with what psychologists call “operant conditioning.”

I had previously posted on the Jack Welch MBA program at Chancellor University in Cleveland. So, I thought I should post an update in that the program is now on hold.

According to Crain’s Cleveland Business:

The highly anticipated Jack Welch Management Institute MBA program at Chancellor University has been put on hold until the famed business leader’s health improves… Mr. Welch entered New York-Presbyterian Hospital on July 5 for discitis, a rare but curable spine infection…the MBA program set to begin Aug. 31 will be delayed for a yet-unannounced amount of time.

Imagine the following workplace scenarios:

1) In a manufacturing assembly line productivity (number of parts assembled per worker) seems to have suffered a serious decline.
Analysis: Bonuses were previously based on individual worker piecework (measured daily) and were changed to reflect total line output along with other company objectives that workers feel are in the hands of upper management (i.e., a company wide strategy to gain ISO 9000 certification). Rewards are now less directly tied to individual behavior by performance. Worker BUY-IN or OWNERSHIP (important concept in the workplace) to company goals (ISO 9000) to which their input has not genuinely been sought, may be low resulting in low commitment to the success of these goals. Still bonus/reward realignment may ultimately help achieve company goals, but behaviors will be affected.

2) The CEO of a large company notices that although overall profit margins and productivity are good, cooperation between the people in various divisions seems to have declined, in fact there seems to be animosity (e.g., in sharing company resources) where once was camraderie and cooperation. Some long-term company-wide objectives (ISO 9000 and Lean implementation) that require inter-division coordination seem to be suffering.
Analysis: The monthly bonus rewarding performance/goal achievement strictly by and within each division has replaced an annual bonus that was based on overall company performance and was evenly distributed between divisions and all employees. This has led to sometimes aggressive competition for shared resources between employees in different divisions.

3) A sales division not only seems to be suffering declining sales, but a few salespeople (former highly esteemed employees) have been disciplined or terminated for falsifying records (e.g., claiming contacts they have not made).
Analysis: Pay for salespeople was largely based on individual sales’ commission (the holy grail of compensation for top salespeople as my co-blogger Dennis might say). Changing compensation to a fixed salary (no-longer paying a commission to salespeople based on a percentage of their individual sales) was when the problems began.

4) The engineering division for a large company has received real gains in individual salary increases along with a record annual bonus, yet morale seems low and the grapevine has it that a few of the top engineers are looking for different jobs.
Analysis: This company’s product is highly engineered, the former company head came from engineering, and those in engineering have historically been feted as more or less saviors (well earned at certain challenging times in the product history). The current company head came out of human resources (seems to have little empathy for the engineering aspect of the business) and much of the engineering workload is being farmed out to satellite locations in India. Compensation is still a reward for these employees, but for some it doesn’t compete as a reward with recognition and a sense of self importance (in psychology we might refer to “self focus”) in a larger mission (the success of the company).

Now, are the above scenarios a bit contrived? Certainly, but not entirely unlike some real-life workplace events that I and many readers may have experienced. What do they all have in common? Rewards (reward contingencies) have changed and thus affected behaviors. Examples one and two demonstrate extremes between rewarding narrowly directed behaviors (individual or small group performance) and rewarding more globally directed behaviors (organizational performance). While example three emphasizes compensation as reward, example four demonstrates that non-monetary rewards can be important also.

My message is simple, organizational leaders and policy setters are responsible for much of individual and group behavior (desirable or not). The circumstances you contrive that act as rewards (and punishments) will likely influence work behaviors far more than individual dispositions. So, it is simply prudent to define what behavioral outcomes are desirable (based on business model, long or short term needs, etc.) and only then carefully designing or revamping organizational/individual reward systems (compensation, rules, policies, etc.). In future posts more discussion of behavior shaping, rewards, and reward schedules. But in the next post I want to explain why I focus on workplace behavior.

The Rorschach has been leaked by Wikipedia.

I debated posting this news item, because it adds to the publicity for what would appear to be at least a borderline ethical act. However, as reported by the New York Times and other media outlets, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been engulfed in a furious debate involving psychologists who are angry that the 10 original Rorschach plates are reproduced online, along with common responses for each. For them, the Wikipedia page is the equivalent of posting an answer sheet to next year’s SAT. They are pitted against the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia’s users, who share the site’s “free culture” ethos, which opposes the suppression of information that it is legal to publish. (Because the Rorschach plates were created nearly 90 years ago, they have lost their copyright protection in the United States.)

I am not sure how to respond to the news item. The availability is nothing new. Back when I gave the Rorschach, I often wondered about the availability in the library of books that contained the Rorschach cards and responses. Sure those were not as easily available and cost money to purchase, but were in most University libraries. So, people having access to images of the cards is not new. If this only occurred with non-copyright protected documents it would be easier to deal with and accept.

So is there a lesson. If there is it is that for those human resource professionals involved in testing, the security of tests will remain a huge problem and will probably become a more significant issue in the future.  

As many of us watch the baseball trades, a big trade impacting human resources occurred today. Many of us make use of SPSS software for statistical analysis. Thus, this announcement may have long term significance.

From the Wall Street Journal:

International Business Machines Corp. agreed to buy software developer SPSS Inc. for $1.2 billion, expanding Big Blue’s software portfolio and adding another deal to the growing list of recent acquisitions in the software industry.

Chicago-based SPSS develops software that analyzes statistical data to make predictions. The software, known as predictive analytics, is used for survey and scientific research along with marketing, government and educational purposes. The companies said they expected to close the deal by year’s end.

The $50-a-share all-cash offer represents a 42% premium to SPSS’s Monday closing price. SPSS shares rose to an all-time high of $49.49 a share on Nasdaq Stock Market following the deal’s announcement, and were recently up 41% at $49.30. IBM shares fell 0.7% to $116.81 on the New York Stock Exchange.