W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc.

Real adj. 2: not artificial, fraudulent, illusory or apparent

World noun 1: earthly state of human existence

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the real world—that is, my perception of it anyway. Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the first edition of this column, I’d like to spend a little bit of time talking about how it came to be and the concept behind it.

When Allan Church first approached me about doing a column in TIP, I was a bit hesitant to say the least. I mean TIP is a serious newsletter, which strives to enlighten and inform a well educated and highly intellectual audience—a group of thoughtful and perhaps somewhat staid professionals. While I, on the other hand, might be considered by those who know me to be a bit of an over-zealous ranter—a tad opinionated and not always in check. In short, I can get a bit carried away when it comes to my beliefs, which are not always exactly grounded in fact, the norm, or even PC. All of this is my long-winded way of saying that I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for the job. Despite my initial misgivings and already insane work schedule, I decided to go ahead and take on the column. I guess I just couldn’t help myself—what else would any self-respecting over-zealous ranter do? Besides, underneath it all I really did have an idea for the piece that was to me a compelling one. FYI, according to Mirriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a compulsion is an irresistible impulse to perform an irrational act—so it all makes sense in a nonsensical sort of way.

All joking and neuroses aside, what is The Real World all about? My basic idea for the column is to link some of what is going on in the field of I-O to what is happening in the larger world. Part of what draws me to this field is the applied nature of what we do—that is to say, theory building, testing and application in "the real world." As a result, I spend a lot of time noodling about how what we do fits into the rest of what is going on around us, as well as how our work is perceived by those outside the world of I-O. So, I hope that those of you who choose to read this column find some value in the links I will be striving to make.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, I also want this column to be "live" (i.e., interactive). The final piece that I will work to incorporate into the column is reader commentary and feedback. In terms of reader commentary, part of the column will be dedicated to email responses from various SIOP members regarding the topic du jour. So please don’t be alarmed if you receive an email from me asking for your thoughts on a given I-O related topic, and please do respond!

In terms of feedback, although it’s a somewhat corny expression, I do believe that good feedback is a gift. Therefore, I hope you will contact me with any feedback (or interesting rantings) you may have about the real world—both what’s going on in this column and what’s happening out there in your part of it.

Finally, for those of you who are still with me, thank you and I hope you will stay with me for the rest of this column and beyond.

The Past Meets the Present in The Witch Doctors

If you’re anything like me, reading about the profession in the popular press is somewhat titillating. Let’s face it, it’s cool to work in a field that is as intriguing as ours, although sometimes intrigue is not always positive. If the dark side of fame is notoriety, then the dark side of intrigue could be disgust. For example, I recently picked up a copy of the Business Week best selling book entitled The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of Management Gurus by Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997), who by day are staff editors for the highly respected British business publication The Economist.

In a very small nutshell, the book is based on the premise that management consultants and those doing related work (e.g., "management psychologists-psychometrists who draw up profiles of desirable recruits") are the "unacknowledged legislators of mankind who…lay down the law, reshape institutions, refashion the language and above all reorganize people’s lives." In response, the book is designed to help managers in search of consultants make sense of what The New York Times Book Review calls "management guru nonsense." At first glance this appears to be an admirable undertaking although a bit cynical but admirable nonetheless—a book aimed at helping end-users better understand and utilize consultants and consulting based products. Much to my dismay, however, I found that the majority of the book was focused on critiquing and lampooning management consulting, management science, and to some degree the field of organizational and consulting psychology. Although I am always a proponent of critical thinking for the purpose of improving the current state, I do not believe in criticism for criticism’s sake alone (or for the sake of making a quick buck at someone else’s expense).

In fact, from the get go management consulting and management science were not even given a fair chance. A case in point. The very title of the book is blatantly pejorative. It portrays organization consulting as a field consisting of a lot of hocus pocus rather than substance. Although the technical definition of a witch doctor is benign enough—a professional worker of magic, usually in a primitive society, who often works to cure sickness—I object to the imagery it conjures up (pardon the pun). Let me explain that while I do not necessarily disagree with the idea that as scientists and practitioners of I-O we are working within a primitive society (unfortunately, I think this is all too true), I do object to the idea that organization consultants are practicing magic and not science. I never realized that I was going to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in shamanism. So then what were all those courses on research methods, experimental design, organization behavior etc., etc., about? I don’t recall any of my professors chanting any magical incantations when conducting a factor analysis or doing dances to raise the spirits of long dead theories so I was a bit surprised by the analogy. However, the authors state in no uncertain terms that "Modern management theory is no more reliable than tribal medicine."

