We’ve done it again! We’ve come up with another fascinating edition of TIP-TOPics for Students! But before we get to our regularly scheduled segments, we have some business to attend to. First, we’d like to offer our best wishes to Mike Coovert as he turns the TIP editorship over to Allan Church. Thank you Mike—the experience we’ve gained through your guidance and support over the last year has been invaluable. Welcome to Allan Church—we’re looking forward to the exciting times to come at TIP!

Next, we want to let all of our readers know about the TIP-TOPics gathering at SIOP. We’re planning a gathering of all current and FUTURE student representatives. Yes, this is a recruiting ploy. Come on over and meet your column editors and the student reps who have been providing all of that interesting, intriguing, humorous, and crucial info that you’ve been reading over the last year. While you’re at it, you can volunteer yourself or nominate someone who could not attend the conference to become a student representative from your university. We will announce the location, date, and time of the gathering on the message board at SIOP, and we will also post this information on the web (http://www.siop.org) as soon as the details are available to us.

Now, on to the main event. As you know, the current issue of TIP is dedicated to getting an outside perspective on what our vision should be as I-O psychologists. In keeping with that theme, our In the Spotlight segment, written by Jenifer Kihm, shines on the Springboard program at Bowling Green State University. The Springboard program, in a nutshell, involves a developmental partnership of volunteers from the business community and students. The objective of this pairing is to develop a set of competencies, which are highly valued by the business community, but outside of traditional academe. This program is valuable because it allows students to gain an outside perspective on their own professional development, and it provides insights into the needs of the "clients" that these students will be serving in the future.

This issue’s You Know, I’ve Been Wondering… segment gave us the unique opportunity to rub elbows with nationally and internationally known business people and ask for their perspectives regarding the future of I-O psychology, and the role that I-O psychologists can play in twenty-first century organizations. In the pages to come, you’ll hear from academicians representing world-renowned business schools including the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Harvard Business School, and the Yale School of Management, as well as one internationally known speaker, author, and businessman—Kenneth Blanchard.

Finally, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask the Chairman of Blanchard Training and Development, Inc., author of numerous business books and texts (most notably The One Minute Manager), internationally known speaker, and founder of The Golf University for a tip or two for our readers. We conclude our column with Dr. Blanchard’s TIP for Balancing Life and Graduate School.

College curricula are usually designed to help students master knowledge of their major area of study. However, there is more to successful performance at work than knowledge alone. Effective employees also need skills, abilities, and other competencies, such as good judgment, problem-solving skills, confidence, leadership potential, and the ability to communicate effectively. Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is expanding its curriculum with a program called Springboard, because knowledge alone is not enough. The majority of the development and initial implementation of Springboard has been done by I-O psychologists. Milt Hakel is its founder, and many I-O graduate students are also involved in the program design and the early stages of its implementation.

Briefly, Springboard is a series of one-credit courses at BGSU. There are no professors or exams. Each student is paired with a volunteer coach, who comes from the ranks of graduate students, faculty, administrators, university staff, and community members. Currently, recent Springboard "graduates" also serve as coaches as the program grows and more coaches are needed.

Throughout the semester, students participate in sessions designed to develop the targeted competencies: communication (both oral and written), analysis and problem-solving, judgment, leadership, and self-assurance. The sessions feature activities very familiar to I-O psychologists: leaderless group discussions, negotiation, an in-basket exercise, problem-solving, planning exercises, and many public speaking events. None of the activities are graded, and most are video-taped. Students meet regularly with their coaches to review their performance one-on-one. Together, the coach and student identify what was good about the performance and areas that need improvement. The one-on-one interaction allows the student and coach to develop a rapport that really facilitates learning.

Response to Springboard by both students and coaches has been overwhelmingly positive. One strength of the Springboard program is that it involves members of the business community. When business people serve as coaches they become actively involved in developing the abilities that they and their peers are demanding from the workforce. This aspect of the program helps students gain an outside perspective (from the people they will be working with and for) on the types of competencies that will be expected of them when they enter the workforce. With the help of their coaches, students are exposed to, and learn why, certain competencies are important to the business world. Comments from coaches indicate that they feel Springboard is a great way for students to understand and develop valued competencies, but still maintain their sense of self. The program is structured so that each student works on developing these universally valued skills, but their methods and messages are their own. Many of the exercises require the students to really think about what they believe and who they are. They then present or convey this information to other students when writing, speaking, discussing, and negotiating. The combination of introspection and communication is powerful; both students and coaches stand to gain from the experience.

