Recently I was asked to give career advice. This reply can be used by anyone in any career, or any manager tasked with measuring the value of their investment.
The career question was: What area of study is better for a career in industrial/organizational psychology? (e.g., clinical psychology, cognition, cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, perception, personality psychology, or social psychology.)
My reply: Get nerdy. I strongly recommend that you conduct one of the following two research studies.
Take a quantitative approach.
(a) Start with the leading professional associations such as division 14 in the American Psychological Association described at https://www.apa.org/about/division/div14. Or Division 13 at https://www.apa.org/about/division/div13. Then study the data at SIOP. Request their whitepapers and industry trend data on recommended career paths. Synthesize key points from each document so that you can reference them later if required.
(b) After collecting data on the professional associations that interest you, define 4-5 research questions (RQs) that interest you. I think that the problem you want to solve is something like, “What specialty is better for me and why?” Examples of RQs include: 1. What specialty makes more money? 2. What specialty enables me to work with the kinds of clients I desire to serve? 3. What specialty is affordable and attainable within 5 years? 4. What specialty will enable me to shift career interests every 10 years if desired?
( c ) Analyze your results. Your RQs will drive the data. Create a 2-4 page summary analysis based on each RQ and your findings to date.
(d) Share the data and your summary analysis with 3-4 older people who are honest and capable of providing direct feedback. Avoid your loved ones. Have a conversation with them about how you have analyzed the data and discuss how they interpret the data.
2. Take a qualitative approach.
(a) Select a large sample (n = 100+) of representative practitioners with self-declared expertise in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Start with sample searches in open digital communities such as LinkedIn or Quora. Then collect practitioners from professional associations such as SIOP or https://www.apa.org/about/division/div13. Create a spreadsheet with names, email, digital link, contact requests, contact notes. Add me to your list if useful. Then add any of my first level connections or followers.
(b) Define 4-5 research questions that you would like to ask. Sample RQs may include: 1. What were significant milestones in your graduate education? 2. How are you implementing your graduate education into your daily work today? 3. What advice do you have for me if I were to adopt a career path like yours? 4. What skills do you use daily in your consulting practice that can be learned in graduate school?
( c ) With permission from the participants, record the conversations. Take notes on themes and categories that emerge. For research protocols study textbooks such as Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research, 2nd ed. (Creswell & Plano, 2011). To be clear, your study can be simple. If you can have 10 conversations with 10 representatives of where you would like to be in 10 years, then your qualitative study should have tremendous value.
(d) Analyze your results. I suspect that you will be able to define what your sample population recommends after 5-6 conversations. I hope that data will inform you to conduct additional research in your career.
A closing thought: If you are not inclined to conduct a simple research study like the ones described above, then you are not likely to be successful in I/O psychology…
Researchers collect data and analyze results.
Consultants assess and recommend.
I certainly hope that you conduct the research you need, sooner rather than later, so that you can serve thousands of clients.
Remote work and remote teams are “here to stay.” I have been working remotely since 2004.
As you know, humans have always adapted to aversive stimuli, such as a global virus, in one of two ways: Fear and Resilience.
FEAR
If you are paralyzed by fear, then I encourage you to ONLY read social media once a day. In the morning. For no more than 10 minutes. Instead, read the facts from 2-3 sources that represent public interests, such as public safety, and ways to practice new patterns of communication. See the links below. Fear prevents clear thinking.
2. RESILIENCE
Resilience is defined as our ability to respond to an aversive stimuli and return to a previous state, or a better state. Resilience is dynamic. Resilience can be taught and developed. Here are some examples.
Create something special for someone else. It will force you to engage your prefrontal cortex, be mindful ,and practice gratitude. Here is an example that I created yesterday called “How to Lead Virtual Teams.” You can apply it to your family, work team, or favorite non profit. Please share it with others.
Read something uplifting and new. One of my favorites is the Greater Good Science Center here. Search for funny videos on YouTube. Share them with your friends. Study a free course online. Visit the daily digest at Good News Network or Happify.
Contact 5 or more different people every day, and do something kind for them. When we practice kindness with different people, the effect is greater on our subjective well-being / happiness than if we focus on one special person. Share your love. “Sprinkling kindness” has more impact than “focusing kindness.”
Practice both social distancing and virtual connecting. They go hand in hand. We have more digital tools than ever in human history to practice virtual connections. You can send short videos to quarantined people in assisted living homes. You can distribute home baked goods and cards to your neighbors. You can meet using Skype/ Zoom/ WebEx/ Facetime at any time to brighten someone’s day, or dance, or exercise, or laugh together. I did so 4 times today. How about you?
