I/O Psychology’s “Core Purpose”: Where science and practice meet
Anthony J. Rucci
Senior Lecturer
Fisher College of Business
Ohio State University
Closing Keynote Address
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
23rd Annual Conference
San Francisco, CA
April 12, 2008
Good afternoon, and thank you for being here. It’s a genuine privilege for me to be able
to talk with you today.
I’m going to start out this afternoon by asking each of you a question … “Why did you
choose to become an I/O psychologist ?”. And I don’t intend for that to be a rhetorical
question. At the risk of an awkward minute of silence in a large group like this, please
take the next sixty seconds to think back on that point in your life when you decided to
pursue a career in I/O psychology. I’d like you to jot down your answer to that question
on the back of your program. By the way, any answer similar to “…I became an I/O
psychologist because I couldn’t get accepted to medical school” is probably NOT a
compelling answer!
Why did you choose to become an I/O psychologist ? (60 second pause)
Thank you. We’re going to come back to your answers a little later. But I assure you the
words you have just written down are central to my remarks today. Yes, we may each
have chosen slightly different career paths --some of us into academia as educators and
researchers, some of us as consultants, others of us as organizational practitioners--but
despite some of our ‘career track’ differences, I suspect that as a community of I/O
psychologists we share some powerful philosophical and personal motives. And it is the
combined focus of our efforts toward that common purpose that I’d like to direct my
remarks this afternoon.
A little about my personal decision to become an I/O psychologist… I grew up in
Youngstown, Ohio and come from a huge Italian family. Between them, my mom and
dad had eleven brothers and sisters. And many of my uncles dropped out of high school
in the mid 1950’s to go to work in the steel mills in northeast Ohio and western
Pennsylvania. My decision to become an I/O psychologist is deeply rooted in my family
background, in two important ways.
First, we would routinely congregate as an extended family. Every Sunday afternoon
after church we’d all show up at my grandmother’s house in New Castle, Pennsylvania,
She’d proceed to make spaghetti and meatballs for forty or fifty people. Every…single…
Sunday! Invariably, my uncles would get a game of penny-ante poker going, along with
a Rolling Rock beer in hand. As a young 10, 11, 12 year old I’d sit next to my uncles and
watch and listen as they played poker. They’d play for an hour or two, and the entire
time they’d complain ! Complain about what ? Their jobs. I saw first hand how much
my uncles’ and my dad’s quality of life was affected by what happened in their
workplace and by how their boss treated them. And it spilled over to our family. I could
tell by the look on my dad’s face when he walked in the door at 3:30 pm what kind of day
he had at work, and what kind of evening we were about to have as a family. A good day
at work, and dad would take us to Dairy Queen after supper. A bad day at work,…no ice
cream.
The second important way that my family background affected my decision to become an
I/O psychologist is what happened when the steel industry began to decline in the U.S.
and the effect it had on my family. When the eventual collapse of that industry occurred I
witnessed as one-by-one each of my uncles and my dad got laid off and eventually lost
their jobs as the plants shut down, leaving little or no place for them to earn a living, and
the effect that had on their spirit and their pride. Late in his career, my dad was also
severely burned in an industrial accident at the mill.
So, what do my uncles’ poker games, my dad’s accident and the collapse of the steel
industry have in common ? All of those things, it seems to me, deal with the fundamental
issue of the dignity of human beings in organizations. My unsophisticated teenager’s
assessment at the time was that there was a ‘virtuous cycle’ about people and
organizations…the more respect people were accorded by their company and their boss,
the more successful those organizations seemed to be. I also saw how profound the
consequences were when the downward spiral existed. When people’s dignity was
compromised. The devastating impact it had on them as individuals and on their
families. And the inevitable negative impact it has on the performance of entire
organizations.
My decision to become an I/O psychologist was motivated by a fundamental belief that
people and organizations both seem to ‘win’ when civility and dignity are hallmarks of an
enterprise. A little idealistic, you might think ? Perhaps. But if you’re wondering if this
talk is going to get evangelical, you can relax, I assure you that my focus is all about the
successful performance of people and organizations.
