Time is running out to register for RELEVANT´s JAM SESSION in Frankfurt, Germany, at a discounted price of EUR 79 plus VAT. The early-bird registration is open until February 28, with the price increasing to EUR 99 plus VAT on March 1.

The event, hosted by RELEVANT Managementberatung, an authorized Hogan Assessments distributor from Germany, will be held on July 4 and will also feature presentations by corporate and consulting experts. Moreover, they will welcome Dr. Robert Hogan as well as Hogan CEO, Dr. Scott Gregory, as special guests who will also be on stage.

RELEVANT’s interactive session, “New Leadership? Authentic in Turbulent Times,” provides the opportunity for all RELEVANT customers, partners, and friends to come together, learn from case studies, and discuss how leadership in times of continued transformation might change, how it affects managers, and how managers can be supported addressing turbulent times in a way that is true to their personality.

Space is limited, so register here today! 

Most of you probably know Hogan Assessments was founded by Bob Hogan, and he’s been our guiding force to this day. But how well do you really know him? Did you know his original background was in physics and engineering? Or that his interest in leadership came from leading a janitorial crew for properties owned by Hollywood elite, followed by finding a way to fix cannons for the U.S. Navy? What about his work as a probation officer, which lead to a study of how to solve the problem of crime?

In this video, you’ll get to hear more about Bob Hogan’s colorful life, as well as his thoughts on how psychology works to understand leadership, and his advice for undergraduate psychology majors.

HRTools, Hogan’s premier distributor in Mexico, is hosting a breakfast event on October 16 in Mexico City featuring Dr. Robert Hogan and Dr. Ryne Sherman as speakers.

Dr. Hogan’s presentation will cover the topic of humility and effective leadership. When organizations search for new leaders, they consciously or unconsciously look for candidates with charisma. However, a robust new line of research on leadership shows that charisma degrades leadership and often creates long-term chaos and ruin within organizations. In contrast with charismatic leaders, humble leaders admit their mistakes, listen to feedback, and solicit input from knowledgeable subordinates, and this creates an environment of continuous improvement.

Here is a brief preview of the presentation from Dr. Hogan:

Dr. Sherman’s presentation will focus on ROI and employee selection. People are an organization’s most important asset, and creating a competitive advantage begins by assessing and hiring the right candidates and developing them. Organizations that don’t use valid and accurate assessments in the selection process have to rely on intuition instead of data. This results in a lot of wasted time, energy and, most importantly, money.

Here is a brief preview of the Dr. Sherman’s presentation, as well as a message from HRTools founder, Victoria Zapata:

Dr. Hogan and Dr. Sherman will speak at 9 am at the Presidente InterContinental Hotel at Campos Eliseos 218, Polanco, Polanco IV Secc, 11550 Ciudad de Mexico. Registration for the event is currently full, but you can reserve a spot on the waiting list here.

I find it annoying that Economics is regarded as a more advanced discipline than Psychology. For example, there is a Nobel Prize in Economics but not in Psychology; this is odd because the field of “behavioral economics” is nothing more than applied cognitive psychology. Several years ago, I started reading The Economist magazine in order to understand what the economists have to say about how to organize human affairs. The big question in economics concerns identifying the policies that are best suited to develop national economies. Therefore, if Economics is a useful discipline, then economists should have something to say about how to grow an economy. If they do, then we can take their (very important) message to sub-Saharan Africa, Cuba, or Venezuela.

The April 14^th, 2018 issue of The Economist contains a startling admission: professional economists have no clue about how to promote economic development; specifically, economists have no idea why rich countries became rich in the first place. The problem is, economists study “structural factors” (e.g., tax policy, access to capital, property rights legislation)—objective features of government that can be quantified—and this is the wrong place to look for answers.Consequently, economists have no serious advice for poor countries—or anyone else.

The Economist magazine goes on to note that the most promising approach to understanding economic development is to study “…the ways in which culture and politics constrain economics…” This is because economic development depends on “…decisions about economic governance taken by…leaders, which will in turn be influenced by social and geo-political forces that economists scarcely understand and generally ignore.”

Three observations come immediately to mind. First, it seems to me that the challenge of developing a successful business is much the same as developing a successful economy although on a much smaller scale. Second, there is some consensus among psychologists about how to develop a successful business, and organizational psychology is all about how leaders make decisions regarding the economic governance of their businesses in response to the social and geo-political forces that economists generally ignore. And third, there are important differences in leadership effectiveness, which translate into important differences in organizational effectiveness. Specifically, leadership drives organizations, some leaders are better than others, and some organizations outperform others. Crucially, we can also evaluate leadership potential with our well-validated assessments—something economists cannot do.