Serving as coach is a learning experience for the business community members as well as for the students. One coach said "it [serving as a coach] allows me to get in touch with the age of the time." Coaches learn what is important to today’s students, who will be members of tomorrow’s workforce. In addition, the Springboard program provides coaches with the opportunity to complete many of the same exercises that the students do. For instance, all coaches go through the in-basket exercise that requires analysis, problem-solving, judgment, and good communication skills. For many of the in-basket components, there are no correct answers. This mirrors the business world, where judgments are not necessarily right or wrong either. One coach said "I got some really good insights...seeing how differently [the student] responded from how I did. When I wrote my answers, I just assumed they were the correct answer."

One aspect of Springboard that is very different from the typical college course is the unstructured, one-on-one interaction. The coach and student pairs meet regularly outside the development sessions to discuss the student’s progress. These meetings often take place at non-academic locations, such as at coffee shops or restaurants over coffee or lunch. They give coaches a different context in which to view the student’s development. Many coaches have commented that this part of Springboard lets them really get to know the student and better understand what skills he or she is particularly interested in developing.

Another important feature of Springboard is the positive feedback. Coaches and other students provide positive feedback regularly. Developmental feedback often comes in the praise-criticism-praise mode. During Springboard sessions, positive feedback often stands alone. And, it is genuine. This feature has been particularly salient to both students and coaches. One coach commented, "It really took me a long time to use praise all by itself…Praise always gets combined with something else—a criticism, or more work to do. But straight, positive feedback really works."

The Springboard program offers benefits to all involved, not just the students. Understanding what is important to students and to the business community can help organizations too. With this information, organizations can mesh these ideas with their own and build work environments that serve both the organizations’ and their members’ needs.

If you would like more information about Springboard, contact the Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, (419) 372-2301.

…about the future of our field. Which upcoming business trends will have the greatest impact on our field? What problems and issues will benefit most from the attention of I-O psychologists? How can I-O address these issues to improve the twenty-first century organization?

Although these questions are not new, they are especially compelling for I-O students—the newcomers who represent the future of the field. Some students already have certain ideas about the types of questions and problems that they will likely address during their careers. Furthermore, many students can tell you exactly how their major professors, dissertation committees, and seminar instructors would answer the questions listed above. But what about professionals working expressly in the field of business? What would the recipients of our I-O services have to say about the future of our field?

The objective of this segment is to gain a business management perspective on the most critical issues that I-O psychologists will need to address in the not-so-distant future. To fulfill this objective, we contacted some very accomplished individuals in the field of business, and we asked their opinions about how I-O can profoundly and positively impact the business community in the years to come. As you will see, the various members of our "business sample" offered widely different (and widely useful!) ideas about how the field of I-O psychology might effectively focus its energy to induce positive changes in the business environment of the future.

Undoubtedly, technological advances will continue to change the work world well into the twenty-first century. Dr. Nolan believes that these advances will create an increased need for job stress-related research and practice.

One of the most important issues facing business requiring substantive research from the academic community is helping workers cope with the demanding job environment of the Information Age. The pre-computer job environment of the Industrial Age was paced by the annual budget cycle, and narrowly focused on the production process of "make and sell." In contrast, the Information Age work environment has increased the cycle time of organizations to real time, and extended the scope of the organization by electronically connecting to the customer in "sensing and responding" to their needs in real time. The new requirement requires workers to resolve customer needs and problems while they are "on the phone;" to cope, the worker must effectively and efficiently use technology (IT), and operate at a hectic, demanding pace. Worker stress may be at an all time high.

Dr. Nolan also believes that the twenty-first century business environment will require I-O psychologists to address issues related to organizational restructuring.

In many ways, business has downsized and complicated the worker environment without fully installing the critical features of the new environment, including IT infrastructure providing real time access to knowledge, training, and new organizational structures required for making the Information Age organization work. Creating the new work environment will require important contributions by the academic community as we enter the new century.

In addition to job stress and organizational restructuring, the future I-O practitioner needs to help organizations and employees effectively cope with the organizational change that is driven by technological advances. According to Dr. Oster,

The principal feature of modern business life is rapid change, caused both by new technologies and by the increased diffusion of both new technologies and new ideas through increasingly permeable national boundaries. Change is typically very difficult for organizations to deal with, and any help that the industrial psychologists could provide would be worthwhile.

Dr. Sawhill also cites organizational change management as a key area where I-O can make an impact.

I think the greatest contribution you could make would be in the area of change management. We live in a rapidly changing environment and the pace of change is accelerating. Companies need to respond to this change in a way that creates value for their shareholders. Many of these companies have strong corporate cultures that are difficult to change. They need help in becoming more flexible and responsive so they can deal quickly and effectively with changes in workforce values, consumer tastes, and so forth.