What does all this have to do with the core purpose of I/O psychology ? I believe that
organizational performance and individual performance intersect at precisely the point of
the dignity of people in organizations. Where people enjoy dignity, that in turn unleashes
human energy, which ultimately causes organizations to be successful…That concept is
central to my remarks today…dignity in the workplace causes organizations to be
successful.
Based on my early teenage views, I formulated an unenlightened model of effective
organizations…Treat your employees right…they’ll treat the customers right…and you’ll
get better organizational performance. I realize my model is not rocket science…and it
certainly wouldn’t pass anyone’s test of a scientific paradigm. But, it’s that model that
has guided my entire career’s work… By the way, an important editorial comment
here…whether theory building, conducting research or practicing in I/O psychology, I
believe it is absolutely essential to have a model in one’s head, no matter how
unsophisticated or unscientific it may seem.
Treat your employees right, they’ll treat the customers better, and you’ll get better
organizational performance. Simple, right ? But if this is so simple…if this is so
common sense, I then have to ask, why are we so bad at this simple formula in so many
large organizations ? And I’m not just referring to for-profit organizations, as the word
‘customers’ might imply. Every organization has ‘customers’: Fortune 500 companies,
universities, churches, hospitals, social service organizations, the military,
governments…all have customers of one sort or another.
So, was my early naïve model right ? I’ll come back to that question in a few minutes.
But before exploring that, let’s look at a little of the evolution of I/O psychology.
Because I believe that I/O psychology, at least implicitly, is steeped in this fundamental
axiom of the dignity of people driving superior organizational performance.
Despite the era of scientific management in the early twentieth century, personally, I
believe that the real heritage and legacy of I/O psychology as we know it today was born
out of practical crisis in World War One and World War Two. It was only when
countries and survival on a global scale were threatened that we really began to ask and
demand that behavioral researchers help identify ways to improve selection and
placement decisions, improve motivation and morale, determine vocational interests or
help in the design of plane cockpit displays. There was a sense of urgency because
countries were at risk if they didn’t solve these issues better and more quickly than the
enemy.
Based on that heritage, how might we define I/O psychology ? [Industrial] “Psychology
is a study of human behavior and, in general, can be considered as embracing two major
facets. In the first place, [industrial] psychology is concerned with the discovery of
information relating to human behavior. This involves research, and can be considered as
the scientific aspects of the field of [industrial] psychology. The other phase is concerned
with the application of information about human behavior to the various practical
problems of human life. This facet can be thought of as the professional aspect of
[industrial] psychology…”.
Will you buy that definition of I/O psychology ? Two facets,…scientific research into
human behavior and then the application of that research. Does that sound reasonable and
relevant for what we do as industrial psychologists ? If not, don’t blame me. That’s the
introductory paragraph of Tiffin and McCormick’s text on Industrial Psychology, first
published in 1942, and pretty widely acknowledged as the first true I/O textbook. Did
they get it right ? I think they nailed it !
It’s probably also worth pointing out that even 65 years ago Tiffin and McCormick were
smart enough to resist the temptation to get suckered into the superficial debate about
‘what or who is more valuable’: science or practice, scientist or practitioner ? Just as I,
too, will deftly avoid going down that blind alley with all of you today. There is no
intelligent debate to be joined about science versus practice in I/O psychology. In fact,
there is actually a crude tyranny to asking the ‘either…or’ question. In preparation for
today’s talk I have read everything I could find on the ‘debate’ around science versus
practice in I/O psychology going back 50 years or so. My conclusion ? The long-running
debate often feels a little like the feud between the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.
Articles by practitioners have often masqueraded as efforts to justify some lack of
scientific rigor, while articles by scientists often seem to have been an effort to justify
their very existence. And, too often we’ve exhorted I/O psychologists to be world-class
at both. The reality is, a single lifetime is woefully insufficient for any one mortal human
being to become world class at both science and practice. So, if there is a debate here, it
should focus instead on the more constructive ‘both…and’ question, as in, how can we as
a collective profession realize the exponential effect of combining the efforts of both
world class scientists and world class practitioners. Hence the title of my remarks today
“I/O psychology’s core purpose: where science and practice meet”. It is only where
science and practice converge that I/O psychology really makes its full contribution to
organizations and society.
