Bespoke Me: You ‘Can’ Buy Influence & Opportunities

November 27, 2012 Leave a comment

Interesting that when recently looking through odesk.com, freelancer.com and elance.com there are some unusual jobs on offer. Given the context of some jobs this would appear to mask who is doing what in the world. Do you know you candidate? Do you know your student? Do you know you know who is doing the work?

Twitter and Facebook

As an example, several jobs have been posted where individuals or organizations are looking for 10,000 followers on Twitter, or 10,000 followers on Facebook. Amazing in the first place that there are those who know enough about the platforms to generate that number of followers for a client. If successful in producing the correct number of followers, payment is received. One wonders why an individual would want 10,000 followers, would this be to increase influence, to boast about the number of followers, or is it simply a case of building a potential client-base? For those who genuinely follow out of shared professional interest, is there the potential to be mislead by the bought influence?

Who Is The Blogger?

Another good example is jobs that surround blogging. You may not know that these services can be bought on demand. I do understand the concept of guest blogging, but we are talking about something quite different here. In fact we are talking about an individual or organization retaining the paid services of a blogger who will write perhaps every post on a blog platform. We could look at posts on Harvard Business Review or Forbes and recognise that there are those who blog and are recognised as guest bloggers or otherwise. But here, the individual or company purchasing the services retain copyright and there is the possibility that the ‘blogger’ remains unidentified. This is a concern, perhaps more so with individual business or service blogs where we may assume that the work has been carried out by the individual. Imagine a job interview situation where an individual directs you to the quality, quantity and relevance of their blog input when they have not actually written it.

Who Is The Writer?

We are mostly aware of the fact that ghost writing is well established, this is where an experience writer according to industry may write, co-author or edit a publication without being identified. Apply this to university essays, dissertations, thesis submission, data analysis and journal publications and we can see the potential implications. This is not to ignore the fact that there are already a number of organizations out there who provide such specialist services, especially tailored to the ‘student’ market.

Do We Have A Problem, Or Do We Have A Problem?

There is a problem and it is one of identity and capability. A university student can ‘buy-in’ writing services and the expertise to conduct and analyse their research findings. They can also pay for every essay, if the budget is there. The organizations providing ‘assistance’ come from a range of sources. It is also possible to buy professional work experience. It is also possible to run a highly successful social media strategy by writing little other than a cheque. We have organizations who also specialise in the completion of resumes, application forms and preparation for interview.

So the next time you encounter someone who writes a blog post, consider if it is that individual who has written it. If you see a new social media post, consider if it is the named individual who created it. If you are assessing work within a university there may be little that you can do to identify whether or not the work genuinely belongs to the individual. Unless someone is particularly famous, think about why a company or an individual has so many followers and whether or not these are genuine and based on the individuals communication. If you are in the human resources profession, consider whether or not the achievements and claims of your candidate are accurate.

Clearly there is great potential out there for many things not to be what they appear. I take nothing away from those who are looking for contract work and indeed from the companies that provide a platform through which organisations and individuals can advertise opportunities.  However, in a human resources or organisational sense there is a problem that emerges from the potential to ‘buy-in’ bespoke services that could create an unfair advantage across many scenarios. This is something that we need to be mindful of.

Perhaps the biggest question now is how do you identify who is who and what is what?

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Never Nail A Business Insight & How Management Consultancy Wins

November 27, 2012 Leave a comment

So far on this blog I have written extensively about the significance of effective feedback to produce improved, ‘measurable’ business outcomes. We are in a recession, with so many organisations looking to the innovation or cut-back route you would think they would clamber to receive this actionable input for free. However, given the lack of discussion and interaction on this blog, it would appear that businesses are not interested in the gains. I find this odd, do you? What are the articles missing? Is there some secret ingredient that would somehow engage the business community? Perhaps they are not looking enough and I am not well known?

