This post was authored by Hogan Founder Robert Hogan, PhD, and Chief Science Officer Ryne Sherman, PhD, and edited by VP of Market Innovation Allison Howell.

In every area of human endeavor there are people who make a living doing things, and there are people who make a living criticizing what others do. Movie critics, literary critics, music critics, architectural critics, foreign policy critics, and business critics. Elon Musk is indisputably the first camp, but as the world’s richest person, he is a natural target for critique. In recent weeks, Musk has faced enormous criticism for business decisions; however, nothing in his biography suggests Musk is narcissistic, malevolent, or experiencing psychosis.

Who Is Elon Musk?

Musk was born 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His father, Errol, was a wealthy engineer, entrepreneur, investor, and property developer, and half owner of an emerald mine in Zambia. His mother was Canadian, which allowed him to immigrate to Canada in 1989, and then move to the US in 1991 where he attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning degrees in Physics and Economics.  

In 1994, Musk moved to Palo Alto to attend graduate school at Stanford University, but quickly decided to join the “internet boom.” With his rich and talented brother, and a loan from his father, he founded Zip2, a kind of travel search engine (for which Musk did the coding) and later sold to Compaq for $307 million in cash. He then founded X.com, an online financial services business, merged with Confinity, an online bank that owned PayPal, and then became CEO. Musk fought with Peter Thiel over search engines, was ousted by the board, but made $175.8 million when Theil sold PayPal to eBay in 2002.

In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, a commercial spacecraft business. After a rocky start, a $1.6 billion contract with NASA launched it properly. In 2015 SpaceX started Starlink, a chain of satellites intended to bring internet services to remote locations, and which has been a major resource for the Ukrainian military in their war with Russia.  

In 2004, Musk invested $6.5 million in Tesla, an electric car startup, and then became CEO and product architect in 2008. This move met criticism from those who argued the electric vehicle market had no future and that the larger automotive market was already heavily saturated. At the time of this writing, Tesla is the 6^th most valuable company in the world, just behind Amazon (5^th) and ahead of Berkshire Hathaway (7^th). In 2016, Musk founded Neuralink, a company intended to explore connections between computer driven artificial intelligence and neuroscience. In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company, a high-tech tunnel boring business. In 2017, Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter, his favorite on-line messaging platform, widely regarded as a valuable but poorly managed business. In 2022, Musk completed the purchase of Twitter amidst huge fanfare and business news chatter. 

Although it is too early to tell how Twitter will perform under Musk’s leadership, we see here an astonishing series of large-scale business development successes. This raises the obvious question:  what sort of person is Elon Musk, the world’s richest person? More specifically, what are the psychological keys to his success? 

What Sort of Person Is Elon Musk?

We think there are three keys, and they fall under the headings of power, structure, and style. Power has to do with cognitive capability; structure has to do with cognitive orientation, and style has to do with interpersonal impact. Concerning power, Musk is very smart and, with a background in physics and economics, he knows more about numbers, technology, and finance than most people. In addition, his business associates say he is remarkably perceptive about forecasting business trends and detecting flaws and biases in other peoples’ reasoning. So, he is very smart and has the capacity to make good decisions—not all otherwise intelligent people do. He is not big on planning; he takes action and evaluates his decisions. Or as he Tweeted on November 9^th:

As for structure, Musk has the same orientation as most entrepreneurs—for whom Hogan has a lot of data. Entrepreneurs, relative to the average person, are analytical, data-based problem solvers, energetic and hardworking (100-hour work weeks are normal), fearless about risk, competitive, and focused on making an impact and a difference. Hard working, fearless, competitive, and achievement oriented—key ingredients for success regardless of cognitive ability.  

Musk describes himself as having Asperger’s syndrome, which has been consolidated under autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and this neurodivergence may affect his interpersonal style. In our experience, ASD is common among engineers, mathematicians, chess players, and entrepreneurs.

People who know Musk describe him as “the life of the party,” and as further testimonial of his vivacity, he hosted the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Outside of work, he often seems witty, irreverent, and mischievous.

As for Musk’s leadership style and effectiveness, this raises a very interesting question.  Leadership is about building high performing teams, and good leaders are people whom others want to follow. Entrepreneurs as a group are bad leaders—like most managers in finance and engineering, they are interested in results and not peoples’ feelings. Musk describes himself as a demanding “nano-manager,” impatient and quick to find fault. He is action-oriented and doesn’t worry much about staff sensitivities.

Musk isn’t the first leader in the public eye to have a reputation of being difficult. Elsewhere we have talked about “the Apple Paradox”: how can someone as duplicitous and unpleasant as Steve Jobs build a business as successful as Apple? Our answer is twofold. On the one hand, the most critical capacity for CEOs is to make good decisions about products and markets, not worry about peoples’ feelings. On the other hand, good managers below the level of the CEO often protect the staff from the bad behavior of abusive CEOs. We know that Musk is an immensely successful entrepreneur and a mediocre leader—but a mediocre leader compared to whom? Zuckerberg? Bezos? Gates? Welch? Rockefeller?

Finally, then, there is Twitter and how Musk’s recent actions to restructure an underperforming and badly managed company have affected it. Although the previous CEO admitted that Twitter was overstaffed, it seems clear that it was a mistake to fire half the workforce without first evaluating their function and performance. This kind of hasty downsizing creates unnecessary worry and confusion among employees, which is unlikely to contribute to high performance. On the other hand, Musk and his engineers have begun a detailed and granular review of every aspect of the Twitter business and that effort is the essential first step in improving processes and products. Musk himself told his new staff “Revolutions are not done with caution. So we want to try things, ideally things that don’t break the system, but . . . as long as we’re agile, and we react quickly to improve things and correct mistakes, I think it’ll be fine.”

In response to Musk’s takeover and layoffs, many individuals impersonating Musk on Twitter engaged in mocking the new owner. It is worth pointing out that, if the target weren’t the Twitter CEO and richest person in the world, some of this mocking would be declared cyberbullying. Regardless, much of the criticism seems to be inspired by critics of Musk’s political views. But like most entrepreneurs, especially very successful ones, Musk is not backing down. Instead, he’s firing back with his own sarcastic Tweets and changing the rules regarding impersonation accounts. It is difficult to say how the Twitter acquisition will work out for Musk, but if his past business ventures are any indication, it would be hard to bet against him.

How can organizations prepare employees for a future of work that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous? The answer is reskilling.

The way we work has changed a lot recently, and that transformation isn’t likely to stop soon. An environment characterized by constant change can be described with the acronym VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Under VUCA circumstances, it can be difficult to forecast the next quarter, much less the next year or decade. Preparing for an unpredictable future is a formidable challenge for organizations, but reskilling is an integral part of success.

Among the numerous drivers of the need for reskilling, two stand out most. The automation of work and the pandemic’s effects on the economy have led to significant changes in work around the globe. As many as half of all employees everywhere will need reskilling by 2025.¹

Read on to learn what reskilling is, reasons to implement reskilling, and how Hogan can help.

What’s the Difference Between Reskilling and Upskilling?

Reskilling isn’t the same as upskilling. Upskilling refers to learning new technical skills or disciplines, usually through apprenticeships, certifications, or degree programs. It tends to be job specific, training someone for a known role. Reskilling is a retention strategy to develop talented employees to deploy them elsewhere within the business. Reskilling tends to be generalized because the intended job isn’t known ahead of time. In fact, the job may not even exist yet.