What is our core purpose as a profession, and how do the efforts of scientists and
practitioners alike support that core purpose ? Even if you concur with that earlier
definition by Tiffin and McCormick, a definition does not equal a core purpose. For
those of you familiar with Jim Collins’ fine work, he defines a ‘core purpose’ as the
reason that an entity exists. It is something that endures for a long time…perhaps a
hundred years or more, and it has an inspirational quality to it that gets people out of bed
when the alarm goes off at 5 am.
So, I’ve contemplated the core purpose of I/O psychology. And in a few minutes I will be
incredibly presumptuous and share my global statement of I/O’s core purpose for every
I/O psychologist anywhere in the world. So now you’re saying, that’s either pretty
brazen, pretty stupid, or both.
Where to start ? So an economist by the name of Baruch Lev at New York University
has been tracking the market value of publicly traded companies for over 40 years now.
What can we possibly learn about the core purpose of I/O psychology by examining the
economic performance of for-profit companies ? Well, for the first 30 years or so, until
the early 1990’s he found a very predictable pattern. The total market capitalization of
companies moved in lock step with their book value. In other words, a company’s
market value was basically equal to the hard assets on its balance sheet, things like
property, plants, equipment, inventories and cash on hand. In fact, the market-value-tobook-value ratio of those companies was essentially one-to-one. But since the early
1990’s the market-to-book-value-ratio of the largest publicly traded companies has risen
to nearly 4:1 today.
What does that mean, in practical terms ? It means that only 25% of the value of
organizations today is accounted for by hard, tangible assets. So what accounts for the
other 75% of market value ? Intangibles ! Intangible factors like customer equity, brand
reputation and, most importantly for purposes of this discussion, intellectual and human
capital. In short, the ideas and innovation of the people in organizations have become the
coin of the realm.
So a few years ago I began to wonder if my simple-minded model might actually
function as an intangible model that could capture and explain economic value creation.
Again, the model’s pretty simple: If it’s the ideas and intellectual capital of people that
create value, then companies that treat their employees the right way should get better
customer outcomes, and that in turn should lead to better financial and value creation
outcomes. At this later point in my career I was able to frame the model a little more
mathematically in a causative path with the hypothesis being that ‘treating your
employees right’ was actually at the front end of the value creation chain, and triggered
customer and financial outcomes further downstream.
By the way, would you be willing to make this ‘intangibles’ leap of faith with me ? If
you are willing, that makes you different than most people sitting in board rooms around
the world right now. I still get the eye-roll effect in many board rooms when I start
talking about this ‘intangible stuff’. They look at me like I’m a social worker who got lost
on my way to the clinic.
Most boards and senior executives, in my judgment, still…don’t…get it. They still don’t
seem to understand or they are unwilling to accept that successful organizations are not
about profits, they’re about people. Unfortunately, and being quite candid, those of us in
I/O psychology and other organizational disciplines have done a conspicuously poor job
of demonstrating the power of that simple idea to organizational leaders and boards.
So fifteen years ago, I began the empirical work to demonstrate if the simple model held
merit, and it did ! But before I sound too proud of myself, I should point out that I was
completely wrong about what I thought was the operational definition of “treat your
employees right”. I thought I knew. I thought it was about people being happy or satisfied
in their jobs. You know, so my uncles wouldn’t complain over poker games anymore.
Turns out that while you certainly want people to be happy and satisfied, those aren’t the
employee factors that predict better customer and economic performance in the
organizations I’ve examined. What my empirical data and experience have shown is that
the critical factor that triggers the value creation chain is what I call employee
commitment. It’s things like an employee’s sense of involvement, the intrinsic value of
the work they do, the degree to which they feel they understand the organization’s
strategy and the extent to which they see a clear line of sight between their job and the
organization’s goals. And, a rather compelling finding that brought back my experience
watching my uncles play poker, the extent to which people feel that they are treated with
dignity by those who lead them. In short, employee commitment was a leading indicator
of customer, profit and revenue outcomes later on.
