There is a gaping hole in the Gulf of Mexico that needs to be plugged immediately. I’m speaking of course, of the hole in Tony Hayward’s heart. The BP CEO’s recent comment that he’d “like his life back” is emblematic of a larger concern among leaders of all stripes; empathy is seldom (ever?) a requirement for being installed in a position of power. His moment in the international media sun has been pocked with numerous examples of his inability to walk a mile in another man’s oil-slick waders. Mr. Hayward is his most self-absorbed when he is his most earnest. None of his other comments have rung with the same childlike authenticity as his plea for a return to personal normalcy. Observe too his walk along a ruined Gulf beach; flanked by puddles of oil, and canary-suited cleanup workers, his only act was to shoo the cameramen covering his survey of the damage. These offenses notwithstanding, the most painfully ironic evidence of his disconnectedness to the human impact of this disaster was his recent attendance at a glitzy yacht race, featuring his $700,000 boat, “Bob.” Nice try Tony, but not even a pedestrian name like “Bob” will fool the world into thinking you’re a man of the people.
I’m not saying that I wish Tony Hayward had acted differently because it looks bad, or seems insensitive, or because it sends a bad message. Those are public relations concerns and what I’m talking about is bigger than PR. I don’t wish that Tony Hayward had acted differently, I wish that he were different fundamentally. Simply put, empathy is the ability to feel deeply what another person is feeling. You won’t see “empathetic” as a desired characteristic on any job posting, and that reality has negative implications for workplace outcomes tangible and intangible.
Consider for a moment what percentage of the 50% drop in BP’s stock price owes to the gross insensitivity exhibited by BP executives and spokespeople. Imagine the lost morale and subsequent loss of productivity of the 80,300 BP employees that go to work every day for an organization that has shown such disdain for “small people” (another gem by BP chief Carl-Henric Svanberg). Through a series of experiments, renowned psychologist Daniel Goleman has shown that emotional intelligence (EQ) and intelligence quotient (IQ) have no correlation with one another. Anecdotally, Dr. Tony Hayward, who holds a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University has borne out this research before our very eyes. BP’s privileging of IQ over EQ will cost them dearly, as it has so many organizations that have erred similarly. After all, “Britain isn’t the only place that has oil.”
Daniel Crosby, Ph.D.
www.doctordanielcrosby.com
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
The True Cost of a Mis-hire
Take a moment to consider your most disastrous hire. What did this mistake cost you in time, resources, and reputation? In their book “Topgrading”, Brad and Geoff Smart interviewed 52 organizations and asked them to calculate the true cost of their bad hires. When factoring in the time wasted, lost production, and other collateral costs, the true cost of a mis-hire of someone making $100,000 was estimated to be a staggering $1.5 million dollars. A recent Yahoo! Hot Jobs survey found that 41% of job applicants admitted to having lied in a job interview. A 2006 Forbes article estimates that 40% of resumes are not “entirely above board.” It is also worth noting that these figures are pre-recession. One could easily infer that the financial pain caused by the latest downturn is leading would be employees to do whatever it takes to get a job, even if that means being dishonest.
With the task of separating the truly talented from the pretenders being so fraught with deceit, and the cost of making a mistake so steep, many organizations are turning to experts in the field of pre-employment assessment. At Crosby Performance Consulting, we provide two solutions for making the kind of hiring decisions that protect the organizational bottom line while ensuring goodness of fit between employer and employee. The first solution is our pre-employment assessment that includes a behavioral interview, measures of intellect and strategic thinking, as well as standardized personality profiles that give piercing insights into potential hires. Before undertaking the pre-employment assessment process, our consultants meet with the hiring manager to determine the competencies necessary for success and then provide specific, concrete data that ranks the candidate relative to the identified competencies.
The second solution, featured in a 2010 Forbes article, is a real time assessment of the skills of the candidate, as he or she navigates a series of obstacles designed to perfectly simulate what would become their role. By “doing and observing” rather than “asking and believing”, would-be employers gain valuable insights into the actual skills of a candidate and cut through layers of subterfuge. In a corporate landscape where technological parity and the free exchange of knowledge are the status quo, hiring exceptional people remains “the last competitive advantage.” Please contact us using information below to find out more about our data-driven talent management solutions.
Sincerely,
C. Daniel Crosby, Ph.D.
daniel@doctordanielcrosby.com
www.doctordanielcrosby.com
With the task of separating the truly talented from the pretenders being so fraught with deceit, and the cost of making a mistake so steep, many organizations are turning to experts in the field of pre-employment assessment. At Crosby Performance Consulting, we provide two solutions for making the kind of hiring decisions that protect the organizational bottom line while ensuring goodness of fit between employer and employee. The first solution is our pre-employment assessment that includes a behavioral interview, measures of intellect and strategic thinking, as well as standardized personality profiles that give piercing insights into potential hires. Before undertaking the pre-employment assessment process, our consultants meet with the hiring manager to determine the competencies necessary for success and then provide specific, concrete data that ranks the candidate relative to the identified competencies.