The core competencies and widely applicable skills gained through reskilling equip employees to be agile and adaptable. An important category of skills that help employees flourish in a changing environment is socioemotional skills. At Hogan, we define socioemotional skills as including social skills (e.g., getting along with others), self-regulatory skills (e.g., emotional control, impulsiveness), motivation (e.g., values, interests, preferences), and other personality characteristics including ambition (status-striving) and openness to experience (curiosity).

Among the many reasons to emphasize socioemotional skills in a reskilling plan are that they are most in demand by the most workers and that they offer the best response to VUCA environments in the workplace.

Why Do Employees Need Reskilling?

Reskilling helps companies respond to automation, arm against talent shortage, strengthen retention, and save money. Reskilling is also an employee-positive response to job change. VUCA situations are challenging even to people whose personalities tend to take uncertainty in stride.

Reskilling addresses the rise of automation.

Organizations that reskill employees belong to a large-scale effort to address skills gaps created by automation. In 2019, more than two million people in the US were reskilled or upskilled through more than 70,000 organizations.² That number, while commendable, is only a small percent of employees who will soon need reskilling.

Automation has become and will continue to be an increasing part of work. McKinsey reported that by 2030 up to 800 million people globally might need new jobs because of automation.³ The report also pointed out that many occupations currently have activities that are automatable, meaning that employees in those roles will likely need to learn new skills and perform new tasks. Reskilling empowers workers to better perform tasks that cannot be automated or to integrate automation into new workflows.

Reskilling addresses the rise of job openings.

Reskilling is an efficient and economical way to address the surge of job openings. Currently, there are more than 11 million job openings in the US but only six million unemployed workers, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.⁴ While automation might help assuage the technical skills gap in part, reskilling workers by boosting their socioemotional skills will help organizations address talent shortages in two ways. First, they will be able to retain talent with the socioemotional skills to reskill more easily in the future. Second, they will be able to hire from a broader candidate pool with the confidence that talent with socioemotional skills can be more easily developed.

Furthermore, most people are willing to reskill to keep themselves employable. The dual forces of automation and the pandemic have put employees in a frame of mind open to reskilling to retain employment. In fact, research indicates that over two-thirds of workers worldwide are willing to retrain.⁵

Reskilling increases employee retention.

Reskilling is a direct link to retention. Not only are employees willing to reskill, but they expect and desire development opportunities. In one study, new hires were 42% more likely to be retained if they received job training.⁶ Forty-six percent of learning and development plans in 2022 wisely prioritized upskilling and reskilling because employees who feel their skills are underused are 10 times more likely to search for a job than those who believe their current job uses their skills well.⁷

Employees might be disposed to quit organizations that do not offer opportunities to grow in a preferred job and career. According to the Work Institute’s 2021 Retention Report, career reasons—which encompass development, career change, promotion, school, and job security—represented 18% of total turnover in 2020.⁸ Of those who reported leaving for career reasons, which has been the top-cited cause of turnover for over a decade, 31% named development as their motivation.

In short, people often leave if they don’t receive skills development, but they tend to stay if they do.

Reskilling saves money compared to rehiring.

Reskilling pays for itself quickly. Reskilling programs can cost $10,000 to $15,000 per employee—or even less.⁹ Rehiring, on the other hand, can cost from 33% to 200% of the employee’s salary depending on the industry and role.¹⁰ It’s simply more affordable to retrain and retain than to rehire.

What Are the Steps for Reskilling?

To build a productive reskilling program, follow these three steps:¹¹

Step 1: Conduct assessments.

Even though you may not know which jobs or skills will change, you can still expect to need to reskill employees for new or evolving roles. To identify these talent gaps, organizations need to assess individuals to identify current skills and future potential.

You will be able to create a specific plan for change only if you understand your starting point. Take inventory of the skills currently represented within your organization. Assess your talent, technology, and processes. Be sure not to overlook personality strengths. Personality assessment enables organizations to understand the unique qualities of each employee, as well as the distribution of strengths across the employee base.

Step 2: Strategize needs.

Compare the skills available in your organization with the skills that you are likely to need. Consider what skills may be necessary for new activities in current roles, as well as for altogether new roles. Understanding how values play into employees’ needs is important too. Values speak to the working environment that someone will strive to create. What work do employees want to do? What do they find rewarding?

Instead of being exclusively reactive or predictive in your reskilling strategy, stay dynamic instead. A dynamic approach involves operating within a VUCA environment while identifying talent who are prepared for and receptive to reskilling.

By leveraging what Harvard Business Review calls “skills adjacencies,” organizations can quickly reskill workers who already have foundational knowledge related to new skills.¹² For example, a former science educator might excel in B2B tech sales with very little reskilling because she can already communicate complex technical concepts to a nonscientific audience. Or a former journalist might readily reskill into an outstanding podcast host because she already has mastery of interviewing techniques.

The concept of skills adjacencies is essential to the step of strategizing needs because it can often be easier to hire someone who understands statistics than it is to hire a data scientist with at least five years of experience, for instance. Arguably even more than technical skills do, socioemotional skills offer ample skills adjacencies for nearly every role, especially those changed by automation.

Step 3: Create an action plan.

Depending on your organization’s needs, reskilling might look like a program, pathway, or curated experience. It could also be conferences, coaching, or company-wide initiatives. Reskilling should be part of a broader talent development strategy that accounts for employee personality strengths and values.

In putting together your action plan, don’t overlook socioemotional skills. Employers need employees with socioemotional skills—and employees desire to develop socioemotional skills. It’s a combination that begs for reskilling.

The need for socioemotional skills in the workplace has increased dramatically with the evolution of work. According to Pew Research Center, “The value placed on social and fundamental skills in the modern workplace reflects the rapid growth in employment in jobs in which these skills are most important, by 111% and 104% from 1980 to 2018, respectively.”¹³ With the continued emphasis on workplace automation, the need for socioemotional skills in employees is only likely to increase even more.

Not only do employees need socioemotional skills, but they also value them highly. Nearly all employees want to develop their socioemotional skills, with 84% saying that such training is important to them.⁹ Leadership is the most desired socioemotional skill of 54% of respondents.⁹ Recalling that two-thirds of workers are willing to retrain and that socioemotional skills are in extremely high demand, personality-driven talent development makes an essential component of any reskilling plan.

How Can Hogan Help with Reskilling?

Hogan provides data-driven talent insights that help organizations assess the personality strengths and values of their talent.

Strengths – The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) has seven primary scales that assess day-to-day, bright-side personality characteristics. The HPI is one of the most versatile of the assessments and can be used across the employee lifecycle. Most related to reskilling are talent acquisition, career pathing, development planning, and succession planning.

Values – The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) contains ten primary scales that describe what we call the “inside” of personality, or what motivates talent to succeed. The MVPI provides data concerning organizational culture, career motivation, preferred work environments, and leadership characteristics. An employee who wants to interact with people and use science to solve problems would likely show enthusiasm and commitment toward reskilling that involves interpreting data gained through automation for various stakeholders or customers—because it supports their core drivers.

The first stages in creating a reskilling plan are assessing what skills or strengths exist and determining what are needed. Hogan belongs in the assessment stage to provide an evaluation of strengths and values. This helps organizations identify the everyday behaviors of their talent, as well as the environments they value.

Based on those results, Hogan personality data can facilitate development planning to boost the socioemotional skills that are lacking in the workforce, especially among early-career professionals. With hiring managers reporting that socioemotional skills, such as leadership, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork, are lacking in job-seeking college graduates,¹⁴ the need for socioemotional reskilling is pervasive.

Whether to reskill teams or individuals or to determine selection criteria, Hogan assessments are the foundation for a reskilling strategy that properly prioritizes socioemotional skills.

Contact us as step one in your socioemotional skills-focused reskilling strategy.