Nevertheless, the sales alone generated by the book (which incidentally is now selling in softcover at every airport I’ve passed through in the U.S. over the past 6 months) point to the general public’s need or at least receptivity to a book of this type. In other words, it wouldn’t be so popular unless a lot of people out there could identify with it. This makes me sad—sad that so many have had such negative experiences in this arena. Let me provide a direct quote from the book that I think is pretty poignant:

This brings to mind the famous quote from Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." What companies, what kind of survey, conducted by whom, what other surveys, what other results, etc? The quoted findings are clearly sensational, but are they valid? Who knows?

So what’s the answer to this sad state of affairs? Not surprisingly, the answer to it all comes at the end of the book (just six short pages from the end, to be precise). Ready? The answer is that "management theory is a young discipline; its canonical texts and defining methodologies are still being developed." Three hundred and thirty-seven pages of bone jarring, criticism and that is the answer. I feel much better. Well all I can say is that yellow journalists in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Perhaps if I were smarter I could tart up some pithy little acronym as a retort. Oh, well.

Scott Adams: The Consultant of the future?

This is a true story. Recently, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) pulled off a hoax by successfully posing as an organization consultant to a team of senior leaders at Logitech. He was brought in by Logitech’s vice chairman (a confederate) ostensibly to help the leadership team define a new mission statement for their New Ventures Group. Calling himself "Ray Mebert" and disguised in a wig and fake mustache, Adams told the group that his consulting experience included working on Procter and Gamble’s "Taste Bright Project" a hush-hush effort to increase the company’s sales by improving the taste of soap.

Prior to contact with Adams, the original mission statement of the group was "to provide Logitech with profitable growth and related new business areas." Adams eschewed this statement and worked with the leaders to develop the following mission statement: "The New Venture Mission is to scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings." At the end of the session Adams revealed his true identity as the Dilbert cartoonist (ABCNEWS.com, 1997).

So there you have it—Dilbert, Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert and now Mebert. Seriously, I myself was outraged by the hoax. Sure, on the surface it seems funny, but when you stop to think about it it’s a pretty scathing indictment of the perceived utility of most consultants. It reminds me of the Hans Christian Andersen story about the emperor with no clothes.

However, despite my initial visceral reaction, I wanted to gain some insight from others in the field (both academics and practitioners alike). I guess you could say I wanted a "reality check." To this end, below are several email responses to the following questions I posed regarding the Adams hoax:

1. What is your general reaction to this scenario?

2. What does this say about the applied side (especially consulting) of our field?

3. What, if anything, would you suggest I-O psychologists do about this?

***

Subj: Re: Comments on Dilbert for TIP
Date: 98-04-29 14:06:29 EDT
From: DWBRACKEN@aol.com
To: J9151@aol.com

1. My initial reaction is that this is a cruel hoax that wasted a lot of people’s valuable time for no good reason.
2. I think it says more about business "leaders" and their lack of judgment than it does about consultants. What it says most about is Scott Adams, and it’s not good.
3. The only constructive thing to do is to point out the questionable ethics of this type of hoax.

Dave Bracken
DWB Consulting
Atlanta, Georgia

***

Subj: Re: Comments on Dilbert for TIP
Date: 98-05-12 14:59:12 EDT
From: RSCHMIE@aol.com
To: J9151@aol.com

1. I am not surprised.
2. There are individuals out in the business world who are damaging the reputation of consultants. Consultants can provide significant value to businesses; however, they can also waste organizations’ time and money.
3. I-O psychologists have deep expertise in evaluation methodology. We should continually evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to consulting and the results that we deliver to businesses.

Rob Schmieder
Personnel Decisions Incorporated
Seattle, Washington

***

Subj: Re: Comments on Dilbert for TIP
Date: 98-05-21 16:30:45 EDT
From: bachioc@bgnet.bgsu.edu (Peter Bachiochi)
To: J9151@aol.com (J9151)

Hi Janine. Here are my thoughts.