The second solution, featured in a 2010 Forbes article, is a real time assessment of the skills of the candidate, as he or she navigates a series of obstacles designed to perfectly simulate what would become their role. By “doing and observing” rather than “asking and believing”, would-be employers gain valuable insights into the actual skills of a candidate and cut through layers of subterfuge. In a corporate landscape where technological parity and the free exchange of knowledge are the status quo, hiring exceptional people remains “the last competitive advantage.” Please contact us using information below to find out more about our data-driven talent management solutions.
Sincerely,
C. Daniel Crosby, Ph.D.
daniel@doctordanielcrosby.com
www.doctordanielcrosby.com
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Dr. Jordan Turner on the Myers-Briggs
Personality typology: the science wherein human personalities are dissected, categorized, and, with fanfare, revealed to an unsuspecting test-taker. One of the most famous and well-studied is the Meyers-Briggs typology, originated by Carl Jung but then elaborated by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers.
I remember the paralysis after a computer told me that I am an ‘ENFJ.’ What does that mean? Did I answer each question just right? Am I so… simplifiable? And from there, I was told about likely interests, intelligence styles, coping strategies, career placement, and, yes, optimal mate selection.
I remember almost going through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief – denial (“Nah, I’m NOT that”), anger (“Stupid test”), bargaining (“I’m more ‘P’ than ‘J’), depression (“Wish I was ‘INFP’”), and finally acceptance (“Well, okay, then.”). From then on I’ve enjoyed, if only very superficially, the satisfaction of seeing certain patterns in myself (“I think by talking”), in my loved ones (“so that’s why wife does that”), even in some of my patients (“’SJ’s’ tend to arrive on time”). Others follow typology more closely, if not religiously. One of my colleagues incorporates it systematically into his private psychiatric practice.
Typology has its critics. Some call the testing unreliable. Others decry its intent. Simplification invariably leads to over-simplification. Humans are complex, they’d say. Too true.
At the heart of such conflict hides the ancient debate between the reductionistic determinists and the more mystical free-willians (not a true appellation but I couldn’t resist). Are we explainable, predictable, subject to our natures? Or are we indefinable, incomprehensible, masters of our own becoming? And is your answer just a matter of your personality type? I’m not sure if typology pretends to enter such a conversation, nor should it. It is a practical tool, its value measured only by its utility. Does it help? That is the question.
I watched my brothers argue an issue the other day. I couldn’t help but see in the oldest, a corporate CFO, the ‘strategist’ considering contingencies at every turn. In the other, a police officer, I saw the ‘tactician’ playing to win. In myself was the ever wary ‘diplomat’ carefully choosing when and how to speak. These patters do not explain my brothers or me, but they fill me with appreciation and my love with nuance.
The very attempt, I’ve decided, to reveal ourselves is beautiful. Typology, in all its forms with all its flaws, stretches to give language to the ineffable. It is a reaching to put words to my experience, your experience, their experience, our experience. It is an exercise in acceptance, of others and ourselves. And, yes, I’d say it’s been helpful.
Dr. R. Jordan Turner, DO
Resident Psychiatrist at Loma Linda University Medical Center
To find out more about how we use the Myers-Briggs to help individuals, teams, and organizations perform at their peak please visit www.doctordanielcrosby.com or write to Daniel@doctordanielcrosby.com.
I remember the paralysis after a computer told me that I am an ‘ENFJ.’ What does that mean? Did I answer each question just right? Am I so… simplifiable? And from there, I was told about likely interests, intelligence styles, coping strategies, career placement, and, yes, optimal mate selection.
I remember almost going through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief – denial (“Nah, I’m NOT that”), anger (“Stupid test”), bargaining (“I’m more ‘P’ than ‘J’), depression (“Wish I was ‘INFP’”), and finally acceptance (“Well, okay, then.”). From then on I’ve enjoyed, if only very superficially, the satisfaction of seeing certain patterns in myself (“I think by talking”), in my loved ones (“so that’s why wife does that”), even in some of my patients (“’SJ’s’ tend to arrive on time”). Others follow typology more closely, if not religiously. One of my colleagues incorporates it systematically into his private psychiatric practice.
Typology has its critics. Some call the testing unreliable. Others decry its intent. Simplification invariably leads to over-simplification. Humans are complex, they’d say. Too true.