Dr. McFarlan reiterates the increasing importance of change management. He states,

The dominant issue in the field of IT and organization today is change management. The new technologies have allowed very different ways of organizing and controlling work. Firms who can manage this process effectively dominate those who cannot.

As an I-O-trained business school professor, Dr. Wilk emphasizes the increasing importance of human resource management.

One of the things that I believe to be of critical importance, and becoming more so, is the competitive advantage firms can have through its people. …The effective management of "human assets" (rather than "labor costs") will be especially important as, for example, the marketplace becomes more and more global, and different country cultures, customs and the like will be merged under a single company culture operating on a global scale. Likewise, the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions of organizations create opportunities for I-O psychologists to study and facilitate the integration of employees with different employment experiences, beliefs and values.

Dr. Wilk also provides some specific ideas about how future I-O psychologists might contribute to the area of organizational change (via selection research). She states,

the speed with which information flows and technology advances is creating pressure on organizations to constantly update. The ability to learn as well as the ability to adapt will become critical capabilities. Selection research in areas of personality, ability and the like to improve the assessment of candidates’ "capacity for" and "comfort" in this type of environment will be needed.

On a somewhat different note, Dr. LaPalombara recognizes the negative consequences of technology and asks I-O psychologists to consider their broad social responsibilities regarding the welfare of workers who will be affected by new technological advances.

In the U.S. (much more than in other cultures) we try to instill the idea that technology is in the driver’s seat, that change is not only inevitable but essentially good, and that workers must simply accept the negative consequences of what this may imply where jobs, income, status, and so forth are concerned. In so far as I-O has actively participated in reinforcing and uncritical acceptance of this kind of thinking, it has been engaged in what the con artists universally describe as "cooling out the mark." This is neither a dignified nor an honest nor, in the long run, a constructive approach to the…problems created by [technological advances]. So, for starters, I-O should ask itself some probing questions as to what it assumes its broader social role and responsibility to be.

Dr. Useem lists four priorities that warrant I-O attention. Several of his research questions will grow more and more pressing as competition becomes increasingly global.

[I-O psychology’s] greatest impact should come in the area where we have the greatest need for academic and practical answers, and at the top of my list of leading questions are these four:

(1) How can organizations best foster the development of leadership skills among all employees, not just top management?

(2) What pressures will the globalization of product and equity markets place on managements to restructure their operations and make more effective use of their human assets?

(3) To what extent are incentive compensation and performance-based promotion systems likely to be adopted by organizations worldwide?

(4) How can organizations and their employees best cope with and solve the problems brought on by economic crises like those presently faced in several Asian economies?

Answers to these and related issues should help foster the frameworks needed by both social researchers and company managers to interpret and master the worlds they are inheriting and remaking.

Dr. Singh emphasizes the importance of considering employees’ reactions to globalization and technology. In this regard, Dr. Singh describes some major areas where I-O can impact the twenty-first century business world.

With the caveat that the prognostication business is highly chancy, especially, as one wise man put it, when it pertains to the future, I would pick four themes that can benefit from the attention of I-O psychologists going forward.

(1) New technologies (including IT and communication technologies) are changing the nature of work in organizations. It will be useful to have new insights into the psychology of work in light of these new technologies.

(2) Even as the demands on employee time escalate, there is no reason to believe that the fundamental cognitive limitations of human beings have suddenly changed. How do people cope with the sometimes bewildering informational demands the workplace can put on them and with what effects?

(3) More and more, work can get done across traditional organizational boundaries and across national or time boundaries. So a software project may be run on a round-the-clock cycle, with teams in different nations taking over from each other. What can we say about the dynamics of teamwork and interdependence in settings that are not face-to-face?

(4) More and more, highly valued specialist employees have global mobility, at least in certain industries. What is the way best to think about issues of loyalty to firms, turnover, careers, and so forth, in this changed context of global labor markets? What are the implications for individual careers?

Dr. Kogut urges future I-O psychologists to consider the historical and environmental context of their research. He provides an example of a historically sensitive research approach in light of the technological advances that the business world is currently experiencing.

An important challenge to micro-organizational work is to integrate work on the individual with the ways in which people—including scholars—understand the context of these changes. New technology takes a particular historical and contextual meaning. What this suggests is that the finding of interest is not how do people respond to new technology, but how do they respond specifically to the introduction of information technology, or to the coordination of work done by groups located in different countries. I-O would make a wider contribution, I suspect, understood as part of an historically evolving social science influenced by, and willing to influence, its environment.

Dr. Barsade suggests that future I-O psychologists will be most effective if they strive for intradisciplinary communication and collaboration.