References

1. The Future of Jobs Report 2020. (2020, October). World Economic Forum. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf
2. Alonso, A. (2021, August 23). Reskilling Leaves Some Workers Behind. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/fall2021/pages/reskilling-leaves-some-workers-behind.aspx
3. Manyika, J., Lund, S., Chui, M., Bughin, J., Woetzel, J., Batra, P., Ko, R., & Sanghvi, S. (2017, November 28). Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: What the Future of Work Will Mean for Jobs, Skills, and Wages. McKinsey Global Institute. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages
4. US Chamber of Commerce. (2022, September 2). America Works Data Center. US Chamber of Commerce. https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/america-works-data-center
5. Strack, R., Kovács-Ondrejkovic, O., Baier, J., Antebi, P., Kavanagh, K., & López Gobernado, A. (2021, April 28). Decoding Global Reskilling and Career Paths. Boston Consulting Group. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/decoding-global-trends-reskilling-career-paths
6. Chopra-McGowan, A. (2021, July 13). Make Sure Your Company’s Reskilling Efforts Pay Off. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/07/make-sure-your-companys-reskilling-efforts-pay-off
7. The Transformation of L&D: 2022 Workplace Learning Report. LinkedIn Learning. https://learning.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/learning/en-us/pdfs/workplace-learning-report/LinkedIn-Learning_Workplace-Learning-Report-2022-EN.pdf
8. Nelms, D., Mahan, W., Huddleston, K., Jackson, A.T., Spinner, G., French, S., Dean, S., & Witherow, R. (2021). 2021 Retention Report: The COVID Edition. Work Institute. https://bit.ly/3DpraZP
9. 2022 Workplace Learning & Development Trends: Research Report. (2022). SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/pages/2022-workplace-learning-and-development-trends.aspx
10. Charaba, C. (2022, June 28). Employee Retention: The Real Cost of Losing an Employee. PeopleKeep. https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/employee-retention-the-real-cost-of-losing-an-employee
11. Lauby, S. (2020, August 13). 5 Talent Management Trends and the HR Skills They Require. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/talent-management-trends.aspx
12. Wilde, S., Smith, A., & Clark, S. (2021, November 26). Organizations Need a Dynamic Approach to Teaching People New Skills. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/11/organizations-need-a-dynamic-approach-to-teaching-people-new-skills
13. Kochhar, R. (2020, January 30). Employment Is Rising Most Rapidly in Jobs Most in Need of Social, Fundamental and Analytical Skills. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/30/employment-is-rising-most-rapidly-in-jobs-most-in-need-of-social-fundamental-and-analytical-skills/
14. Dishman, L. (2016, May 17). These Are the Biggest Skills That New Graduates Lack. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3059940/these-are-the-biggest-skills-that-new-graduates-lack

When I think about the miracle of human survival, I think of a picture of Bryce Canyon National Park, a 56.2-square mile, arid terrain of clay-rich soil in southwestern Utah. Archaeologists say humans have lived in the area for at least 10,000 years, including the Basketmaker culture, the pre-Pueblo Anasazi, the Paiute Native Americans, and the American settlers in the 1800s. And it baffles me, sometimes, how any of them survived.

Scientists give a lot of credit to the opposable thumb, basically describing it as the killer app of our evolution and survival as humans. The opposable thumb gave us manual dexterity and fine motor skills, allowing us to build houses, tanks, computers, and more.

But, if you think about Bryce Canyon for a moment, you will realize the opposable thumb is overrated.

Humans are not the fastest or the strongest animals. We don’t have the sharpest teeth or the ability to fill dried-out riverbeds in the arid canyon. We don’t have the skin to manage extreme temperatures.

Not Opposable Thumbs, But Teamwork

The people who lived in that canyon were able to survive only because they formed what we today understand to be teams. Their teams found paths to bring in water. They eventually built roads to transport resources. They worked together to bring in firewood and timber to stay warm and build shelter. They built a canal to capture rainwater, irrigate crops, and provide drinking water for themselves and others.

We are able to survive in places like Bryce Canyon and become the dominant species because our teamwork allowed us to achieve what we couldn’t do alone.

For a long time in team development, the focus has been cohesion. Many assessments, questionnaires, and competency frameworks focus on the strength and extent of interpersonal connection. We equate getting along with being effective. But analysis of the literature on teams suggests getting along might not be the key factor. To this end, we need to shift how we look at building effective teams and what team-related assessment tools measure.

Effective Teams Don’t Always Get Along

In 2020, a 10-episode documentary called The Last Dance told the story of Michael Jordan and his success with the Chicago Bulls, who won six National Basketball Association Championships in eight years in the 1990s.

I learned a lot of things watching the series (not the least of which is that I do not want to be on Michael Jordan’s bad side). One key takeaway was that no matter how good Jordan was, it took a team to get the job done, including the coach, Phil Jackson, and standout players such as Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, John Stockton, Toni Kukoč, Steve Kerr, and Bill Cartwright.

Jordan was a fierce competitor who could make moves on the court that his competitors could only dream of. He once scored 48 points on a not-so-healed broken foot. He also was—less known to fans—a notorious trash talker. But in The Last Dance you learn that “hate” might not be too strong of a word for how his teammates felt about working with him.

Jordan called the veteran Cartwright, who was six years older than him, “Medical Bill” during practices. The bullying by Jordan was so bad that Cartwright says he once threatened to “break his legs.” It is said that Jordan would hide his teammate Horace Grant’s food from him when Grant had a bad game. He yelled at another player on his team, “You’re a loser! You’ve always been a loser!” He once went to Rodman’s apartment and pulled him by his nose ring to bring him back to practice.

Although Jordan’s teammates didn’t like him, the Bulls were still a successful team. Why?

The Six Qualities of Effective Teamwork

The reasons the Chicago Bulls were successful can be linked to the six qualities that research shows are actually key to effective teamwork:

• Trust – The other Bulls may not have liked their leader, but they trusted him and each other to keep their word, honor their commitments, and work for the good of the team.
• Interpersonal norms – Rules of engagement for the team’s social dynamics determined how they managed conflict, collaborated, and communicated. These norms contributed to a sense of common purpose and belonging.
• Operational and compositional norms – To achieve its goals, the team used clear methods—including shared language, processes, and approaches to decision-making. The Bulls also had a clear team structure and role clarity.
• Mission alignment – They understood and agreed on the importance of their goal of winning championships.
• Results focus – Whatever you might say about Jordan, he was focused on the bottom-line goals and objectives, as were his teammates.
• Strategic adaptability – The Bulls focused on the big picture to drive continued and future success. They focused on what was most important while learning new approaches, innovating on the court and adapting in the face of challenges like injuries.

There is no question that Michael Jordan’s opposable thumb made him one of the greatest slam-dunk artists to set foot on a basketball court. But it was effective teamwork that brought home the championships.

This blog post was authored by Jayson Blair, a member of the Hogan Coaching Network and managing partner of Goose Creek Consulting. On November 10, Jayson will join the hosts of The Science of Personality podcast for a special webinar discussing the inner workings of teamwork. Register today!

When a scientific explanation isn’t yet available, humans often turn to a paranormal explanation. Paranormal psychology accepts that there are more phenomena than we can currently explain with scientific knowledge.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Larry Martinez, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Portland State University, about paranormal psychology.

Paranormal researchers draw upon psychology and sociology to understand the cultural purpose of supernatural stories and why some people believe what others think is fantasy.

Let’s dive into this discussion of witches, aliens, mind reading, and the afterlife. What is unexplainable today might become explainable tomorrow.