So, if I combine Lev’s work with my own professional experience, and yes, listening to
my uncles as they played poker, it seems to me that the core purpose of I/O psychology
today might be stated as follows:
To enhance the dignity and performance of human beings, and the organizations
they work in, by advancing the science and knowledge of human behavior.
Is this a paradigm, a theory, a model or an algorithm ? I won’t try to dignify it by
labeling it as any of those things. What it is, it seems to me, is a rather balanced equation
that holds out that the performance and positive experience of individuals at work is
equally as important as the organization’s overall performance. That has a symmetry,
and a fairness to it that I find very appealing. It is also a balanced equation with regard
to the role of practitioners and scientists. It is where science and practice meet to
promote the dignity of people that individual and organizational performance can be most
elevated. And that’s where I believe the role of I/O psychologists has been instrumental
in the past, but could be an even greater opportunity in the future.
So let me focus for a few minutes on the three critical concepts in that core purpose
statement: first, the dignity and performance of human beings, next, the performance of
organizations, and finally, advancing the science of human behavior.
First, the dignity and performance of human beings is maximized, in my view, when the
following conditions are met: When people are given meaningful work; when personal
accountability exists; and lastly, when people are treated respectfully by those who
supervise and lead them.
What is meaningful work ? Well, first of all is an important assumption that
“meaningfulness” is not related to organizational level. Work at any level is meaningful
when people can see a direct connection between their efforts and the organization’s
overall goal. And, when they are then given a sufficient level of decision making
authority and autonomy that also permits them to make meaningful mistakes. That’s the
algorithm that allows people to build their self confidence and self esteem. Said more
colloquially, there are few things in life more honorable than an honorable day’s work…
a project, a job, a career that allows for that very powerful psychological effect we’ve
come to label as the ‘completion phenomenon’. I put myself through college by doing tile
and terrazzo work in the commercial construction industry. There was no feeling like it
then or since when I could turn around at the end of an eight hour day and see three
hundred square feet of beautifully laid quarry tile with straight edges and joints, and be
able to say, “I did that”.
The second pre-condition necessary to ensure the dignity and performance of human
beings is when personal accountability exists. It’s not sufficient to merely create a ‘nice’
environment for people to work in. High performance environments are those that almost
paradoxically combine respect for the individual with a profound sense of personal
accountability. People have a right to be treated with respect, but they also have an
obligation to contribute. With accountability comes the sense that what a person does in
their job matters. What better way to help people build their self-respect than to hold
them accountable.
And finally, supervisors and leaders need to treat people with respect in order to achieve
a positive climate of dignity in organizations. And it’s really not that hard to do. Leaders
need to be committed to the civil treatment of the people around them…saying good
morning when they come in each day, saying thank you, not reprimanding people in the
presence of others, looking at people when they are talking to you to convey respect for
their opinion. It’s stunning to me how frequently we violate this remarkably easy concept
of civility in large organizations.
Let’s turn to the second key concept in my core purpose statement for I/O
psychology…enhancing organizational performance. Based on my remarks up to this
point, you might be thinking that I am using that phrase to be synonymous with an
organization’s ‘economic profits’ or earnings. Well, I’m not. I have a much broader
definition in mind for organization performance that I prefer to call ‘value creation’,
which I’ll describe in just a moment. But, I can’t move away from the subject of
economic profit without an editorial comment which I believe is very relevant to I/O
psychologists.
To those of you here today who have a disdain for the word “profit”, I have a word of
advice…Get over it ! Profit is not a four letter word. For-profit organizations are not
intrinsically evil places, despite the egregious abuses we often see. Business is a socioeconomic act. Trade is a distinctly social act. Business is comprised of human
transactions that clearly fit within the domain of inquiry of a social science like I/O
psychology. When organizations earn a fair economic profit it triggers an important
virtuous cycle… in fact, it is only when organizations earn a fair profit that jobs are
created and people can ultimately support themselves and their families, including better
educational opportunities. And we know from the work of Nobel economists that
societies that create jobs and raise the educational level of their citizens enjoy greater
overall quality of life and lower domestic violence.