At the heart of such conflict hides the ancient debate between the reductionistic determinists and the more mystical free-willians (not a true appellation but I couldn’t resist). Are we explainable, predictable, subject to our natures? Or are we indefinable, incomprehensible, masters of our own becoming? And is your answer just a matter of your personality type? I’m not sure if typology pretends to enter such a conversation, nor should it. It is a practical tool, its value measured only by its utility. Does it help? That is the question.
I watched my brothers argue an issue the other day. I couldn’t help but see in the oldest, a corporate CFO, the ‘strategist’ considering contingencies at every turn. In the other, a police officer, I saw the ‘tactician’ playing to win. In myself was the ever wary ‘diplomat’ carefully choosing when and how to speak. These patters do not explain my brothers or me, but they fill me with appreciation and my love with nuance.
The very attempt, I’ve decided, to reveal ourselves is beautiful. Typology, in all its forms with all its flaws, stretches to give language to the ineffable. It is a reaching to put words to my experience, your experience, their experience, our experience. It is an exercise in acceptance, of others and ourselves. And, yes, I’d say it’s been helpful.
Dr. R. Jordan Turner, DO
Resident Psychiatrist at Loma Linda University Medical Center
To find out more about how we use the Myers-Briggs to help individuals, teams, and organizations perform at their peak please visit www.doctordanielcrosby.com or write to Daniel@doctordanielcrosby.com.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Housing crisis hits real estate pros' psyches
Housing crisis hits real estate pros' psyches
Monday, April 14, 2008
Joe Rauch - Atlanta Business Chronicle
Last fall, the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association for the first time brought a psychologist to its October membership meeting, to discuss how to mentally cope with stress of the housing collapse.
"The builders laughed at it at first," said Kim Jones, director of the association's Housing Institute. Today psychologists attend regularly.
"They're not laughing now," she says.
The housing collapse has pushed mental health issues to the forefront for companies, trade groups and individuals closely tied to an industry that, for years, only knew good times.
Builders, brokers, bankers and lenders are just beginning to deal with the mental fallout from the city's first prolonged real estate slowdown in two decades.
Jones, educational director for the second-largest home builder association in the nation, said her organization's mental health concern is increasing.
"We haven't had any members commit suicide this year," she said. "But we have had members touched by it. We're trying to ensure our members are dealing with this in a healthy way."
The stress of the seemingly overnight housing collapse is felt in a host of ways, lenders and builders said.
Mortgage lenders who made loans are now out of work, out of the industry or struggling to make ends meet.
Bankers are seeing clients they've worked with for decades going bust, adding to their own businesses' woes.
Builders are struggling to stay afloat, doing whatever they can to keep their doors open. That means layoffs, along with pay and job cuts.
Atlanta has been particularly hard hit, ranking as one of the worst markets in the Southeast for home foreclosures and loan defaults.
For executives running businesses most directly hit by the housing collapse, hard decisions are being made for the first time in years.
"We have members who are down to either choosing to keep their child's college fund intact, or keeping their business open," said Jones.
While the impact of such additional stress can't be fully calculated, mental health professionals said the impact is real, and will only increase as the market continues to drag.
"Stress is cumulative," said psychiatrist Ray Kotwicki, medical director at Atlanta's Skyland Trail treatment facility and an Emory University assistant professor. "Changes like this are destabilizing for people."
During times of extreme stress, Kotwicki said, people search for support that's familiar.
For some, that means seeking solace with family, religion or in their hobbies.
For others, the pressure could drive substance abuse, depression, domestic strife and suicide.
But beyond anecdotal evidence, mental health statistics are lagging.
Recent national statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, don't account for the U.S. housing market's woes in the last year. A 2007 survey by the American Psychological Association found half of all Americans cited rent or mortgage costs as a key stress.
Data are sparse for mental health during Georgia's last real estate downturn in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But the limited data available indicate how some deal with added pressure.
Atlanta was one of the four-highest-ranked U.S. cities for alcohol abuse from 1991-1993, a CDC report found.
Mental health experts said instances of substance abuse, depression, even suicide are expected to increase during this latest collapse.
Sean Doughtie, president of Mayfield Homes LLC, has seen the collapse's impact firsthand.
Doughtie, 36, began working as an Atlanta home builder at the beginning of the recent boom in the early 1990s.
The son of a builder, he said his lowest point was last October. After paring his 22-person office staff down to five, and nearly a year after stopping his own paycheck, Doughtie let his remaining staff go, including the chief financial officer.
"He sat in my office and I just broke down and cried," Doughtie said. "I told him I was sorry to do it, but I had to, and that I was truly scared about what would happen to my business. It was my lowest moment."