I-O psychologists have the unique benefit of being trained in both I and O, and should use this knowledge by focusing on the intersection between I and O, rather than polarizing between a mainly I or mainly O treatment of organizational issues. …Looking at an organizational problem through an integration of both [the I and the O] perspectives can lead to richer knowledge than examining the problem through both perspectives, but in isolation. The focus of I-O psychologists should be on the process of evaluating and studying organizational problems through their uniquely integrated lens.

According to Dr. Blanchard, author of the best selling business book The One Minute Manager, the field of I-O psychology can have the greatest impact by focusing on "impact." That is, enhancing performance by identifying individual, group, and organization level criteria and developing people to meet those criteria.

Today, competition out there is so fierce, that unless all of us can help individuals in organizations perform better, help that is geared toward key areas of [individual] performance…they’re not going to be around too long. It’s interesting, in the One Minute Manager, I said—"people who feel good about themselves produce good results" —which is really true. But when it came out, I realized I got caught in the human relations game, making everyone feel good. I changed that in Putting the One Minute Manager to Work to— "People who produce good results, feel good about themselves." I think what helps [employees’] self-esteem in the world of work is to create an opportunity where they can win, which is accomplish goals [and] exceed expectations. So I think we have to constantly ask, what are the performance indicators? What [performance indicators] will let you know whether you, your group, or your organization is performing well? How can we help [direct] people’s behavior toward having an impact?

In addition to focusing on performance or impact, Dr. Blanchard suggests that I-O psychology may also have a substantial impact by assisting organizations in developing strategies for the future.

This is the first time in history that [a company] can be great at what they are doing today, and out of business tomorrow. [We have] to work with companies to show them that they not only have to improve their present but create their future simultaneously.

In summary, the academicians that we contacted tended to agree that increased globalization and rapid technological advances will provide the framework for I-O psychology in the near future. This, however, is where the consensus ended. Each professional (academic and nonacademic) offered some unique ideas about what our vision should be as I-O psychologists. These ideas touched on topics as divergent as job stress, organizational restructuring, organizational change management, human resource management, I-O psychology’s broad social responsibilities, leadership, computer-mediated team communication, the historical context of I-O research, communication between "I" and "O," and individual and organizational performance enhancement.

Professionals in the business field are in a strategic position to offer useful insights about the future of I-O, given their unique perspective on the changing nature of the business world. Before we charge full-force into twenty-first century I-O (or even 1999 I-O, for that matter), it is essential for us to take the questions that we continually ask one another and pose them to business scholars and professionals. These views may further prepare and guide us toward the areas where we will be most effective during our careers.

The objective of this segment was to gain a business management perspective on the most critical issues that current and future I-O psychologists should address. The importance of looking beyond I-O to obtain this "outside" perspective is best summarized by Christopher McCusker, Ph.D., I-O psychologist and Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management:

We need to hear as many divergent views as possible and struggle to make sense of it all. Then, we need to be creative in our own thinking and try to make an authentic difference using all of the scientific tools at our disposal.

In addition to his views on the future direction of I-O, Kenneth Blanchard was kind enough to offer some advice on balancing life and graduate school. In general, he discussed how students might weather the graduate school storm by obtaining and maintaining vision and perspective.

Graduate school can be [a test of] endurance rather than intelligence. The toughest part of graduate school is maintaining your perspective. Students must have a clear vision of why they are in graduate school. If the response is "to be marketable" that may not be enough. It has to be more specific.

To illustrate this point, Dr. Blanchard passed along an anecdote. At the beginning of the path to One Minute Manager fame, Dr. Blanchard and his co-author, Spencer Johnson, initially sold their book themselves, then they decided to go to a publishing house. Before approaching publishers, they heeded the previously stated advice and built their vision regarding specific publication goals. Coincidentally, Dr. Blanchard soon found himself seated on an airplane next to a regional sales manager for B. Dalton. The B. Dalton contact was impressed by his lofty goals for the book, one thing led to another, and well, you know the rest of the story—all-time best selling business book!

The moral of the story is…if you don’t have a clear vision or objective of where you are going and why (in grad school, as well as in other areas of your life) you might not know what to do with the opportunities that are presented to you along the way. In sum, graduate school and life are most successfully balanced when students maintain their perspective and develop a clear vision of the future.

e-mail: Lori Foster (foster@luna.cas.usf.edu)
Dawn Riddle (riddle@luna.cas.usf.edu)
mail:      Department of Psychology
               BEH 339 University of South Florida
               Tampa, Florida 33620-8200
               Fax: (813) 974-4617