It seems obvious that economic development depends on effective leadership. Effective leaders create cultures and build teams to implement plans and strategies that allow their organizations to outperform their competition. Some leaders do this better than others—and some cultures and visions produce better results than others. I know very little about leadership in post-WWII South Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong—all of which have developed successful economies—but Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) in China and Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015) in Singapore were largely responsible for the economic development of their countries through the plans, practices, and procedures they were able to implement.

As for the industrial revolution that made Western Europe and the northeastern United States rich, Hopper and Hopper (The Puritan Gift, 2009) suggest that a relatively coherent set of values (a particular culture) was the key to their rapid economic development. That is, the ruling elites in Western Europe and the New England colonies shared a set of values that, in conjunction with the development of new technology, were the key to their economic development. I would add that the potential leaders of the industrial revolution inherited productive cultures rather than (as is the case today) having to create them. The values that defined these cultures included being committed to a higher purpose, seeing financial success as a sign of progress toward realizing that purpose, and practicing a leadership style that minimized hierarchy, encouraged individual initiative, and persuaded people to work together.

But my point is, psychologists understand leadership and how effective leadership creates organizations that can outperform their competition. People innately respond to effective leadership because, as group living animals, they unconsciously understand that what is good for their group is good for them. That is to say, I believe psychologists know more about economic development than the economists. The problem concerns translating this knowledge into action—i.e., finding effective leaders who are dedicated to the common good rather than to self-enrichment.

The test publishing industry is unregulated. As a result, many commercial test publishers ignore validity, and sell the psychometric equivalent of snake oil. However, when most reputable assessment vendors care only about their bottom line, they have little incentive to care much about the validity of their assessments. And, because of the high stakes involved in global employee selection and development, this is one of the most deceptive and harmful business practices of the 21^st century.

Simply put, valid assessments predict performance; assessments that lack validity cannot predict performance. In this new video, Bob Hogan expands on the importance of validity in assessments, and explains the steps necessary to establish validity.

*This is a guest post written by Joel A. DiGirolamo, Director of Coaching Science for the International Coach Federation.

I enjoyed reading the thought-provoking paper “New(ish) Directions for Vocational Interests Research”by Hogan and Sherman. It is jam-packed with concepts, models, and logic that offer fodder for many thought exercises.

I certainly agree with the assertion that “values are the real underlying subject matter of vocational psychology.” When looking more broadly, however, it seems to me that the following hierarchy exists:

Traits & Needs

↓

Values, Beliefs

↓

Attitudes & Interests

For example, imagine two individuals, Carrie and Linda, both with a trait or need to nurture. Now imagine that Carrie has a value or belief that strong security is necessary to nurture individuals. Linda, on the other hand, values inclusion in order nurture those on the periphery of a society. Taken to the next level, we can imagine that Carrie’s security value or belief could promote her taking on a conservative attitude and an interest in the military. Meanwhile, Linda’s inclusion value might cultivate a liberal attitude and an interest in protecting immigrants. Thus, we see that a common trait or need can manifest itself in significantly different behaviors. This example also illustrates Allport’s assertion that traits tend to be nondirectional and attitudes tend to be directional.

The statement, “In our view, people don’t have traits, they have goals, intentions, and agendas, and it is these motivational terms that explain their behavior—which traits describe,” greatly depicts the role of traits and the idea that motivation is really a moderator. We all have traits, needs, etc., but it is motivation that gets us off the sofa and is therefore a moderator toward action or behaviors.

Many theories and research studies related to interests and job satisfaction have been written over many decades. I believe there is a confounding factor in the motivation to work a specific job, however. As many describe, higher satisfaction is somewhat correlated with interests. Yet this doesn’t seem to account for those individuals who take specific jobs solely for the money they make. These individuals may be financially satisfied with their jobs but are not satisfying their intrinsic desires. I’ve always felt that individuals work either for meaning or money and that some are fortunate to derive both from their job.

In a related view, the table below is how I look at an individual’s job satisfaction in relationship to employer job satisfaction, which I am using as a proxy for job performance. In the top two quadrants, the employee may find meaning in their work and thus happy with their job even if they are not doing it well. The lower right quadrant may be a person who is working solely for money and thus unhappy with their job, but their employer is happy with what they are doing. The people in the lower left quadrant may be those individuals some refer to as unemployable. They’re both incompetent and unhappy.