Despite much of my career experience in for-profit enterprises, my definition of
organizational performance goes well beyond producing economic profit. For me,
economic profit is just one way that organizations create value. The science and practice
of I/O psychology needs to acknowledge, but then transcend the concept of economic
profit. Whether it be an academic venue, a government organization, a social service
organization, a religion or a Fortune 500 company, a broader definition of value creation
is crucial. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit enterprise. Does the Red Cross need to be
concerned about value creation ? You bet it does. Do I/O psychology departments need
to create value ? Yep. If either of those two organizations were to stop creating value
their very existence would eventually be threatened.
The important point to be made here about my inclusion of the phrase ‘enhancing
organizational performance’ in the core purpose statement is that it refers to the broader
concept of value creation, and goes well beyond economic profits. High performance
organizations tend to define value creation in terms of at least three or four important
constituencies…their employees, their customers, their shareholder owners and their
communities. I/O psychologists need to concern themselves with how their work, their
research and their teaching addresses value creation outcomes for all of those
constituents, not just employees.
The third and final concept in my earlier statement of I/O psychology’s core purpose is
the notion of ‘…advancing the science and knowledge of human behavior’. It is the
inclusion of this phrase that I hope makes the core purpose statement rather unique to I/O
psychologists. Lots of other disciplines concern themselves with the performance of
people and organizations…economists, lawyers, career counselors, search executives,
heck, even those mercenary financial types. But I/O psychologists are uniquely equipped
to bring the science of human behavior to bear on individual and organizational
performance. People like Tiffin and McCormick, Guion, Dunnette, Campbell and others
have argued elegantly over the past sixty-five years that the very hallmark of I/O
psychology needs to be its grounding in the epistemology of scientific discovery. I
strongly agree, but would add that in the study of human behavior insight can be just as
valuable as intellect.
So, let me now return to my complete statement of core purpose for I/O psychology:
To enhance the dignity and performance of human beings, and the organizations
they work in, by advancing the science and knowledge of human behavior.
It is only where the science of human behavior meets organizational practice that I/O
psychology can make its optimum contribution.
If you’ll tolerate my core purpose statement for just a few more minutes, I’d like to close
by doing a sixty-five year performance review of the profession of I/O psychology. I‘ve
taken a shot at identifying my list of the six most influential contributions by I/O
psychologists toward that core purpose. An important criterion was whether these
contributions have withstood the test of time. Your list may be different than mine, by
the way, and that’s okay. After I built my list I confess I succumbed to the temptation I
said I wouldn’t consider earlier… I asked whether each of these six contributions were
driven principally by scientists or by practitioners. I am pleased to report that it came out
dead even. Three of the six I attribute to scientist/academicians, and three to
practitioners. Phwew!
Let’s start with my list of the three most important contributions by I/O psychologists
operating principally in research and academic careers. On my scorecard, these three are
as follows: First, job satisfaction research and measurement. Second, the literature on
motivation and goal setting. And third, the psychometrics of human capability.
There is little question in my mind that the early work of scientist/academicians on
defining and measuring job satisfaction and job interests has been a milestone
accomplishment unique to the field of I/O psychology. If one accepts, at all, that human
performance and vocational choice are cognitively mediated processes, then the
understanding of human affect and intention is crucial to organizational performance.
And, the original work in this area was the result of thoughtful theoreticians and
researchers, not because organizations were clamoring for the results of applied research.
The second compelling contribution driven principally by scientist/academicians, I
believe, has been in the area of human motivation and goal setting in the workplace. This
body of work has had a seminal role, not just in I/O psychology, but across psychology in
general. The basic premise is that human beings pursue goals that are cognitively
mediated, and that people perform best when they are allowed to participate in the
establishment of those goals. This again, is an area where scientists have had a clearer
concept about the importance of human motivation dynamics in the workplace. Left to
their own pressures, I believe practitioners might have taken us too far down a distinctly
behavioral, and frankly, cruder path of instrumental causality.
