Having a Seat at the Table: I-Os in Visible, Strategic Roles

¹ Many thanks to Wayne Baughman and Elizabeth Kolmstetter for their input on how to increase the impact of I-O psychologists, which helped in forming many of the ideas discussed here. Thanks also to Gary Carter and Wendy Becker for their suggestions on a previous version of this article.

For many years, the perception that our profession has less visibility, impact, and prominence than it should has plagued I-O psychologists. A burning question and frustration has been—“why do economists, attorneys, MBAs, and management consultants seem to get called upon more frequently than we do to address important issues related to organizational effectiveness, human capital strategy, and work-related issues in general?”

A considerable amount of energy has been directed to understanding and addressing this question over the past several years. SIOP’s Executive Committee has initiated a number of task forces that have focused on studying visibility issues and developing strategies to increase our impact. These efforts have been directed to educating those outside our profession about who we are and what we do, with the ultimate goal of being the trusted advisors that corporate, government, international, and media leaders call upon for advice in our areas of expertise.

Specific strategies that SIOP has undertaken to increase our visibility include promoting more education about I-O (e.g., in undergraduate programs), consulting with PR advisors, translating our research into accessible practice guidelines, issuing press releases, and disseminating research findings that are of interest to the public. In spite of these efforts, the prevailing opinion is that we have not yet achieved the degree of impact we’re looking for as a profession.

The importance of increased visibility and our commitment to this issue was codified in SIOP’s most recent strategic goals, in which visibility is a consistent and major theme. For example these goals include making SIOP the

visible and trusted authority on work-related psychology, and
advocate and champion of I-O psychology to policy makers (Hough, 2006).

This kind of visibility requires operating at a strategic level and contributing value to addressing the most pressing human capital and business challenges.

One trend that may enhance our visibility is that the work performed by I-O psychologists is broadening. No longer are selection test development and validation the mainstays of our applied work. Instead, I-Os in organizations are increasingly focused on implementing integrated human capital systems and processes (staffing, performance management, employee development, pay, change management, communication) to drive business outcomes that are necessary to compete effectively in today’s global economy. This shift in focus is likely due to two primary factors:

Demands have increased for fast implementation of efficient, technology-enabled human resources products (e.g., job analysis instruments, selection assessments, surveys, performance management systems). This has resulted in many more standardized products in the market that are delivered as Web-based services, decreasing the need and desire for customized tools developed from scratch.
There has been an important realization, especially in knowledge and service organizations, that the most critical resource an organization has is its human capital. Thus, having an effective human capital strategy and systems that are aligned and reinforce each other in support of the organization’s overall strategy and goals is essential for success.

I-Os at the Table

At the recent SIOP conference in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to serve as discussant in a session entitled “Innovations in the Intelligence and Defense Community,” chaired by Wendy Becker and Wayne Baughman. Presenters Elizabeth Kolmstetter, Wayne Baughman, and Dave Dorsey discussed profound organizational change that has occurred in the federal government as an aftermath of 9-11.

Prior to 9-11, separate intelligence and defense organizations performed but rarely shared related work. This was intentional—the organizations were designed as “stove-pipes” with deeply entrenched “need to know” cultures. However, post 9-11 commissions and reports concluded that much tragedy could have been mitigated with better coordination, collaboration, and consolidation of intelligence information across organizations. These findings served as a major catalyst to drive unprecedented structural, procedural, and cultural change in the federal government.

Our panel discussed their roles and responsibilities to align 16 disparate intelligence and defense organizations while at the same time, fundamentally changing significant aspects of the culture and the way they do business. At the core, success in making these changes relied on major, strategic human capital reform, which I-O psychologists are enabling. Thus, the panelists in this session have attained the type of strategic leadership positions that increase the visibility of our profession.

How Did This Happen?