Defining Paranormal Psychology

Paranormal psychology refers to anything that’s unexplainable with current scientific knowledge and methods. What we call paranormal can change because our understanding of the world is always expanding and improving. Paranormal psychology is a discipline rooted in science because its goal is to explain the world better.

Larry said he has always been interested in why people believe what they believe and how belief changes across time and culture. Our expectations influence our perceptions and beliefs. “People have scripts and schemas. They have mental representations for how they think that something should go,” he pointed out. Two people observing the same event can interpret very different outcomes.

Telekinesis and Telepathy

Scientific and military purposes have driven researchers to study telekinesis and telepathy. Early research into telepathy was conducted by physical and natural scientists, not psychologists. Those researchers concluded that some people were psychic and could read people’s minds or do other astonishing mental feats.

Where they went wrong was overlooking the human factor. “Humans are much, much more difficult to measure than things like gravity. Measuring a human one day doesn’t mean that you’ll get the same result on another day,” Larry said.

Psychologists began to debunk findings about psychics by using the scientific method to eliminate contamination—like seeing the reflection of a playing card in a pair of glasses during a guessing game, for example. This devotion to science and data transparency is widely held by paranormal researchers and academic journals for paranormal psychology.

Those who conduct research about paranormal phenomena typically take pains to provide error-free data because they often have additional skepticism to overcome about their findings. For instance, two opposing research teams disagreed about the results of a meta-analysis of experiments about the ganzfeld effect, which is a methodology for measuring telepathy. Eventually, they cowrote a handbook for how ganzfeld experiments should be conducted to set rigorous standards for protocols and controls.

The Afterlife and Extraterrestrial Life

Paranormal research often draws on different aspects of psychology and social science, which Larry feels makes the field eclectic and fun.

The broad topic of the afterlife is influenced by how people experience grief and cope with loss. Associated paranormal phenomena, such as seances, are also heavily influenced by the mental schemas that people bring into those situations. Early instances of seances played on people’s senses by asking people to stay in a dark room, close their eyes, hold hands, and concentrate for a long time. Under these circumstances, sensory perceptions are skewed even without the practical effects often employed by deceptive mediums.

Regarding alien abduction experiences, the scientific consensus is that they typically can be explained by a combination of societal expectations and scripts for what an alien abduction should be like. They also correspond to the medical condition of sleep paralysis. “That’s the best explanation that we have right now,” Larry said. “That doesn’t mean that alien abductions aren’t happening, but we have a ready explanation for the types of things that people are reporting when they say that they’ve been abducted by aliens.”

Belief in Full Moons, Witches, and Monsters

Some people are more likely to believe in paranormal phenomena based on their personalities and life experiences. Fantasy proneness is the propensity to believe in things without objective proof. Childhood trauma is a major predictor of fantasy proneness because trauma survivors are more likely to use the adaptive coping mechanism of dissociation. Research shows that people who believe in paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories tend to score higher on measures of fantasy proneness than those who disbelieve in paranormal events.

Belief in full moons, bad luck, and similar phenomena can be explained with illusory correlation. This is the perceived relationship between events when no relationship exists. Humans are good at making predictions based on patterns, but sometimes we imagine patterns that don’t exist. Higher crime rates during a full moon or broken mirrors leading to bad luck tend not to be verifiable by correlational data. Some things really are coincidental, even though they may not seem to be.

Discrimination, stigmatization, and prejudice can also drive belief in paranormal phenomena. Historically, women who didn’t align with cultural ideas of gender norms were often targeted as witches. “They tended to live on the outskirts, they were poor, or they had something ‘wrong’ with them,” Larry said. “They were stigmatized in society before they were accused of being witches, not the other way around.” From a psychological perspective, witch hunting was a way of policing femininity.

“There are definitely things that we don’t understand now that we will be able to explain much more scientifically in the future,” Larry said.

Meanwhile, human societies have invented stories of monsters because they serve a psychological purpose to help us reconcile collective guilt or anxiety:

• Stories about curses on ancient artifacts (King Tut) help us confront colonialism and genocide.
• Stories about supernatural monsters (King Kong) help us confront climate change and our impact on the environment.
• Stories about monsters we create (Frankenstein’s creature) help us confront a god complex or parenthood.
• Stories about monsters that dwell inside of us (werewolves or zombies) help us confront our innate desires and taboos.

“In the absence of a physical scientific explanation, the paranormal one becomes intuitively appealing,” Larry said. The more we investigate, the more we will learn.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 62 of The Science of Personality. Hear our previous conversation with Larry about diversity, equity, and inclusion on episode 52. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Awair, an authorized Hogan distributor, has expanded to include the United Kingdom among its markets. Founded in Italy, Awair’s markets included Italy and France before the recent expansion into the UK. Awair recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Hogan is excited for Awair to build on the business accomplishments achieved in 2021. “Given Awair’s success in expanding the Hogan brand in Italy and France, we felt they would be a strong contributor to our efforts in the UK as well,” said Zsolt Feher, managing director at Hogan Assessments.

“This milestone is an important recognition of our journey so far and is another driver for the international growth of our business. Awair is a unique distributor due to our operations in multiple countries and our capacity to serve multinationals and large organizations,” said Francesca Antonini, CEO at Awair. 

“We have submitted an ambitious business plan, which will require focus and effort. The UK market is very different from the other countries in which we operate, but we are positive that this venture will be a success,” said Andrea Facchini, managing partner at Awair GB.

“Awair is a unique and a fast-growing consulting firm in Europe, focusing its services on three main areas: talent assessment, leadership development, and cultural transformation,” said Paola Ballabio, managing partner at Awair. “Thanks to our range of services and the diversity of expertise of our international team we can add tremendous value for our clients, enabling their people and culture strategies.”

Tania, the team lead, lays out a new process for the team to follow. Fatima sees an efficiency improvement but doesn’t say anything. Nigel feels disrespected that Tania didn’t consult him about his field of expertise. Sam wonders how the process will affect other teams but shows enthusiasm for Tania’s plan. Denise thinks the timeline is far too tight and asks how hard the deadline is. Tania says the deadline is a priority. What’s missing from this team? Psychological safety.

Imagine how much better Tania’s new process would be if Fatima were to share her ideas, Nigel were to weigh in with his subject-matter knowledge, Sam were to pose the question about the change’s effect on others, and Denise were to provide constructive criticism about the rollout. What can Tania do to build an environment of team psychological safety?

Read on to learn what psychological safety is and why it matters so much in teams.

What Is Team Psychological Safety?

Safety is a basic human need. In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published a theory that humans are motivated by the instinct to satisfy their needs.¹ After meeting physiological needs such as food and water, humans seek to satisfy the need to feel safe. Someone who does not feel safe will likely pursue safety until it is achieved.

Psychological safety is the perception of whether it is safe or risky to show the authentic self. Originally, psychological safety referred to an individual’s perceptions about whether authenticity would cause negative social consequences; the definition evolved to encompass a team’s commonly held perceptions.²

Leadership researcher Amy C. Edmondson defines team psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”³ A team has psychological safety when all members hold similar positive beliefs about interpersonal trust, inclusion, and mutual respect.

Another definition of psychological safety from Timothy Clark holds that psychological safety is established in four consecutive stages. He calls it “a condition in which human beings feel included, safe to learn, safe to contribute, and safe to challenge the status quo.”⁴ These four stages are achieved only in absence of fear of social reprisal like embarrassment, disrespect, or punishment.

While it may be self-evident that team members who work from trust and respect instead of fear are happier, more productive workers, let’s explore exactly why psychological safety is so integral to high-performing teams.