Doughtie now runs bi-weekly support group meetings at the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association focusing on builders' survival.
Mental health professionals said the stress of an industry's collapse may be affecting a group ill-prepared for it.
Financial and home industry executives are predominantly male, and older. That group is more likely, according to CDC data, to abuse substances, commit suicide and suffer depression.
The banking and home-building industries are dotted with entrepreneurs who closely identify themselves with their work and are closely linked to their business. Those are more likely to view any business failure as a personal one, experts said.
"There's the perception that you can just work your way out of it," said Kotwicki. "Their identity is inextricably tied to the business, so there's a sense that if it fails, you've failed."
Bill Blanton, current director at three Atlanta banks, started his career as a builder in the 1970s, during one of the worst U.S. real estate markets.
"You think that you're just the biggest failure in the world," he said.
But organizational behavior experts said organizations can ameliorate employees' stress levels.
"Organizations need to be candid and transparent with their employees," said Frank Merritt, CEO of consultant TalentQuest LLC. "Sometimes they just need to offer employees hope." Unable to cope
Percent reporting depression within the last year, by industry
National average 7 percent Financial 6.7 percent Construction 4.8 percent
Percent reporting heavy alcohol use within the past month
National average 8.3 percent Construction 15.9 percent Financial 6.9 percent
Source: National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2007 reports on 2002 to 2006 data.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Joe Rauch - Atlanta Business Chronicle
Last fall, the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association for the first time brought a psychologist to its October membership meeting, to discuss how to mentally cope with stress of the housing collapse.
"The builders laughed at it at first," said Kim Jones, director of the association's Housing Institute. Today psychologists attend regularly.
"They're not laughing now," she says.
The housing collapse has pushed mental health issues to the forefront for companies, trade groups and individuals closely tied to an industry that, for years, only knew good times.
Builders, brokers, bankers and lenders are just beginning to deal with the mental fallout from the city's first prolonged real estate slowdown in two decades.
Jones, educational director for the second-largest home builder association in the nation, said her organization's mental health concern is increasing.
"We haven't had any members commit suicide this year," she said. "But we have had members touched by it. We're trying to ensure our members are dealing with this in a healthy way."
The stress of the seemingly overnight housing collapse is felt in a host of ways, lenders and builders said.
Mortgage lenders who made loans are now out of work, out of the industry or struggling to make ends meet.
Bankers are seeing clients they've worked with for decades going bust, adding to their own businesses' woes.
Builders are struggling to stay afloat, doing whatever they can to keep their doors open. That means layoffs, along with pay and job cuts.
Atlanta has been particularly hard hit, ranking as one of the worst markets in the Southeast for home foreclosures and loan defaults.
For executives running businesses most directly hit by the housing collapse, hard decisions are being made for the first time in years.
"We have members who are down to either choosing to keep their child's college fund intact, or keeping their business open," said Jones.
While the impact of such additional stress can't be fully calculated, mental health professionals said the impact is real, and will only increase as the market continues to drag.
"Stress is cumulative," said psychiatrist Ray Kotwicki, medical director at Atlanta's Skyland Trail treatment facility and an Emory University assistant professor. "Changes like this are destabilizing for people."
During times of extreme stress, Kotwicki said, people search for support that's familiar.
For some, that means seeking solace with family, religion or in their hobbies.
For others, the pressure could drive substance abuse, depression, domestic strife and suicide.
But beyond anecdotal evidence, mental health statistics are lagging.
Recent national statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, don't account for the U.S. housing market's woes in the last year. A 2007 survey by the American Psychological Association found half of all Americans cited rent or mortgage costs as a key stress.
Data are sparse for mental health during Georgia's last real estate downturn in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But the limited data available indicate how some deal with added pressure.
Atlanta was one of the four-highest-ranked U.S. cities for alcohol abuse from 1991-1993, a CDC report found.
Mental health experts said instances of substance abuse, depression, even suicide are expected to increase during this latest collapse.
Sean Doughtie, president of Mayfield Homes LLC, has seen the collapse's impact firsthand.
Doughtie, 36, began working as an Atlanta home builder at the beginning of the recent boom in the early 1990s.
The son of a builder, he said his lowest point was last October. After paring his 22-person office staff down to five, and nearly a year after stopping his own paycheck, Doughtie let his remaining staff go, including the chief financial officer.
"He sat in my office and I just broke down and cried," Doughtie said. "I told him I was sorry to do it, but I had to, and that I was truly scared about what would happen to my business. It was my lowest moment."
Doughtie now runs bi-weekly support group meetings at the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association focusing on builders' survival.