To answer this question, it is important to understand both the characteristics of the situations in which these panelists are operating and how they were able to position themselves in strategic roles. They reported several common situational characteristics:

Many powerful constituencies must have a stake in the process and outcomes.
The challenges are complex and difficult to address.
The solutions need to drive important, bottom-line outcomes across multiple organizational units and very large numbers of people.
The human capital systems needed to achieve change are large-scale, integrated, and blended, simultaneously involving strategy, IT, I-O, training, communication, and change management components.
Speed to implementation and delivery of clear, value-added results are essential.

Although these panelists all work in the federal government, the situational characteristics they describe are mirrored in many private-sector organizations.

To achieve a strategic leadership role in these situations, panel members felt strongly that a constellation of skills is needed beyond the technical skills we learn as I-O psychologists, including the ability to:

Effectively diagnose, navigate, and incorporate business, political, and social realities into thinking and solutions. These are critical aspects of the environment and must be treated as core when developing recommendations and systems, rather than treated as peripheral background noise.
Conceptualize and deliver integrated, blended solutions that incorporate what behavioral science has to offer from multiple disciplines. Operating as a broad generalist rather than a deep specialist makes one much better equipped to address complex human capital challenges.
Engage in multifaceted strategic and critical thinking regarding both immediate and downstream consequences. It is imperative to demonstrate how our solutions solve stakeholders’ important problems in a practical and compelling manner.
Listen carefully to what stakeholders are saying, both overtly and in more subtle nuances. Stakeholders often tell us the rules of the game, give us the playbook, and try to help us run the plays, but we need to understand the value of this information and carefully attend to it. It is important to not inadvertently dismiss client input as a nuisance when it is often the roadmap to success.
View issues from the perspectives of multiple, diverse constituencies and deliver win-win solutions of clear value, to include ROI when possible. Solve our stakeholders’ problems, rather than doing what we want or think is best, connecting the dots so our contributions are clear.
Manage and win over diverse stakeholders and naysayers through effective communication, collaboration, compromise, persuasion, and negotiation.
Adapt to stressful, unstable, and unpredictable situations, and remain resilient in the face of constant change.
Drive results and stay focused in spite of obstacles, disappointment, and setbacks.
Find salient role models who successfully color outside some of our narrow lines, build on their work, and seek their advice for how it’s done.

The Marketing of I-O Psychology

In comparing the requirements of high-profile work with how we typically present ourselves, an important question is, Are we clearly communicating what we have to offer? Here are some examples:

Often, we seem to describe what we do in terms of our I-O toolkit, or in other words, the content of our work. We say, for example, that we perform job analyses, conduct selection research, design and validate performance measurement systems, and so forth.
Another way we often describe ourselves is as measurement experts who perform rigorous research in organizations. We pride ourselves, and rightly so, on the fact that our work is based in scientific methods and data driven, meaning that people can have much more confidence in our conclusions than those based solely on observation and experience.
We also discuss our expertise in implementing professional and legal standards. We are the profession that helps organizations defend against challenges to their human capital systems. In practice settings, it is not uncommon for I-Os to wield the litigation stick to persuade decision makers to follow proper validation procedures.

In sum, we tend to describe ourselves as a profession of highly specialized technical experts, which may be pigeon holing us into a very narrow niche positions. More than once, I have heard I-O psychologists described as “the people who sit in their offices all day analyzing data and telling us what we can’t do.” This image will certainly not help us obtain visible positions at the table. Instead, we need to translate what we know, make it accessible, and show its relevance for addressing the key challenges organizations are facing.

As examples, instead of describing ourselves in the ways outlined above, what if we said the following?