Why Psychological Safety Matters in Teams

A team is three or more people who share a common goal, common leadership, and success or failure. Team psychological safety contributes to learning, innovation, productivity, and many other positive outcomes. Here are three reasons why organizations and leaders should prioritize team psychological safety.

Employee Retention

Team psychological safety increases employee retention.

According to data from Pew Research Center, 89% of Americans say that creating a safe and respectful workplace is essential.⁵ Yet McKinsey survey data indicate that only 43% of respondents describe their team as having a positive climate, one factor in team psychological safety.⁶

A toxic corporate culture—one characterized by disrespect; lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion; abuse; and unethical actions—is 10.4 times more likely than compensation to contribute to turnover.⁷ Toxic disrespect at work is a major reason employees leave, so a psychologically safe environment can mitigate a major driver of attrition.

Productivity

Team psychological safety improves productivity.

Team psychological safety isn’t a guarantee of high productivity, but high productivity doesn’t happen without it. When team members feel psychologically safe, they can bring their energy and drive to bear on solving problems and achieving or exceeding goals. They ask questions, share information, make connections, and explore ideas against a background of positivity and respect toward their colleagues.

Edmondson states that psychological safety enables teams to face and overcome challenges that teams without it cannot. She specifically names the geographic dispersion of virtual teams as an obstacle that psychological safety helps to diminish.⁸ Other productivity boosts granted by an environment of psychological safety include a positive attitude toward failure in the form of making and reporting mistakes, productive conflict, and boosts in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Innovation

Team psychological safety fosters innovation.

It’s hard to measure absence. Every time employees don’t voice their thoughts, the potential for innovation is lessened. On the other hand, when employees express half-formed ideas or make spontaneous suggestions, the potential for innovation increases.

It takes courage and trust for team members to start a sentence with “why” or “what if.” When Google researched productivity among its own teams, it found that psychological safety was “critical to making a team work.”⁹ Teams thrived when they had clear goals, yes, but beyond that, they thrived when people felt free “to be fully present at work.”

Creating a psychologically safe environment starts with leaders. Read on to learn about four ways leaders can build one.

Four Ways to Create Team Psychological Safety

Ultimately, the best way to create team psychological safety is to make psychological safety important. If organizational leaders prioritize psychological safety, so will their teams.

Make psychological safety an integral part of the team by taking these actions.

1. Understand Personality.
   
   Personality is the driving force behind human behavior. It’s the answer to why we act as we do. Identifying the everyday strengths, potential derailers, and motives and values of every person on the team allows both leaders and team members to understand their reputations—how others perceive them. That’s the first step in strategic self-awareness.
   
   Understanding personality allows leaders to support team members’ communication and learning styles and to boost engagement. It allows team members to manage their behavior and relate with one another. Personality contributes to psychological safety because it acknowledges the characteristics of the whole person, empowering and encouraging employees to be fully present.
   
   
2. Model Psychological Safety.
   
   Leaders set the norms for their teams. When leaders model psychological safety with humility, authenticity, and vulnerability, team members feel safe to act the same way.
   
   Behaviors that contribute to team psychological safety include active listening, seeking feedback, taking responsibility, destigmatizing failure, and showing respect. Leader inclusivity is positively associated with psychological safety and thus unit performance.¹⁰
   
   Leaders who talk about emotions and challenging situations create space for others to share their struggles.⁹ Leaders who replace blame with curiosity show a learning mindset and effectively deescalate conflict.¹¹ Other positive communication behaviors from leaders, such as refraining from interrupting, thanking people for asking questions and sharing ideas, and using respectful language, can also contribute to team psychological safety.
   
   
3. Select for respect.
   
   Hire leaders with psychological safety in mind. McKinsey reported that supportive, consultative behaviors contribute to a positive team climate and therefore team psychological safety.⁶ Leaders who can develop people, build relationships, and leverage diversity, for example, tend to be good at creating psychological safety in teams. These competencies are strongly correlated to personality.
   
   To build team psychological safety, a leader must be motivated to create an environment of open, positive, team-oriented communication. People who score higher on Affiliation (MVPI) and moderately high on Sociability (HPI) tend to be good at establishing those norms. As well, the Altruistic score (MVPI) is associated with how a leader will treat employees and convey that employees are cared for and that their careers are important.
   
   Organizations can hire and develop leaders whose personalities tend to be respectful toward others, who care about people, and who are able to inspire others.
   
   
4. Measure psychological safety.
   
   Only 30% of US workers strongly agree that their opinions seem to count at work.¹² This is a dismal statistic for talent professionals and leaders alike. To be intentional about increasing team psychological safety, gather data and set measurable goals.
   
   Depending on the nature of the team, active listening and regular informal check-ins might be the best data-gathering methods. Surveys and polls could also help gauge the degree of team psychological safety in an organization. The data collection strategy itself is arguably less important than the genuine intention to understand whether employees feel safe to share their opinions.

Remote Team Psychological Safety

The essential nature of team psychological safety doesn’t lessen when the team is hybrid or remote. It’s perhaps even more necessary for leaders of remote, hybrid, or distributed teams to prioritize psychological safety than for in-office team leaders who have the benefit of physical proximity.

The responsibility still lies with team leaders to create an environment of psychological safety in remote teams. Most actions are consistent no matter the type of team, but certain practices around communication can be especially effective virtually. Leaders who share personal and professional challenges with remote or hybrid work open the discussion for employees to do likewise.¹³ Specifically in virtual meetings, leaders of remote teams should understand the pros and cons of app features such as hand raising, polls, and breakout rooms to maximize the opportunities for participants to share ideas safely.¹⁴

To revisit Tania and the new process for her team, inviting and hearing her team’s feedback, ideas, and questions would have improved Tania’s process rollout and built team trust. When a leader communicates with openness and respect, team members can feel more secure in their communication too.

Team psychological safety can not only prevent the loss of employees, efficiency, and creativity, but also add quality to employee retention, productivity, and innovation. When leaders model psychological safety in their behavior, they create space for team members to feel safe to be themselves at work.

References

[1]. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm

2. Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological Safety: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Human Resource Management Review, 27(3), 521–535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001

3. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

4. The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety [Book summary]. (n.d.). LeaderFactor.https://www.leaderfactor.com/4-stages-of-psychological-safety

5. Parker, K. (2018, September). Many Americans Say Women Are Better Than Men at Creating Safe, Respectful Workplaces. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/25/many-americans-say-women-are-better-than-men-at-creating-safe-respectful-workplaces/

6. Psychological Safety and the Critical Role of Leadership Development. (2021, February 11). McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/psychological-safety-and-the-critical-role-of-leadership-development

7. Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2002, January 11). Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toxic-culture-is-driving-the-great-resignation/

8. Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

9. Duhigg, C. (2016, February 25). What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html

10. Hirak, R., Peng, A. C., Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. M. (2012). Linking Leader Inclusiveness to Work Unit Performance: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Learning from Failures. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(1), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.11.009

11. Delizonna, L. (2017, August 24). High Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It. Harvard Business Review.https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it

12. Herway, J. (2017, December 7). How to Create a Culture of Psychological Safety. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236198/create-culture-psychological-safety.aspx

13. Edmondson, A. C., & Mortensen, M. (2021, April 19). What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/04/what-psychological-safety-looks-like-in-a-hybrid-workplace

14. Edmondson, A. C., & Daley, G. (2020, August 25). How to Foster Psychological Safety in Virtual Meetings. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/08/how-to-foster-psychological-safety-in-virtual-meetings

As tempting as it may be to draw up a list of personality characteristics of serial killers, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for serial killer personalities. What basis is there, if any, in the secretive, remorseless serial killer stereotype depicted on screen?

