1. PSYCHOLOGISTS AT WORK:
ARE WE WORTH OUR SALT?
PERSUADING PURCHASERS OF OUR VALUE
Chair
• Brenda Lobb
– University Auckland b.lobb@auckland.ac.nz
Panel
• Frank O'Connor
– RAP Consulting franko@rap.net.nz
• Paul Barrett
– Hogan Assessment Systems Inc pbarrett@hoganassessments.com
• Helena Cooper-Thomas
– University of Auckland h.cooper-thomas@auckland.ac.nz
! "#

2. WHAT DO I/O PSYCHOLOGISTS OFFER?
Is there a difference of view between
• what matters to clients
• what is offered them
What difference in expectation exists between
• a purchasing client organisation
• the direct user of the services
What about the difference between
• what clients think they'll get (and why it matters to them)
• what clients think they got (and why, sometimes, it doesn't
matter to them)
Or between purchase decisions based on
• business results … — … staying comfortable
• client perceptions … — … our technical merits
! "

3. CAN WE ACHIEVE CLEARER EXPRESSIONS
OF THE RESULTS WE EXPECT OUR
CLIENTS TO RECEIVE
What will they get?
• How these can be observed
• What these are likely to be worth to the client
– in financial, operational or emotional terms
Where is the focus on our clients' most important
question …
"What is it you can do for me?"
! "$

4. LET’S TAKE COACHING
Who is more likely to be useful as a coach to an
organization?
• a BSc + MSc + PhD-trained I/O psych
• a trained and registered community psychologist
• a clinical doctor of psychology
• a BA Psych with 20 years applied-organizational experience
What’s wrong with this question?
! "%

5. WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC BUSINESS
RESULTS I EXPECT MY CLIENTS TO
RECEIVE, AS A PRODUCT OF MY WORK?
How these can be observed
• Who will see what, and who cares?
• What will be done differently, from Monday?
• What won’t be okay anymore?
What these are likely to be worth to my client
• What changes financially?
• What changes operationally?
• What changes emotionally?
What’s the balance between organisational and
individual wins?
! "&

6. WHY DO WE HAVE TO ASK "ARE WE
WORTH OUR SALT?" AT ALL?
“Other professionals seem not to have to ask this of
their professions”
• Civil Engineers
• Architects
• Barristers
• Chemists
• Tax Accountants
• Nurses
• …
“Those who do ask are trying to enlarge businesses
or establish themselves in new markets”
– But how do we persuade others of our value when we offer no more
and sometimes less expertise than other "organizational"
professionals?
! "'

7. WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC BUSINESS
RESULTS I EXPECT MY CLIENTS TO
RECEIVE, AS A PRODUCT OF MY WORK?
How these can be observed
• Who will see what, and who cares?
• What will be done differently, from Monday?
• What won’t be okay anymore?
What these are likely to be worth to my client
• What changes financially?
• What changes operationally?
• What changes emotionally?
What’s the balance between organisational and
individual wins?
! "

8. WHAT DO OUR CLIENTS REALLY WANT TO
DO?
What tells them the past year’s activity has done
well enough?
• Is this answer variable?
• Is there a consistent set of goals?
In the achievement of these goals, more often, more
easily, what is the place of
• Motivation
• Leadership
• Intuition
• Values
– What’s wrong with this question?
! "(

9. WHAT DO WE PROMISE FOR CLIENTS?
What do we actually say they will get?
Do we actually deliver all of what we promise?
What do clients request from us that they can't or
don't get from another other profession?
• “Tangible and consistent problem-solution/profit-enabling results
which would not have happened if an I/O psychologist had not
been directing events so as to produce the required outcomes”
! ")

10. WHAT DO WE PROMISE FOR CLIENTS?
! "#

11. “DEMONSTRABLY EXPERT IN THEIR
VISIBLE DOMAIN OF EXPERTISE”
What exactly is the "unique" expertise of an I/O
psychologist, which cannot be matched by any
other kind of professional from the HR or
management community of professionals?
• Qualification: In what way is an I/O psych distinguishable from a
"strategic HR management consultant" who has
diplomas/degrees in HR and management, and maybe even an
MBA?
• Effectiveness: Have we a specific performance-related expertise
that delivers results that are more valued, being more enduring,
cost efficient, palatable, risk-free ….
• Method: If we confine professional I/O psych to "research and
assessment", we are no different to other applied scientists
working with different constructs / approaches to the same aim
! "##

12. WHO NEEDS “A CLEARLY IDENTIFIABLE
ESPECIAL/UNIQUE EXPERTISE”?
Is the most substantial difference now a matter of
name between I/O psychologists and other
professions such as therapists, counsellors,
"executive coaches", "evaluation consultants", HR
consultants, and management consultants?
• Have I/O psychologists diluted their own status and professional
visibility by forgetting that it is not "guild status or guild-
credentialed expertise" which clients remember, but the actual
results produced by a profession who are demonstrably expert,
perhaps uniquely so, in their visible domain of expertise?
! "#

13. OUR EXPERTISE IS NOT DEFINING US!
If our expertise is not defining us, and is not seen
as producing immediately identifiable and
professionally unique solutions to clients ….
• If we do not see ourselves as uniquely different from other
professions, then we really do have to approach client-value
questions in the manner in which anybody selling their services
to clients in a competitive environment might do
• If the evolving model for I/O psychology really is more
management/HR consultant than psychologist, then why bother
worrying about whether clients see us as professionals with
unique expertise
• What matters more is providing the kinds of services which do
not require high levels of narrow expertise, in order that a wide
as possible net can be cast into a market swarming with other
potential providers of exactly the same kinds of generic
business/organizational services
How very depressing.
! "#$

14. FOR BIPOLAR DISCUSSION
“That which we do uniquely well is research and
assessment
HR weenies, executive coaches, counselors make
up their answers; done correctly, we provide data
based answers to important practical questions
“The bad news, is, ask an important practical
question, and we have little to say—what’s the
nature of leadership?
“All those years of research amount to very little
because they defined leadership the wrong way
“But in principle, that’s what we contribute.”
– Bob Hogan
! "#%

15. FOR BIPOLAR DISCUSSION
“The … chilly reality is that the market for I/O
expertise is not as large as is required by the now
veritable hordes of psychologists who wish to offer
services within it
“So, that ‘business’ has to be generated proactively
in competition with other professionals whose
expertise is nearly indistinguishable from each
other”
– Paul Barrett
! "#&

16. IS IT ENOUGH TO TALK ONLY OF WHAT
CLIENTS SAY THEY WANT?
Should we be suggesting useful interventions
within organizations?
Do our intervention proposals make plain the
consequences of our planned actions?
What consequences should be testable? By whom?
Which risks? Which benefits?
Who should consider the risk of interventions not
working, in part or whole?
! "#'

17. IS THE LEVEL OF AVAILABLE I/O SKILL FIT
FOR PURPOSE?
"There is plenty of work out there for the I/O
equivalent of a suburban solicitor specializing in
family law or conveyancing or whatever"
• At journeyman level, where most of our trade is plied and where
good client benefit should be achievable, skills shortages relate
to the client’s needs rather than our own tools
But journeyman I/O psychs have little special or
unique expertise
• plying generic business-oriented services to clients in a wide
variety of situations, competing with several other professions
• their expertise and capacity to solve problems that no other
profession can match is no longer considered viable or desirable
by the profession itself
– “I see I/O psychology as an elite specialization, where we are
literally applied scientists in the work-place—not many clients need
our unique services”
! "#