The fact is that OKRs are a feedback process that requires regular practice.
Objectives are WHAT is to be achieved. They are qualitative, subjective, and significant. For instance, “increase revenue” or “decrease undesired turnover.”
Key Results (KRs) are numbers. They are 3-5 quantitative measures that verify the status of any objective. For instance, “increase recurring client sales revenue from $500k/month to $525K/month by the end of Q3” or “increase 1:1 performance reviews by 8% at all warehouses within 30 days.” ALL good business leaders use numbers to drive change.
I coined the phrase “OKR Leadership” because clients asked, “what really works?” OKR Leadership is defined as a process for managers and leaders to practice what matters.
Why do attorneys get to “practice” law, and physicians get to “practice” medicine, when leaders NEED to practice leadership?
Too many leaders are not effective. That’s not their fault. They have never been taught how to influence others toward a better future. They have not practiced public optimism. Those skills are complex. And they need to be practiced regularly.
For details on HOW to measure OKRs, WHY measure them, and WHAT you can do to practice OKR Leadership, read my new book Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to Apply Silicon Valley’s Secret Sauce to Your Career, Team or Organization (2019) or download a free excerpt from https://okrleadership.com/
By: Doug Gray, Ph.D., The Family Business Consulting Group
Many family business leaders describe ownership as a linchpin of their enterprise. Some, fearing family conflict and business indecision, seek ways to limit the distribution of ownership among their heirs. But a focused ownership strategy (e.g. assigning majority control to one heir) can lead to family disputes over fairness or a lack of social capital left in the business. When ownership is clearly defined with mutually acceptable values (e.g. stewardship, service, loyalty, integrity), then distribution is more likely to be successful. But what happens when ownership is not clearly distributed?
This article addresses two questions: 1) what is distributed ownership? and 2) how do business-owning families successfully manage distributed ownership?
1. What is distributed ownership?
Answers from my FBCG colleagues ranged from “that good feeling when the family business is in good hands” to “an endless series of scenes like in those Matrix movies.” Distributed ownership can be defined descriptively as “when multiple owners have different percentage levels of shares, or types of shares (e.g. voting, non-voting).” Distributions from generation 1 (G1) to G2 are typically from one or two founders to two or more owners, and that complexity increases with each distribution over time. The goal of distributed ownership is to move from now to next, from coexisting to maximizing your competitive advantage. In this article, distributed ownership can be defined as “how you co-design your flourishing family enterprise.”
Any functional definition needs to focus on “what works now” and “what may work until the next redistribution.” Consider the threats we know now. Amid COVID, globalization, political and social polarization, technological and security threats, decision-making for family business leadership has never been more
challenging. However, family business leaders have a resilient history. Flourishing family business leaders have many strategic advantages that can inform ownership discussions. Owners may make values-based decisions over longer terms (versus quarterly returns); owners can quickly access resources; and owners can invest or withhold resources quickly when required. The result is that family-owned businesses may have a competitive advantage over many publicly held companies.1
Distributed ownership can be defined as “how you co- design your flourishing family enterprise.”
The next few blog articles will describe 4 TIPS for what NOT to do, then 5 tips for WHAT TO DO in your Family Business.
All business leaders share the same fear, which may be a mantra: “Please God, don’t let me screw it up on my watch…”. But how do you know what to change and what to retain?
1. What is the role of culture in business? I have never worked with clients who state, “we need to change our culture.” However, I frequently work with clients who state, “we need to reduce conflict or increase our communication skills.” That indicates a business opportunity to teach about culture, then accelerate learning for my clients. There is plenty of confusion about culture.
2. So what is culture? I favor the definition from Edgar Schein that culture has 3 levels: 1) artifacts (what we say and do, the physical objects or rituals that reinforce desired behaviors), 2) shared values (why we say and do certain behaviors) and 3) unstated assumptions that may be constructive or destructive. One resource is at https://www.managementstudyhq.com/edgar-schein-model-theory.html. Another is this image:
3. How do we understand the artifacts of culture? We ask for examples and celebrate each example. For instance, if we start a meeting by asking each participant to share an example of an important artifact, then we instantly hear stories of what they value. I recently shared a plaster sculpture of two hands from our children that sits on my desk. I love it as a reminder of why we do this work…. Artifacts may include photos, songs, rituals, objects or traditions.
4. What are our shared values? Most privately-held businesses persist because people know their values and then celebrate them regularly. Each meeting can start with examples of how that stated value on the lobby wall is manifest in recent actions. Surveys and polls from the owners, and stories from Uncle Fred (for instance), will reinforce quantitative and qualitative examples of shared values.