The third profound contribution most advanced by the work of I/O scientist/academicians, I
believe, has been in the area of the psychometrics of human capability at work. Whether it
be the measurement of intellectual capacity and skill sets, ergonomic design or job
performance and criterion development, the ability to validly and reliably assess human
potential has been a huge contribution. And it was scientist/researchers who pursued these
questions long before anyone was begging for ways to comply with EEOC laws.
Let me turn to the three major contributions I believe have been principally driven by
organization-based I/O practitioners. First, is the area of leadership development and
leadership effectiveness. Practitioners have been confronted and prodded by their
organizations to help select, promote and develop better leaders. The early work in
assessment centers at AT&T and Standard Oil, as well as the leadership measurement
work at the Center for Creative Leadership has had a profound influence on the practices
of large organizations. In addition, it has been organizational practitioners who
established corporate universities to help develop future leaders. And finally, the
development of human resource planning efforts by I/O practitioners has been a
milestone contribution.
As complimentary as I am about the profession’s work in the leadership area, this is the
area that also represents the biggest opportunity still open to I/O psychologists. We have
watched in both business and society how important leaders are. Either the success that
good leaders can promote, or the devastating impact that ill-intentioned leaders can have
in an organization, in a society or even on a global scale. And, the ‘military model’ of
leadership so prevalent throughout much of the 20th century seems to be giving way to a
more participative model of ‘emergent’ leadership, to use Bennis’ term. What makes a
good leader ? Is the paradigm changing ? I believe it is. Research into intangible factors
like ‘character’ and ‘authenticity’ would be invaluable in identifying future leaders.
The second area in which I/O practitioners have led the way is the topic of team
effectiveness. It seems to me that academic I/O psychologists may have historically
conceded research in this area to social psychologists. But I/O practitioners will attest, I
believe, to the fact that successful organizations are comprised of successful small teams.
Organizational performance is more than just the collected performance of fifty thousand
individuals, but also not the monolithic movement of fifty thousand people all at once.
Organizational performance is driven by sub-units between the individual and
organizational level that we call ‘teams’. When those teams begin to break down, the
organization begins to break down. Practitioners have played a vital role in causing at
least some corner of I/O psychology to keep its eye on teams and organizational
interdependencies.
The third area where I believe I/O practitioners have led the charge is in the design of
incentive and compensation systems. Practitioners are constantly being asked to be
involved in the very delicate work of building compensation systems, doing job
evaluations, and designing incentive programs, sales incentives and gainsharing and
profit sharing plans. As important as the earlier mentioned work on motivation and goal
setting by I/O researchers has been, translating that work into how big a pay raise or how
big an annual bonus a worker should receive has fallen overwhelmingly to practitioners.
Ok, no self-respecting assessment of our profession’s performance could be complete
without identifying at least one area of “opportunity”. I would suggest that the biggest
obstacle to I/O psychology historically, and even more so today, has been not so much
within the profession, but within I/O psychologists themselves. And that obstacle has
been in our lack of business literacy. You might think I’m directing that concern
primarily at the scientist/academician segment of our profession. Well, I’m not. I’m
directing that concern, okay I’ll say it, I’m directing that criticism, to all I/O
psychologists--practitioners and scientists alike. At the risk of offending many of you
here, I would say that the inability or unwillingness of I/O psychologists to embrace or
even understand business and enterprise, and perhaps a little intellectual arrogance about
it, has been a severe limiter in our profession’s ability to be more influential at the
leadership and board level of major organizations.
You might also think that I’m referring to business literacy as financial literacy. Being
able to read a P&L, or being able to calculate ratios off of a balance sheet. Again, that’s
not my concept of business literacy. In short, as an I/O psychologist could you converse
intelligently for twenty minutes with a business executive, a board member, a customer, a
university president or a state senator about your organization’s customer, your
competitors and your strategy. And, just as importantly, how you as an I/O psychologist
can make your organization better off ? As a profession, we simply must do a better job
of influencing organizational leaders as to why they should be concerned about what we
know about people in organizations. We must do a better job of showing them how our
work influences value creation outcomes that are important to them, not us. Outcomes
like customer satisfaction, brand reputation, expense levels and, yes, earnings.