My immediate reaction: somewhat amused and somewhat appalled. I’m amused because of the striking similarities to the mind-numbing meetings to generate mission statements of which I had been a part in the past. It’s frightening how quickly a group can get off track and how far they can wander. I’m appalled at the vice-chairman’s and Scott Adams’ willingness to attempt this hoax. It seems like the "lessons learned" would not outweigh the resentment of the team being duped.

This hoax says volumes about the power of the external consultant. Often, a consultant will garner immediate credibility simply by being a "fresh perspective from outside the company." As an internal consultant at a previous employer, I was often bothered by the schlock that some external consultants would come in peddling. Yet these consultants were seen often as the panacea for which the company had long been waiting.

As I-O psychologists, we need to educate our clients about the level of quality they should come to expect from consultants, both internal and external. If nothing else, we need to ask and to expect our clients to challenge us at times and not just follow our recommendations blindly. That blind faith in "experts" leads to situations just like the one mentioned above.

Peter Bachiochi
Psychology Department
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio

***

Subj: Re: Comments on Dilbert for TIP
Date: 98-05-07 12:17:58 EDT
From: mjk04@cnsibm.albany.edu (Michael J. Kavanagh)
To: J9151@aol.com (J9151)

Janine:

Since I assume Adams was highly paid or the group was told that he was highly paid, then the story exemplifies the old consulting adage: Your consulting work and advice is valued at exactly what you charge for it. Thus, doing pro bono work as an applied psychologist is valued at zero.

The story also illustrates the commonly accepted practice in management to look for the "quick fix" in the latest fad. With a carefully planned project with milestones lasting for months or years, most ethical applied researchers or consultants get the reject slip.

Mickey Kavanagh
State University of New York at Albany

Well, there you have it. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was perturbed by the incident. Sometimes it’s good to know these things before you go off on a rant; it gives you a little more face validity. With that said, I personally agree with all of the comments above. In particular, Peter’s allusion to the concept of caveat emptor (for those of you who don’t speak Latin or haven’t seen the Brady Bunch one too many times, that means "let the buyer beware"). Just because an idea is being "peddled" by a good looking, sounding, and smelling consultant doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Customers need to be informed in order to make good decisions. We can and should help with this education.

Which reminds me of an ad that used to run locally on TV in New York during the late 1970s and 1980s for Syms Department stores. Their motto was something like "An educated consumer is our best customer." Although the ads were a little cheesy and obscured by a heavy New York accent, the point is a good one. Customers, consumers, end-users, call them what you will, must be educated in order to make informed decisions. However, this also means that they must bear at least part of the responsibility in choosing and working with consultants. To let oneself be hoodwinked in such a way is no doubt embarrassing, as well it should be. Although I am not completely without sympathy, it seems to me that senior executives with often obscene compensation packages should know better. Sometimes it makes me wonder about the validity of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

In terms of what we can do about this, I think the message from both The Witch Doctors and the Adams hoax is that anything we do as scientists and/ or practitioners needs to be grounded in sound theory and research. Of course this is a no-brainer, but it bears repeating. In order to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the barbarian hoard we need to adhere to principles and practices that will support us in the long run: ones that make sense and will afford us self-respect. Faddishness is a recipe for disaster. It all reminds me of a photograph my parents took of me in the mid 1970s when I was about 5 or so years of age. There I was smiling away in my red and white checkered, polyester, hip-hugger, bell-bottoms, thinking I was cool. Ten years later the bell bottoms weren’t so cool. Twenty years later they are absolutely ludicrous and bizarre. Fortunately, only a handful of people (who supposedly love me) will ever see that wretched vision. The professional world, however, is not so forgiving. The moral of the story is never peddle red and white checked, polyester, bell-bottoms to your client just because they are in style. You may live to regret it.

On that note, dear reader I bid you adieu. But before I go I would like to thank my email contributors, Peter Bachiochi, Dave Bracken, Mickey Kavanaugh, and Rob Schmieder for taking the time to provide their thoughtful comments for this column. I would also like to thank Allan Church for giving me the opportunity to write this column and for his patient proofreading. Please feel free to contact me either by email at J9151@aol.com or at my home away from home, W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., 201 Wolfs Lane, Pelham, NY 10803 (914) 713-0080 (tel.), (914) 738-1059 (fax). I look forward to hearing from you!

Associated Press. (November 15, 1997). Cartoonist’s consultant coup. ABCNEWS.com (On-line). Available http://www.abcnews.com