Mental health professionals said the stress of an industry's collapse may be affecting a group ill-prepared for it.
Financial and home industry executives are predominantly male, and older. That group is more likely, according to CDC data, to abuse substances, commit suicide and suffer depression.
The banking and home-building industries are dotted with entrepreneurs who closely identify themselves with their work and are closely linked to their business. Those are more likely to view any business failure as a personal one, experts said.
"There's the perception that you can just work your way out of it," said Kotwicki. "Their identity is inextricably tied to the business, so there's a sense that if it fails, you've failed."
Bill Blanton, current director at three Atlanta banks, started his career as a builder in the 1970s, during one of the worst U.S. real estate markets.
"You think that you're just the biggest failure in the world," he said.
But organizational behavior experts said organizations can ameliorate employees' stress levels.
"Organizations need to be candid and transparent with their employees," said Frank Merritt, CEO of consultant TalentQuest LLC. "Sometimes they just need to offer employees hope." Unable to cope
Percent reporting depression within the last year, by industry
National average 7 percent Financial 6.7 percent Construction 4.8 percent
Percent reporting heavy alcohol use within the past month
National average 8.3 percent Construction 15.9 percent Financial 6.9 percent
Source: National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2007 reports on 2002 to 2006 data.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Confidence vs. Caution
Our Tendency to Believe Confident People Over Cautious People
People prefer advice from an expert who projects confidence over an expert who shows caution, according to a recent study. That's understandable -- after all, it makes sense to follow the opinion of someone who seems sure of what they're talking about instead of someone who hem, haws, and hedges. But the more surprising finding of the study was that people have a statistically significant tendency to prefer the advice of confident advisers even after those advisers demonstrate themselves to be unreliable.
The researcher, Don Moore of Carnegie Mellon University, presented his findings at the Association for Psychological Science Convention in May, in a symposium with the delightful title of "Often in Error, Rarely in Doubt."
In the experiment, volunteers were asked to guess the weight of a person in a photograph. They were allowed to buy advice from volunteer "experts." Some of the experts offered answers as a spread of probabilities for different weight ranges. The more confident experts provided just one weight range. (See table here.) The guessers favored the advice of the confident advisers. After they learned that the confident advisers weren't as accurate as the more cautious advisers, they stopped buying their advice as much as before, but even so, the confident experts were called upon more frequently than they should have been, statistically speaking.
Another interesting finding of the study was that the less confident advisers eventually began to change their advice to be more like that given by the more confident advisers. They made their advice more precise, but not any more accurate.
Unfortunately, cable TV news seems to breed this kind of confident expert who delivers simplistic advice in sound bites. I'm reminded of the pundits who scoffed at Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff when he warned in 2006 and 2007 that our economy was on the verge of collapse.
Here's a bit of expert advice: The next time you see a talking head on TV telling you he is certain about something that's not certain, change the channel.
Mark Frauenfelder – Editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog, Mark was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and is the founding editor of Wired Online.
Taken from: http://www.creditbloggers.com
People prefer advice from an expert who projects confidence over an expert who shows caution, according to a recent study. That's understandable -- after all, it makes sense to follow the opinion of someone who seems sure of what they're talking about instead of someone who hem, haws, and hedges. But the more surprising finding of the study was that people have a statistically significant tendency to prefer the advice of confident advisers even after those advisers demonstrate themselves to be unreliable.
The researcher, Don Moore of Carnegie Mellon University, presented his findings at the Association for Psychological Science Convention in May, in a symposium with the delightful title of "Often in Error, Rarely in Doubt."
In the experiment, volunteers were asked to guess the weight of a person in a photograph. They were allowed to buy advice from volunteer "experts." Some of the experts offered answers as a spread of probabilities for different weight ranges. The more confident experts provided just one weight range. (See table here.) The guessers favored the advice of the confident advisers. After they learned that the confident advisers weren't as accurate as the more cautious advisers, they stopped buying their advice as much as before, but even so, the confident experts were called upon more frequently than they should have been, statistically speaking.
Another interesting finding of the study was that the less confident advisers eventually began to change their advice to be more like that given by the more confident advisers. They made their advice more precise, but not any more accurate.
Unfortunately, cable TV news seems to breed this kind of confident expert who delivers simplistic advice in sound bites. I'm reminded of the pundits who scoffed at Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff when he warned in 2006 and 2007 that our economy was on the verge of collapse.
Here's a bit of expert advice: The next time you see a talking head on TV telling you he is certain about something that's not certain, change the channel.
Mark Frauenfelder – Editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog, Mark was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and is the founding editor of Wired Online.
Taken from: http://www.creditbloggers.com
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