To be honest, I am not sure how the process of communicating with business works. As with my previous post on listening to the social media guru, there is a lot of empty thinking out there. For example, there are a few ‘recruitment’ god father’s who say something with little foundation, yet hundreds of comments follow on the topic. I often wonder if this is because the topic has been left open for discussion, or if the real reason is that those individuals and organizations are using the opportunity to comment to enhance their presence across social media.

Here is a challenge for business owners and leaders within organizations. Name one social media induced story that enabled you to implement changes that improved your outcomes. Aside from business that can be generated through participation in discussions themselves, or through sharing your own content, what ‘has’ made a difference to outcomes? Surely it would be better to learn from that which is concrete as opposed to that which often resembles little other than ‘fuzzy’ thinking.

If you were an industry ‘expert’ working for a global organization, how much would you share with the world? How much would you retain for the purposes of your own organization? Does the sharing small insights do anything other than produce self-enhancement for the well-known?

In reality, if we follow the famous, share their insights and participate in the discussions, are we not adding fuel to the fire? Is there likely to be any return on your organization’s time investment surrounding those empty ruminations?

Essentially I have learned from the experience of blogging and producing concrete insights that would generate direct benefit to businesses. Aside from the guru angle, it is better to leave business improvement to the management consultants who have survived, profitably, for decades by repeating back the insights of their clients. The issue is one of challenge, change and resistance and most established organizations feign away from all three on the premise of misappropriated risk perceptions. Incremental change is often flavour of the day.

Perhaps I could draw the conclusion that my interpretation of business processes and outcomes is so outstanding that there is no space left to comment. Perhaps I am nailing the business insights to the extent that organizations who read this blog think, great idea, well argued but we cannot implement on the scale suggested. Perhaps the leaders of those organizations prefer the management consultancy approach, to mirror and give exactly what the organization thinks it needs, rather than what it may actually need.

Maybe given the lack of interaction on this blog I should give up on writing something worthwhile or useful. Would empty posts that promote discussion help? For the moment, at least, I am content writing meaningful entries that can make a difference. But you never know, I may commence in the engagement of nonsense, or better still I may choose to tell you exactly what you want to hear. Which would you prefer?

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Those Who Can’t…Teach. Time For A Performance Discussion

November 26, 2012 5 Comments

There Is A Saying That Those Who Can’t…Teach. 

I would never accept this statement, teaching is a craft which is developed over a number of years. Those who teach do a great public good, educating our youth and developing the future of society. Teachers’ genuinely care about the education and welfare of our young people and the outcomes they arrive at.

Parent’s Night

If you are the parent of a school-aged child, the chances are you will have attended a parents evening at your child’s school. They are interesting events in that you learn about how your child is getting on at school and in particular you learn about how they are performing. There are potentially different parental expectations about results depending on whether your child attends a state or private facility.

On my 15 year old daughter’s parents night, the first class on the agenda was English. The highly experienced teacher opened by suggesting that my daughter is quiet in class, noting that this could pose problems given that she would receive an assessed presentation in four weeks, accounting for one-third of her qualification grade. Following my brief period of listening her teacher turned to me and suggested that I was ‘quiet’ too…having not had the opportunity to speak yet. Quite the opposite, I’m not quiet at all and I do enjoy a good conversation.

The Wrong Assessment

Yes, we didn’t get off to the best start as the highly experienced teacher came to the wrong conclusion regarding my ability to speak.

Led To The Wrong Teaching

Thereafter I had fewer answers and more questions to present. I asked the teacher whether or not he had demonstrated presentation skills for the young people in the class. The answer that I received was a surprising no. Okay, so why not? Well the explanation referred to the fact that his class had been doing presentations since early in primary (elementary) school and that ‘was’ the answer.  Strangely enough, these presentations are also graded with a grade one, two or three (corresponding to grades A,B, or C). I thought I would add in a question asking whether the young people knew what a grade 1, 2, or 3 looked and sounded like. There was no answer for my question, other than the teacher’s statement that pupil’s in his class had not seen demonstrations of what these graded performances would look like, nor would they.