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Katherine Ramsland, PhD, professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University, about the personality of serial killers.

“I did not set out to be an expert on serial killers,” Katherine said. Nevertheless, she has appeared as an expert on more than 200 crime documentaries and written more than 1,500 articles and 69 books, the latest of which is I Scream Man: A Nut Cracker Investigation. She also collaborated with Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, on his autobiography.

Let’s dive into this fascinating discussion on debunking myths about the personalities of serial killers.

Personality Characteristics of Serial Killers

There’s no personality type for serial killers, no matter what crime dramas want us to believe. Simplifying serial killers with false assumptions can be dangerous. One such assumption is that serial killers have a concrete set of identifiable personality characteristics. They don’t.

What they do have in common is meeting the FBI’s definition of a serial killer. “You’ve murdered at least two people on two occasions. That’s it,” Katherine said.

Serial killers are far more complex than what the media depict. Serial killers have a wide motivational spectrum, and their motivations, not necessarily the fact of killing, reveal personality characteristics. Their motivations might be to seek fame, thrills, or sex, to pursue a delusional idea, to eliminate witnesses, or many other objectives. Even within a small framework such as serial killer shooters, there are a range of motives, methods, weapons, and other differences. “We’ve documented over 5,000 serial killers around the world and from different eras—so they’re obviously going to have lots and lots of differences,” she explained.

The story of historical serial killer Belle Gunness illustrates the importance of difference in motivation. Gunness was a late-19th-century Norwegian American pig farmer who advertised in newspapers for husbands and murdered them for their money. She didn’t kill primarily because she enjoyed killing but because she wanted to obtain the men’s wealth. Her motive was greed, not violence.

All we can really say serial killers share is a definition. But is there any basis to the stereotype of the psychopathic serial killer?

Serial Killers and Psychopaths

The relationship between serial killers and psychopaths looks exactly like a Venn diagram. Not all serial killers are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are serial killers, but some are both. The lack of empathy and remorse that most people imagine typifies a serial killer is sometimes, but not always, true. When psychopathy and serial killing intersect, experts often find the killer shows no empathy or remorse.

Another myth about psychopathic serial killers is that they enjoy killing. Again, some may, and some may not. In the case of mob assassins, one might murder dozens of people under orders with indifference, while another might find that getting hired to do some hits coincides with what he already likes to do (such as contract killer Richard Kuklinski).

Cubing

In her 12 years of communicating with Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, Katherine observed a phenomenon called cubing or compartmentalizing. She watched Rader rapidly shifting personas depending on his circumstances to create different impressions on different people.

This is called cubing because the sides of one cube are all part of the same shape, but only one face shows at a time. Psychopaths, who tend to have shallow emotions and no allegiance to truth, can switch seamlessly to any side of the cube: spouse, parent, employee, stalker, or serial killer.

Cubing can be a great asset to a serial killer. Rader showed psychopathic versatility in shifting quickly to the face he needed in any given situation. “They don’t care if they’re deceiving you or inconsistent as long as you buy the face they’re showing you today,” Katherine said. Whereas most of us have a commitment to our sense of identity, psychopaths shift identities to get whatever it is they want.

Serial Killer Nature Versus Nurture

What makes a serial killer, genetics or life experiences? The age-old nature versus nurture question is a challenging one when applied to serial killers. Katherine’s answer is that it depends. “For every given individual, how much is a measure of their inborn temperament versus things that happen to them is going to be different,” she said.

Nobody is born a serial killer, just as nobody is made into one. It’s a combination of factors. Human nature is too complex to dictate that, all other things being equal, two people will react the same way to the same stimuli. Having an abusive parent, for instance, wasn’t the sole cause of anyone becoming a serial killer (although it certainly may have been an influencing factor). Having a disposition to psychopathy doesn’t cause serial killing either.

“It really is a media-generated notion that there’s a profile of a serial killer,” Katherine reiterated. “What profile? There isn’t one.”

How do we identify a serial killer, then? Do they all have three phones, tend to disappear, and keep a hammer near the kitchen sink? No, identification is extremely difficult because every suspicious, red-flag behavior could have a benign explanation.

Generalizing about serial killers fails to recognize the ambiguity of the human condition. A high proportion of serial killers do have some of these characteristics, however:

• Many serial killers are psychopaths. They show no empathy or remorse and have no core values or internal consistency.
• Many serial killers are predators. They can be secretive and deceptive, and they actively search for victims.
• Many serial killers have a fantasy life. They imagine their crimes in advance and enact them in the real world to activate their mental reward mechanisms. They are often self-delusional.

Katherine made it very clear that there are always exceptions to the above characteristics and that it can be dangerous to apply a false profile to serial killers. “Human existence is more complicated than our formulas allow it to be,” she said. “They do a disservice not only to our understanding of offenders but also to people who are potential victims. I prefer the truth.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 61 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

For many people in the United States, the second Monday of October is a day to honor Indigenous people and their ancestors. Whether you know the day to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Native American Day, First Peoples’ Day, or Discoverers’ Day (Hawaii), the day honors Indigenous people, their cultures, their histories, and their perseverance. The day also celebrates the contributions of Native Americans to contemporary society and honors tribal sovereignty.

In 1992, the city of Berkeley, California, was the first locale to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in lieu of Columbus Day.¹ Berkeley formally renamed the holiday to show respect to Indigenous people and protest the legacy of violence and genocide against Native peoples led by Christopher Columbus and other European explorers. The city even declared 1992 the Year of Indigenous People.

Despite the 30-year history of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it has yet to be codified federally. Nevertheless, observation has become more widespread over the years. Today, numerous state and local governments throughout the United States acknowledge the day in some way, whether as an observance or a public holiday. In 2021, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation to formally recognize Indigenous People’s Day,² and Rep. Norma J. Torres (D-CA) introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives to designate it as a legal public holiday, replacing Columbus Day.³

Even if the holiday isn’t (yet) official where you live, your organization can still choose to observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Here are a few key ways you can do so meaningfully.

Make Indigenous Peoples’ Day a Holiday

This one is simple: Declare it a company holiday! Observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day is more inclusive than the federally recognized Columbus Day. As the HR Certification Institute points out, recognizing Columbus Day with paid time off “raises questions about equitable paid-time-off policies.”⁴ For some employees, the implications of observing Columbus Day may be emotionally painful.

HR professionals seeking to create more inclusive and equitable organizational cultures can also advocate for flexible paid time off policies. With a flexible PTO policy, people can take time off to observe days of personal significance at their own discretion. Inclusive to every demographic of employee, flexible PTO can be particularly impactful within global organizations.⁴

Keep the Programming Respectful

Make sure that any organizational programming is genuine and respectful. For advice on planning programming, Hogan recently spoke with Amanda Clinton, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and the owner and principal of A. R. Clinton Strategies. Clinton spoke about the diversity of cultures across Native American communities and the importance of respectful, authentic programming.

Seek Indigenous Expertise

­According to Clinton, a first step may be determining which of the federally recognized tribes in the United States may have a reservation, a seat of tribal government, or some other presence nearest to your organization. “If you are implementing an event, reach out to a federally recognized tribe and ask for advice on programming, speakers, demonstrations, or other ways to provide a meaningful experience,” she advised.