In closing, let me illustrate my key message for today with an anecdote from my business
career. In 1985, in a hostile takeover, Baxter Travenol acquired my then employer,
American Hospital Supply Corporation. At the time it was the largest take over ever in
the health care industry, and one of the 25 largest acquisitions in U.S. business history.
About one year after the merger I was sitting in my boss’s office, our CEO, Vernon
Loucks,… a marvelous person. The merged companies were doing lousy, and Vernon
and I were discussing our thoughts on why we were underperforming. In a moment of
frustration and candor, he looked at me and said, “You know, Tony, running a big
company would be a piece of cake if it weren’t for people. People will take the most
brilliant strategy in the world and completely screw it up”. He was being only half
facetious, I think. People will either ruin the best strategy in the world, or people will
breathe human energy into it.
I believe the core purpose of I/O psychology is to help people breathe human energy into
organizations. And at the heart of that core purpose is the critical, but rather simple
notion of the dignity of human beings.
Now, before I close, go back and read what you wrote down forty minutes ago in
response to my question about why you chose to become an I/O psychologist. If I’m at
all right, very few of you had any of the following things written down:
-
To publish 75 articles in scholarly journals.
To get tenured.
To win the Nobel prize.
To earn a million dollars.
To be the dean of the department of psychology.
To be president of the United States.
No, if this group is at all similar to the I/O psychologists I’ve worked with over the years,
something in what you wrote included a reference to people, organizational effectiveness
or the science of human behavior.
OK, so an eighteen year old girl decides to join the convent and become a nun….She
shows up at the convent the first day and is brought in to meet the mother superior. The
mother superior says, “Sister, welcome. We are glad you’re here, but I must warn you
sister, that you have joined a very austere order. You will sleep on the floor of your room
every night, never in a bed, never on a mattress. You will eat only what you can grow
from the fields by your own hands, and lastly sister, you must take a perpetual vow of
silence, and can never speak in your entire time here. Thank you sister, you may leave”.
Ten years go by, and the little nun has been a model sister. At the age of 28 the mother
superior calls her back in and says, “Sister, ten years of perfect performance. As a reward
today sister, we are going to allow you to say two words, but two words only, so choose
them wisely. The little nun thinks about it for a moment and says “Floor hard”. “Uh,
thank you sister, you may leave” says the mother superior. Another ten years, another
model performance and the mother superior again visits with the little nun. “Sister,
twenty years of perfect performance. Again today, as a reward we’re going to allow you
to say two words, but two words only, so choose them wisely”. The little nun thinks,
then says “food lousy”. “Uh, thank you sister, you may leave”, says the mother superior.
Ten more years, another perfect performance. The mother superior calls the now forty
eight year old nun into her office and says “Sister, in all of my years with the order, no
one has ever gone thirty years with perfect performance. As your reward today sister, two
words, but two words only…choose them wisely”. The little nun doesn’t hesitate. She
looks the mother superior square in the eye and says “ I quit”. With that, the mother
superior just shakes her head and says “You know sister, I’m not the least bit surprised.
After all, all you’ve done is complain for the last thirty years”. I suppose, at that point,
the mother superior was questioning, what, the loyalty of that nun ? She was quitting;
going someplace else. But I would argue that there was one thing she couldn’t question,
and that was the commitment that person had shown to the goals and purpose of that
organization every single day.
Can we, as I/O psychologists match that level of commitment to a common purpose ?
We are, by our very DNA, a profession that exists to enable people and organizations to
be more productive members of society. Remember, few things in life are more
honorable than an honorable day’s work. For those of us in the profession of I/O
psychology, when we tap into the nature of people at work, we are tapping into
something very primal, and something very intrinsic to the dignity of human beings. If
you ask me, that’s pretty noble work.
Thank you for listening.