And The Wrong Learning

I must admit that I was struck by his comments and shocked by the lack of preparation that my daughter had received, the assessment is still pending. Aside from demonstration showing what the various presentations would look and sound like by grade, it was absolutely clear that the young people in class had not rehearsed their presentations, received feedback, nor had the opportunity to improve. Yet, those young people will be graded on their presentations according to the examinations board regulations by their teacher.

But How Was This Highly Experienced Teacher Supposed to Know Better?

Things may have changed over the years in teaching, there has certainly been a shift away from a ‘filling the empty vessel’ approach to one that favours engagement and interactive learning. However, you may be surprised to know that several teacher training programmes do ‘not’ focus on how children and young people learn. Instead the focus is often on approaches to teaching content and learning the content itself. But if teaching is not about learning, then what is it about, there are no qualification outcomes in having been exposed to a curriculum.

Time For A Discussion About Learning

Needless to say, once I also received a similar response on model examples for written work I then became concerned, even though the feedback on my daughter’s previous trial-run essays had been moderately helpful. Presenting curricular units to a classroom full of young people is not my idea of best practice when it comes to teaching and learning, which you may have gathered.

So What Is Learning And What Has Teaching Got To Do With It?

Learning can be a fairly complex process for those who are not well-versed. In the situation above, I would not expect young people to be assessed on the basis of something they had not learned. More importantly, something they did not have the opportunity to practice and improve upon. This could be achieved simply.

If young people are going to be assessed on the content of their talk and their presentation skills, teach them how to do it, don’t just talk about the fact that they are going to do it. Do not accept that they either will or will not do well based on who they are or how you have appraised their ability. If the presentation is assessed according to a criteria, share it. Let the young people see talks at grades a/b/c clearly demonstrating the differences in the performance. Make sure you give pupils’ the opportunity to create talks and present them to the class, provide feedback on the talk, give them a grade according to the criteria. If there are problems during the presentation, hit the pause button, intervene, show the pupil how to alter what they are doing. Once the first run of presentations are complete, ask the pupils’ to do it again, this time building on the ‘feedback’ received. If an individual is not managing the talk well, hit the pause button again, keep going until the pupil gets it right and improves. This ‘is’ teaching and learning.

Why The Need For Performance Discussions?

The fact that teacher’s teach, does not mean that learners’ learn. In the process of teaching and learning, it is the teacher who has responsibility for ensuring that his or her students learn. I will accept that this is not the dominant model of schooling. More often than not, those involved in elementary and high school teaching may hold the position that pupil outcomes are a result of ability, something which is relatively stable and unlikely to shift. One could agree that for many reasons, including socio-economic status and peer-group influence, pupils’ may lack the motivation to succeed at school, seeing little benefit to doing well.

Despite these shortcomings, there is much that can be done to improve pupil performance irrespective of the factors outlined in the above paragraph.

What Schools And Teacher’s Should Ask

All teacher’s at secondary (or high school) should be asking some of the following questions for each pupil in their class, according to the subject domain:

1. What does the pupil think and feel about how they are doing in this subject?

2. How are they performing in this subject?

3. Why are they performing at their current level in this subject?

4. What is the pupil getting wrong or right?

5. What can I do to improve the pupil’s performance?

6. How will I know if I have been successful?

7. How will the pupil know if we have been successful?

8. Have I taught the pupil how to perform well?

9. What do I think about my actions and the impact on learning, do I need to improve on anything?

Teaching, Learning and Performance Discussion Complete

We have learned how one can become complacent about performance through this blog post. Perhaps we are not right to assume an automatic connection between the processes of teaching and learning, the ability to study and retain information is for another discussion. But, we can see that the ability to improve performance runs across a number of industries and education is certainly not a field that should escape organizational performance improvements.

As you may imagine, this discussion also has consequences for all forms of business and performance evaluation. This comes back to some of the questions that were raised on my feedback post. Just because Jane had better transfer of a new training programme to work tasks when compared to Jill, we cannot conclude that Jane is therefore more able than Jill. If Dave consistently outperforms Duncan on the production line, we cannot therefore conclude that Duncan’s capabilities are inferior. We ‘must’ look beneath the obvious and logical conclusion to unearth the causes of difference in performance. In the simplest sense, if Jill and Duncan are only giving 70% commitment compared to Jane and Dave’s 100%, where is the easiest place to generate gain? While benchmarked performance informs us of individual results, these are not fixed and it does not explain the why.