Cultural authenticity and recognition of tribal sovereignty are key, she told us. Tribal nations share a government-to-government relationship with the United States, which is the foundation of their right to self-governance and tribal sovereignty. Only tribal nations can determine citizenship or membership within their respective tribes. This right to self-determination may be based on kinship, a shared culture and heritage, or ties to a community. Hiring speakers who lack this shared experience or legitimate knowledge of Indigenous lifeways, cultures, and traditions could be problematic. It may also be offensive or uncomfortable for Native American employees with existing community and cultural ties to their tribe. Without proper consultation or vetting, even well-intentioned HR professionals might find that they’ve ended up offering misdirected education—doing more harm than good.

Clinton told us there are 574 federally recognized tribes, and each is eager to share their culture and heritage in their own way. Organizations located in certain areas of the country might need to look to other states within their region. Pennsylvania, for example, currently has no federally recognized tribes. Fortunately, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs has a useful database to facilitate your search.

Start Small and Be Thoughtful

When it comes to activities, “start small and be mindful of what you’re asking for,” Clinton suggested. Do you know if your organization employs any Native Americans, and if so, which tribal nations are represented in your employee base? Do your employees know one another? Many Native Americans may be hesitant to discuss their tribal affiliation in a day-to-day setting, but Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity for them to share their experiences.

And no matter what, she said, “don’t ask a tribal representative or speaker to share knowledge about sacred ceremonies, dances, or other sensitive topics that may not be for public consumption.” For instance, you might ask the tribe you contact to recommend a performer or storyteller. If you do, you should plan to compensate them for their time.

If you organize a book club, focus on books by Indigenous authors. Consider 2021 Pulitzer Prize winner The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians). Another popular choice among book clubs is 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award winner There, There by Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho). If the group has an interest in poetry, you might look to the work of three-term US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee Creek Nation).

Finally, don’t assume your Indigenous employees will necessarily want to participate in any events or activities you plan. They might not, and that’s OK. If you receive constructive feedback about your programming, be sure to listen to it carefully—but don’t expect that from them either.

Don’t Limit Effort to Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Most importantly, don’t limit your efforts to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Aside from the basics, such as fair pay, you might consider the following approaches to cultivating a more inclusive and equitable organizational culture.

Start an Employee Resource Group

Creating an Indigenous employee resource group can be a wonderful way to build community among employees and facilitate inclusion and belonging in the workplace. But don’t let it turn into a genealogy club. According to Clinton, Indigenous ERGs can unintentionally become venues where people try to prove ancestry to a tribe. This can be harmful for tribal citizens with established and legitimate ties to their communities or those with shared ancestral trauma from decades of federal policies such as Indian removal and Native American boarding schools. Establishing objectives for the ERG and creating an ERG charter can help you avoid this.

Mitigate Bias in the Workplace

Looking beyond the holiday also means taking measures to mitigate bias in your organization. One of the best ways to achieve this is by incorporating nondiscriminatory personality assessments in your talent acquisition and talent development strategies.

While many workplace assessments can discriminate (or be misused to conceal discrimination), well-validated and reliable personality assessments don’t produce any meaningful differences between demographic groups. What this means is that personality assessments can preserve diversity in applicant pools, making employment opportunities more equitable for historically excluded groups, including Indigenous people.

Our research shows that personality is a strong predictor of performance for nearly any type of role, in any industry, and at every job level. Using the right tools, hiring managers can identify the candidate who is best suited for the job, instead of selecting the one who is most similar to them—which is what often happens when interviews are the primary evaluation method in selection decisions. In this way, personality assessments can make it easier for Indigenous people and other members of marginalized groups to make it through the talent acquisition process and get the job offer.

Of course, diversity among employees matters little without a foundation of inclusion.⁵ Fostering an inclusive environment starts with hiring and promoting leaders who are capable of inclusive behavior—and personality can help with that too. Hogan’s data scientists have even identified competencies that can help you identify leadership candidates who will display sensitivity to the needs of others, relate to people whose perspectives differ from their own, treat others with respect and tolerance, discourage prejudice, and more.

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s much to do to prepare not only for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but also for the other 364 days of the year—and personality assessment is just one small part of a comprehensive diversity, equity, and inclusion program. But we’re here to help you and your organization create an environment where everyone has a sense of belonging. Once you’ve wrapped up your programming this October, get in touch with us to get started.

References

1. Associated Press. (1992, January 12). In Berkeley, Day for Columbus is Renamed. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/12/us/in-berkeley-day-for-columbus-is-renamed.html
2. Biden, J. (2021, October 8). A Proclamation on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2021. The White House Briefing Room. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day-2021/
3. Torres, N. J. (2021, September 30). H.R. 5473 – Indigenous Peoples’ Day Act. 117th Congress of the United States. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5473/text?r=43
4. Chiappetta, C. (2022, February 14). 3 Ways to Create Inclusive Holiday Policies. HR Certification Institute. https://www.hrci.org/community/blogs-and-announcements/hr-leads-business-blog/hr-leads-business/2022/02/14/3-ways-to-create-inclusive-holiday-policies
5. Sherbin, L., & Rashid, R. (2017, February 1). Diversity Doesn’t Stick Without Inclusion. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/02/diversity-doesnt-stick-without-inclusion

Intelligence and conscientiousnessⁱ have long been considered the pillars of academic success in higher education, but curiosity also deserves a seat at the educational outcomes table.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Sophie von Stumm, PhD, professor of psychology in education at the University of York, about the influence of personality on educational outcomes.

As learners move into higher education, the influence of personality on academic success increases. Why?

Let’s dive into this fascinating conversation about intelligence, conscientiousness, curiosity, genetics, and personality in educational outcomes.

The Effect of Personality on Intelligence and Conscientiousness

Cognitive ability is generally predictive of success across all educational levels. However, that association tends to decrease in higher education. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply that as we progress through educational levels, we are increasingly selected for our cognitive abilities. As a result, intelligence becomes less predictive of differences in achievement, while personality becomes a more powerful differentiating factor.

The second reason that intelligence matters less than personality in higher ed is that personality becomes more important in and of itself. “Personality has a strong influence on the environment that we select for ourselves,” Sophie explained. “It informs the niche or place that we want to pick for ourselves—and it does more so than intelligence.” Someone who is highly social isn’t likely to prefer solitary research in an isolated academic office, for example.

Just as intelligence bows to personality at higher levels of education, so does conscientiousness. Higher education tends to place less emphasis on sheer hard work and more on critical thinking. In a transformation of our cognitive skills, positive educational outcomes no longer rely on the standardized-test type of thinking in which we must figure out the right solution in the given time. Instead, we face the entirely different intellectual challenge of reading information, analyzing it, extracting what is important, and combining it with other information to create new ideas. “What we learn as we go through university is to think differently about information,” Sophie said.

It’s true that intelligence and conscientiousness are proven to correlate positively to academic success. These two predictors are largely independent of each other, however. One student may earn an A by studying for many hours, while another earns an A by skipping class but acing the test. Same grade, different method.

“Intelligence assesses what we can maximally do, whereas personality focuses more on what we typically do,” Sophie said. When everyone in a doctoral program is intelligent and conscientious, personality emerges as a key differentiator.

The Case for Intellectual Curiosity

Historically in psychological science, intelligence and hard work have been the only two pillars of educational outcomes. You have to be clever, and you have to work hard to make it at the top.

Now, however, we’ve seen a massive change in the way we work. The expectation of what a working life looks like is different than it was 60 years ago. It’s no longer reasonable to assume that your education or apprenticeship will carry you through your entire working life. “Careers don’t last 30 years anymore,” Sophie said. People work more years at more companies and even across industries, meaning that learning and adaptation are necessary for career success.

“Lifelong learning has suddenly become a fundamental element of surviving in modern society,” Sophie explained. “Curiosity could potentially matter more than being smart and working hard. Curiosity is the one thing that allows you to embrace novelty, and there’s a lot of novelty coming our way these days.”