We provide practical, actionable, and proven strategies to predict, control, and explain human behavior in organizations. The value we add beyond HR professionals, MBAs, economists, attorneys, and other professions is that we apply established behavioral science principles, models, and methods in our work, which enable us to maximize results.
We are able to solve the most complex problems and develop innovative solutions because our training focuses on teaching us how to integrate information from various sources and disciplined analysis. This means we are the go-to profession for addressing really tough and high-stakes human capital challenges—and this distinguishes us from other professions.
We help organizations mitigate human capital risk. Our mitigation strategies are all-encompassing, ranging from using our tools and techniques to identify the best talent, to ensuring employees stay motivated and deliver results, to helping organizations retain and fully develop key talent.
We provide innovative thought leadership and proven best practices that increase efficiency, effectiveness, and bottom-line business results.

More concretely, here are two ways we could respond to an executive who wants to know what can be done to improve collaboration across units.

Response 1: The Traditional I-O Response Describes What We’ll Do

We’ll start by conducting a job analysis. We’ll develop draft performance standards and content validate them by conducting workshops where SMEs will make linkage ratings between job analysis data and the standards. This will help maximize your ability to prevail in the face of a legal challenge. Finally, before we implement the standards, we’ll pilot test them to ensure they have adequate psychometric properties and adequately differentiate between employees.

Response 2: The Strategic I-O Response Sells Our
Value in Solving the Problem

We’ll start by supporting senior leadership in clarifying the vision, conceptualizing and defining desired objectives and outcomes, and planning the actions needed to achieve the vision. To help engage everyone and build buy-in, we’ll work with employees and managers to define how collaboration can be improved across units. We’ll use the information we collect to set clear expectations for collaboration organization-wide that realistically reflect what is possible on the job. Finally, we’ll provide tools and train managers how to evaluate and reward employees who are collaborating well. In turn, this will reinforce and motivate further collaboration across the organization.

Note that both of the above examples propose exactly the same thing—developing and implementing job relevant performance standards to drive behavior. Yet the two descriptions are likely to leave others with very different views about who we are, what we do, and the value we add.

Concrete Tips

Summarized below are several strategies to help increase our visibility based on lessons learned in our panel session.

Broaden our view of the roles we can play and the expertise we can bring in addressing multifaceted human capital and organizational behavior challenges. Take a strategic view and connect the dots so others see how we are contributing to the organization’s success.
Broaden our skill and knowledge base to include other related disciplines, such as organizational development, communication, change management, coaching and counseling, and information technology. Generalists are much less likely than specialists to get pigeonholed into narrow, insular positions.
Don’t wear our “technical” badge too overtly and translate what we know into plain language. Other professions do not know as much we do about how to apply and integrate proven behavioral science principles effectively in organizations. Thus, we can actually offer great ideas and effective strategies that others cannot. The key is communicating about these in a persuasive manner that instills confidence and shows value.
Forgo a “rigor at all costs” mentality. Do not be paralyzed by the inability to gather extensive data or conduct rigorous research. Have confidence in what can be extrapolated from the extensive body of research and practice our profession has amassed and the knowledge that this enables our solutions to be more effective than those offered by others.

Call to Action

More attention should be devoted to understanding the characteristics of high-impact environments and the skills I-Os need to operate effectively in them. A conscious effort to recognize these situations and build critical skills should result in more I-Os performing this type of work, thereby helping to increase the visibility and strategic impact of our profession overall.

As a next step, we (members of the SIOP panel) will gather additional information to address the following questions more systematically:

What are the characteristics of high-impact engagements?
What skill sets do I-Os need to operate effectively in strategic and visible roles?
What is the road map to getting there?
What are the implications for I-O training and development?

If you are an I-O psychologist who works in a strategic, visible role (or if you know someone who does) we want to hear from you. Please send us names and contact information so that we can learn from your experience. We will report back on our findings in a later issue of TIP.

We need your comments and ideas and look forward to hearing from you!

Elaine Pulakos: elaine.pulakos@pdri.com or Wendy S. Becker: wbecker@siop.org

Reference

Hough, L. (2006). Presidential address: Shaping our destiny. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 44, 17–24.

Having a Seat at the Table: I-Os in Visible, Strategic Roles1

Having a Seat at the Table: I-Os in Visible, Strategic Roles¹