If you are involved in business or human resources or management consulting or any area in which you assess or impact on the performance of individuals’, make sure you ask the right questions and provide the right answers. A simple cost-benefit analysis should show that there is much to be gained from asking and answering the questions above.

Those who can, teach.

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The Inequality of Talent Management

November 15, 2012 Leave a comment

Earlier today I reported that the European Union has set a quota target which aims for boards to have a 40% female composition. This led me to think more widely about one of the most fundamental inequalities within the workplace, the use of the word ‘talent’ as it applies to employees within organizations.

This is a very good question. What is your perception of talent? Is it something that may be associated with what is often referred to as ‘high potentials’? Or is it a universal term which would appropriately fit every individual in your organization?

We know, for example, that those who perform well on ability tests are more likely to outperform those who fair less well depending on the context of their employment. We also know there is a relationship between ability test results and the capacity the individual has to learn on-the-job more quickly and efficiently. Intelligence is also thought to be stable at the individual level over time.

Despite the adverse impact and job-relevance issues of ability testing it does have two very important characteristics, the first is consistency of outcome over time and the second is the fact that each individual goes through the same test.

When it comes to the concept of talent in organizations the same consistency and standardization relative to outcome does not exist. So if ‘talent’ is not conceive of as a generic term encompassing all employees, who is your talent or high-potentials? More importantly, why have they been labelled as such?

Agreed some individuals perform better than others. Moreover, there is also the well documented application of supervisor bias attributed to those who created a favourable impression from the outset, which follows the individual through their career within the organization. But when it comes to identifying talent, we cannot possibly stipulate that all things are equal, for they most certainly are not.

Individuals enter organizations on an unequal footing and in many instances once inside an organization the quality and quantity of interactions are likely to differ greatly, as are the opportunities for learning. Aside from issues of organizational fit, personality testing and ability testing, can we reasonably suggest that one individual is more capable than another in the absence of an identical education, past work history and experience? The answer is both yes and no.

No, on the basis of performance and work outcomes cannot differentiate between individuals and suggest that one employee is more talented than another. Shock! We also cannot say that a judgement on high potentials can ever be accurate because we have not witnessed the antecedents of that performance and it is not ‘shared’ with the individual’s colleagues.

Yes, we can say that an individual has consistently performed better than others within the organization referencing his or her comparator group, but this most certainly does not imply that the individual is more talented than other individuals. Unless we use the caveat that judgements are based solely on performance, in which case we return to the point of inequality. That is, judgements on talent or high potentials are unequal because there is no way to account for why one individual has performed better than another. Who is to say, with all things being equal, that the individual who is not considered to be ‘talented’ is any less capable, if not more capable than the high potential employee?

In this way, we must conclude that the issue of capability and it’s proper interpretation within organizations is a significant one.

However, the most significant aspect of talent and talent management is not the fact that candidates are unequal, but rather the issue of how we can address this challenge within our organizations. Can we truly identify the ‘most’ talented? What can we do to make the playing field level? If we find the appropriate means to address this issue, are we likely to concur that those originally identified as the most talented remain so?

Filed under Performance Appraisal & Career Development, Personnel Selection & Assessment Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Beware Of The Social Media Guru

November 14, 2012 Leave a comment

During the course of the previous year the number of business-related experts showcasing their knowledge and understanding across social media platforms has increased dramatically. However, there is a need for caution to be exercised on the part of businesses full stop.

I have now encountered the wise words of what may be termed social media gurus, speaking on innumerable topics relating to businesses and how organisations can become more successful at the individual, team, organisation and industry levels. If this information conveyed to the masses were evidence-based I would be very pleased, however, most of the time I read only to learn that the opinions served offer no more than a perspective. In many instances even those perspectives only offer a limited view of the issue at hand.