The emergence of the third pillar indicates that wanting to learn and innovate is a crucial domain for educational outcomes and career success.

The era of curiosity is evident in higher education where students are encouraged to be independent learners, to question everything they encounter, and to seek out more information. It also aligns closely with success in leadership. We need leaders who can find creative solutions to problems, adapt to changing circumstances, and be open to experimentation.

The Role of Genetics in Educational Outcomes

If we are to consider intelligence, conscientiousness, and curiosity as the pillars of educational success, what role does genetics play across them?

The first point about behavioral genetics is that all traits are heritable, but that doesn’t make them innate. Children differ in their ability to read—but they aren’t born knowing how.They need reading instruction. It’s similar for intelligence, conscientiousness, and curiosity. Some proportion of the differences we can observe between people in psychological characteristics can be attributed to their genetic differences, but those develop differently depending on their environments.

The second point is that genetics always references differences between people, not within-person differences. Children who grow up in homes with a lot of books in the house tend to be more interested in reading and learning, but that’s not to say that the books alone are responsible for their curiosity. They tend to have parents with higher levels of education who create an environment that supports intellectual achievement and exploration.

It’s the age-old question of nature versus nurture. There’s no sharp line to say that half of a person’s curiosity is genetic and half is environmental. Growth has too many organic variables to allow us to assert much more than that both genetics and circumstances influence our personality.

Ways to Nurture Curiosity

Educational systems need to reward those who are intellectually curious, not only those who are intelligent and conscientious. “To help people be curious and value curiosity and learn to behave in curious ways, it would be important to deemphasize achievement in educational settings,” Sophie said. This means prioritizing independent study, student choice, and learning above grades.

Education for the sake of career preparation is arguably harmful to developing intellectual creativity in students. When we separate the acquisition of knowledge from profit, gain, achievement, or other traditional educational outcomes, we celebrate curiosity and critical thinking for their own sake.

On a positive note, Sophie observed that our nearly unlimited access to information has created a rich environment for curiosity. “Try something new at least once a week,” she said, giving advice for developing curiosity. “Do something that you normally wouldn’t do–and do it fully conscious.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 60 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Note

1. For the purposes of this particular podcast episode and blog, we use “conscientiousness” to refer to hard work—i.e., behavior, not a personality characteristic—in alignment with the research of our guest. Elsewhere, Hogan may use the term “conscientiousness” to refer to one of the dimensions in the five-factor model of personality, which forms the basis for the Hogan Personality Inventory’s Prudence scale.

A recent article in the Washington Post identifies many roadblocks for Black football coaches getting one of the 32 most-coveted jobs in the NFL: head coach. The Rooney Rule—a National Football League policy requiring teams to interview “at least one external minority candidate” for head coaching and senior football operation jobs—was established in 2003.¹ At the time, there were only two Black head coaches in the NFL. In nearly 20 years since, the number of Black head coaches has never been higher than seven, even though more than 50% of NFL players are Black. Why is this the case? While the Washington Post article covers many roadblocks many Black coaches face, I focus here on one key point the article makes:

“. . . the roadblocks faced by Black coaches stem in part from the fact that so many owners don’t know how to identify leaders.”

The inability to identify leaders is not just a problem for NFL owners—many organizations struggle to select effective leaders—but this does provide a poignant example of why so many organizations are so bad at it.

The Job Interview Is the Problem

Like leaders in many other organizations, NFL coaches are selected largely based on an interview with the owner and other executives. NFL owners and executive teams are often white and tend to have affluent backgrounds. Moreover, a typical job interview might last anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days. Being so short, these interviews offer little opportunity to get to know someone but ample opportunity for the hiring party to decide who they “like.”

This is where the trouble starts. Research shows that one of the most important factors in getting a job offer is being liked by the interviewer. Being liked is even more important than highlighting your achievements, as one field study showed.^2,3 Likeability has such a powerful effect on interview outcomes that I regularly give one piece of advice to job candidates who are preparing for interviews: you win the interview if they like you; you make them like you by ingratiating them, not by demonstrating your knowledge, talent, or capability.

And this is where the trouble continues. The research on ingratiation, or what makes someone like you, shows that similarity is one of the primary factors driving liking in initial interactions.⁴ In fact, one study showed that candidates with similar biographical characteristics to the interviewer were rated higher by the interviewer.⁵ All other things being equal, we tend to like people who are like us. This is particularly true when we have limited opportunity to get to know people beyond superficial characteristics, such as those experienced during a brief interview.

Returning to the typical NFL coach interview, this is a situation where a Black coaching candidate is trying to appeal to a white, affluent team owner in competition with a white coaching candidate who is likely more similar to the team owner. I think you can see the advantage is in the white candidate’s favor.

Unconscious Bias in Job Interviews

Now I want to be clear here. Bias is not always conscious. In fact, I suspect most team owners are making an earnest effort to hire the candidate who gives their team the best shot at winning. But similarity and liking are powerful and operate subconsciously: “I don’t know why, but I just have a good feeling about this person.” I believe this is the root cause of the hiring bias against Black head coaches in the NFL: owners largely hire the candidate they like the best, regardless of other qualifications, and they are more likely to like someone who shares their background.

Unfortunately, this is a problem for hiring managers everywhere. Evolution tells us that people are biologically wired to like people who are similar to them. The most common method for hiring—the interview—is all about liking. Furthermore, almost everyone thinks they are a good judge of talent, but the reality is that at least 50% of us aren’t.⁶ In fact, the entire business model for Hogan Assessments is founded on the notion that people are generally poor judges of talent and that personality assessments bring some objectivity to talent identification.

But talent identification is what makes the NFL coaching situation so much more problematic. More than 50% of the NFL players are Black. This suggests no bias against hiring Black players. Why is this the case? The answer is simple. Players aren’t evaluated largely by an interview. Players are judged based on their observable talent, their proven past performance, a huge number of objective metrics (including assessments), and their ability to get results.

Can you imagine what the NFL might look like if teams could decide who to hire based on only job interviews? That is precisely what happens with coaches.

An Equitable Leadership Selection Method

A better way to identify leadership talent exists. High-quality personality assessments—assessments with a proven track record of being accurate, fair, and unbiased against historically excluded candidates—are an obvious solution to the NFL’s biased coaching selection problem.

And they are a solution to your organization’s leadership selection problems too.

This blog post was authored by Chief Science Officer Ryne A. Sherman, PhD.

References

1. Sheinin, D., Lee, M., Giambalvo, E., Galocha, A., & Morse, C. E. (2022, September 21). How the NFL Blocks Black Coaches. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/nfl-black-head-coaches/
2. Higgins, C. A., Judge, T. A., & Ferris, G. R. (2003). Influence Tactics and Work Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24,89–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.181
3. Higgins, C. A., & Judge, T. A. (2004). The Effect of Applicant Influence Tactics on Recruiter Perceptions of Fit and Hiring Recommendations: A Field Study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(4), 622–632. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.4.622
4. Byrne, D., Baskett, G. D., & Hodges, L. (1971). Behavioral Indicators of Interpersonal Attraction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1(2), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1971.tb00358.x
5. Rand, T. M., & Wexley, K. N. (1975). Demonstration of the Effect, “Similar to Me,” in Simulated Employment Interviews. Psychological Reports, 36(2), 535–544. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1975.36.2.535
6. Alicke, M. D., & Govorun, O. (2005). The Better-Than-Average Effect. In M. D. Alicke, D. A. Dunning, & J. I. Krueger (Eds.), The Self in Social Judgment (pp. 85–106). Psychology Press.