As we look back at the material covered in the Hogan and Sherman piece, we can get a sense of deep understanding as to where interests that lead to job satisfaction come from. Backtracking from interests to values to needs and traits can bring greater understanding as to what may be driving an individual’s job satisfaction and possible conflicts therein. Returning to my example of the individual who takes a specific job simply for the money, we could easily imagine that this individual has a need for financial security. Perhaps they also have a trait of wanting to help people and have a good set of mathematical and financial skills. Maybe they have an interest in both financial work and helping others to become more financially stable. However, the only job they currently can find that they view as financially secure is one that does not help others, creating a possible internal conflict between the need for financial security and helping people. When queried as to their job satisfaction, it is easy to see how this internal conflict could leak out into conflicting measures of job satisfaction.

And so, we see the value this piece brings to bear; it highlights and takes a fresh, clear look at vocational interests in the context of the traits, needs, values, beliefs, attitudes, and interests. It is my hope that this piece enlivens and brings greater depth to the discussion on vocational interests.

Culture can best be defined in terms of the values that guide the behavior and decision making of a social unit—a team, a family, a business, etc. Culture is not vague and touchy-feely; cultures can be easily and reliably assessed using any number of commercially available survey instruments. Cultures have real, concrete behavioral consequences, and they directly influence the performance of business organizations. As Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management practices, observed: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” That is, no matter what strategy a company might adopt, the culture will enable or prevent that strategy from being implemented.

A concrete example might help. Several years ago, we were contacted by a newly opened, high end hotel in London because it was struggling financially. We assessed the top management team using our measure of values and found the following. On the one hand, the top management team had very high scores on the Customer Service, Aesthetics, and Hedonism scales, which meant that they cared deeply about quality, style, and providing a superb and enjoyable customer experience; these values are perfect for hospitality. On the other hand, the top management team scored low on the Power and Commerce scales—which meant that no one cared about making money or beating the competition—and this explained their poor financial performance.  

There are four points about values that are worth noting. First, when people join organizations, they bring their own values with them, and the degree to which their values align with the values of the culture powerfully affects their subsequent performance. As Clarke Murphy, the CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates, observes, “We hire for talent but we fire for fit.” No matter how talented people might be, if their values are inconsistent with the culture of their organization, they will not succeed.

Second, the culture of an organization reflects the values of the executive team. On the one hand, the executives will largely share values—and those who don’t share the values of this team will leave. The values of the executives indicate the kinds of behaviors that are paid attention to and rewarded or punished accordingly. Over time, this process creates cultural homogeneity (Professor Ben Schneider calls this Attraction, Selection, Attrition–ASA). But no matter the terminology, culture is driven from the values of the people at the top.

Third, values are largely unconscious. People rarely reflect on their values because they are part of “the world taken for granted;” values are to people much like water is to fish—values are just part of the environment in which we operate. External feedback is usually needed to become aware of our values and our workplace culture.

Fourth, not all values are equally valuable. For example, some values like greed and selfishness create dysfunction in the groups and businesses where they exist; dysfunctional cultures seldom realize lasting success.

Finally, all successful teams share essentially the same values; these include tolerance, fitting in with the team, loyalty, hard work, a commitment to excellence, and an intense desire to beat the competition.

When organizations are working to identify new leaders, too often they gravitate toward those who are charismatic, narcissistic, and inappropriately self-confident. These individuals tend to emerge because they are well-liked and masters in the art of office politics. However, decades of data and research prove that people with these characteristics are extremely ineffective leaders, and can ultimately destroy the organizations they have been chosen to serve.

On the contrary, leaders with humility combined with the appropriate amount of self-confidence have proven to be extremely effective in leadership roles because of their ability to build and maintain high-performing teams. Unfortunately, they are often overlooked by their superiors due to their inability to emerge in most organizational settings.

In this video, Bob Hogan discusses the importance of humility in leaders and how Hogan Assessments is preparing to help organizations across the globe to identify future leaders who are humble, competent, and effective.

Developed in 1980, the Hogan Personality Inventory, which describes the bright side of personality, has aged like a fine wine. With a commitment to validity and reliability, Hogan’s flagship assessment is continuously updated and analyzed by our industry-leading research division.

Whether your goal is to find the right hire or develop stronger leaders, assessing bright-side personality gives you valuable insight into how people work, how they lead, and how successful they will be. Simply put, the bright side is who you are when you are at your best.

“The bright side of personality is you when you’re keeping your real self under control,” says Bob Hogan. “It’s you when you’re a smoothly functioning hypocrite.”

In this video Bob Hogan discuss the bright side of personality and how some people have more attractive bright sides than others, which allows them to get along, get ahead, and have more successful careers.