So lets say you are the leader of your organisation, or that you are an employee and you sift through the wise words looking for a means to add value to your business. My advice would be to ignore the perspective given unless you can evidence it’s effectiveness through the application, measurement and effect on business outcomes.

On this blog I have looked at several issues, all of which are based on what is actually there. Compare this with the well-known on LinkedIn and social media content providers and you will often find unhelpful insights that are not accompanied by demonstration. No, I am not the purveyor of the best evidence-based blog on the planet, but insights are not drawn from the clouds either and espoused as fact.

Is there any evidence of the empty guru on social media? Yes. The next time you have the opportunity, look at your news feed on Twitter or LinkedIn, consider the information put forward, look for the categorical evidence and demonstration of the point (forget common sense). Consider whether or not the discussion has been explored from an evidenced viewpoint, observe how many are keen to discuss the topic because someone well-known has chosen to discuss it.

Having read this brief post, you will not be surprised to find that when someone famous chooses to discuss a topic there follows a wave of responses and interactions. Not surprising, but nonetheless shallow. Better still, the fact that someone famous chooses to discuss a topic does not bring resolution to the matter, nor does it provide the justification to follow their lead.

In the end, assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation are key to making effective workplace changes involving individuals, teams, organisations and industries- it is unproductive to spend so much time in the discussion of matters that have no resolution. On the other hand, it ‘is’ productive to engage the services of experts such as occupational, organisational, business and I/O psychologists who will demonstrate measurable business impact on what is and what is not if you feel persuaded to enter pastures new.

 

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There Is No ‘Normal’ Distribution In Human Performance

November 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Research published by O’Boyle Jr and Aguinis (2012) challenges an alleged assumption made by professionals in the human resource management, organizational behaviour and I/O psychology fields that individual performance follows a normal (Gaussian) distribution. Instead their extensive research which included 633,263 participants demonstrated fairly consistently that human performance follows a power law (Paretian) distribution.

In a normal (Gaussian) distribution we are likely to see performance clusters around a mean which then breaks off into symmetrical tails which contrasts with a Paretian (power law) distribution that is typically comprised of unstable means, infinite variance, and a greater proportion of extreme events.

The study is controversial in the extent to which it affects how performance is interpreted in the workplace context. Implications are likely to be far-reaching, impacting upon performance measurement, management, the utility of pre-employment testing, training and development, personnel selection, leadership and the prediction of performance.

During the assessment of performance across all of the groups involved in the research it was found that a Paretian distribution was a significantly better fit for the data as compared to a Gaussian distribution.

O’Boyle Jr and Aguinis (2012) refer to how the Paretian distribution compares with a Gaussian distribution when applying  a utility analysis  to pre-employment testing, training and development. With a normality assumption, productivity among elite workers is estimated at $33,981 ($11,327 ×3) above the median (using Gaussian distribution), but the productivity of these workers is actually $141,588 above the median (when following a Paretian distribution). This was computed based on the figures used by Schmidt et al. (1979).

Using the example of utility analysis above the value-added by new pre-employment tests should acknowledge that the differences between employees at the tails and employees at the median are much wider than previously thought.

The research is not restricted to utility analysis examples, evidence is presented across a variety of human performance activities, convincingly demonstrating that normal distribution is an ineffective means of describing and measuring performance in work settings and elsewhere.

Read the article in Personnel Psychology for free here:

O’BOYLE JR., E. and AGUINIS, H. (2012), THE BEST AND THE REST: REVISITING THE NORM OF NORMALITY OF INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE. Personnel Psychology, 65: 79–119. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01239.x

Filed under Performance Appraisal & Career Development, Personnel Selection & Assessment, Research Methods & Statistics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Olympics and Organisational Performance:What We Must Learn

November 10, 2012 Leave a comment

The stretch to exceptional

Olympics and Organisational Performance:What We Must Learn.

Filed under Performance Appraisal & Career Development, Personnel Selection & Assessment

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