5. How do we understand the shared assumptions? External advisers and managers are paid to “assess and recommend.” With care. Repeatedly. We can be like chameleons who adjust our colors, and we can also be video choreographers using Zoom to provide/solicit behavioral feedback in the moment. Discovery has never been easier or more accurate. Managers need to ask deep questions about what needs to persist and what needs to change. With care. Repeatedly. When we ask probing questions like “What else do we need?” or “How else could we implement that project?” then we identify the disconnects. A candid linchpin, or customer, or in-law, may be more insightful than a manager who avoids taboo topics.
6. Cultural narratives abound. The words we use to describe the founder (for example) are often repeated and reinforce “larger than life” impacts. Notice your reaction to these phrases: “I have no dogs in this hunt, I live and work in Switzerland/ model neutrality, I’m working for the whole organization, not one person, I’m not here to push a specific outcome/agenda, naturally I cannot ever fully understand the complexity of your business history.” I often write notes of key narratives that seem to be repeated. Then I ask, “does this phrase accurately describe your culture?”
7. Process maps provide visual maps of “now and next”… We all use images/ models/ data visualization all the time to “create pictures” or “see others.” Our brains retain and retrieve pictures faster than words, even when we are dreaming. That’s another reason why Instagram is more engaging than reading an academic journal. Process maps can be created in the moment to list possible solutions, do a journey map, ask about future states. Examples can include photos of the past, sociograms of the present, or vision maps of a future state. I often use a simple chart with Schein’s culture model (artifacts/actions, shared values, assumptions that are constructive or destructive), during a business meeting to process behavior. Those process maps help me organize data into cultural schemas. When useful, I may share the process map. Or not.
8. Timelines may also be useful to reflect on the past and focus on that windshield view, rather than that rear-view mirror view. When leaders are stuck/ hostage to the past there may be a need for clinical experts/ therapists. I use genograms to varying degrees (software includes GenoPro and SmartDraw). Genograms can be a team shared activity that increases understanding of antecedents, potential risky behavior patterns, genetic heritage, as well as trends in signature strengths.
All owners share the same fear, which may be a mantra: “Please God, don’t let me screw it up on my watch…”
There are no formulas for what to retain or what to change. There are no stages. There are multiple lenses used to describe culture (e.g., financial, strategic, ownership, management, ethical, technological). There are cultural layers that may be useful to describe culture (e.g. artifacts, values, assumptions).
How to Comply with Human Capital Reporting Rulesin 3 Steps
Guest article from John R. Mattox, II, Ph.D., Action Learning Associates
People drive value for organizations, now more than ever.
Too many managers and leaders struggle with quantifying that value. They do not know how to create competitive advantage. Do you know the VALUE of your Human Capital?
Dave Vance, the Executive Director of the Center for Talent Reporting, (www.centerfortalentreporting.org), recently published an article in Chief Learning Officer (CLO) Magazine that described when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will require human capital reporting.
On August 26, 2020 the SEC revised that rule and now requires that organizations report information that is “material”—meaning anything that an investor would find valuable when considering buying a security. That is BIG news. That ruling includes human capital metrics. Do you NEED to measure the VALUE of your Humana Capital?
Thankfully, there is a readily available framework for measuring and reporting human capital. The International Standards Organization (ISO) which has improved product quality and consistency around the globe with ISO 9000, has developed a standard for sharing meaningful measures of human capital called ISO 30414.
How Should You Prepare?
There are many ways to approach this IS) 30414 Human Capital Reporting Standard. Here are three steps that will certainly help:
Assess your current state. Look across your systems, analytics resources, and reporting processes. Can the current state in your organization provide the information needed? The likely answer is no, but that is okay, because it is a starting point. The output of this step should be a document that defines what you have, and what you don’t have. We can help.
Plan for your future state. You need to close your data and reporting gaps identified in step 1. Leverage your systems, teams, and processes. Prioritize the metrics that your stakeholders say are most important. Also spend time determining how much effort will be required to obtain each metric and report it. Use the business needs and efforts required as guides for prioritization.
Deliver. Practice generating a full report regularly. Start today. Each attempt should identify persistent gaps and areas that need process improvements. Set a date for when you need to deliver the full report without any missing data. Drive towards completion. Launch the report and share results with stakeholders long before the final report is needed for reporting or compliance reasons. Continue to iterate and improve.
Conclusion
ISO 30414 provides a useful framework for gathering, analyzing, and reporting results
Prepare by examining the current state of your HR analytics practices; close gaps on the metrics that need to be reported
Leverage your internal resources, systems, and processes
Engage external resources like Action Learning Associates, with expertise in HR analytics and ISO 30414.
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