Normality vs. abnormality
7.3 Psychologists as Business Consultants
146 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious
There is a tendency to use tests just because the organization has bought them. Rather than spend all one’s effort measuring the personalities of direc
tors, the HRC may wisely make recommendations about the organizational culture (the values and norms of the organization), climate (the perception of employees), communication networks, clients, customers or competitors’
perceptions. Organizational problems require organometric audits just like those carried out by the finance department. Measuring instruments (ques
tionnaires, tests) need to be robust, reliable, valid, multidimensional, sensi
tive to faking, and normed for the appropriate population. Human resource consultants must, of course, not only choose and administer good tests, but must know how to analyze them appropriately and interpret the data.
As HRCs know, many personnel officers often shy away from objective hard data, preferring softer interviews, reports or selected quotes from key players. This may be one reason why they are often despised by their hard‐
headed colleagues in accounts, strategic planning, and even marketing.
Nevertheless, many HRCs are experienced and trained psycho‐ and organo
metricians and are well able to measure important organizational variables.
Instruction
There is, and there will probably always be, a place for “chalk‐and‐talk”
training. Now more likely to be run with personal computers, impressive videos, self‐instruction, completion booklets, and elaborate feedback reports, the business of education remains a central task for some HRCs.
Training adults is a challenging task for the HRC. There are people in organizations who are themselves very bright and highly educated, and may be extremely critical of any outside consultant.
The good HRC soon realizes that training adults is rather different from educating students. Training managers must be practical and con
crete, with lots of memorable examples and helpful models. Whereas aca
demics are trained to be critical and skeptical, HRC instructors soon realize they are more appreciated if they are enthusiastic and zealous about the cause. Human resource consultants are frequently extraverts with a self‐confidence that extends somewhat beyond the bounds of their ability.
As a result they rarely fear the role of teaching, training or instructing, although they may not be that good at it. Good teaching is a rare combi
nation of intellectual ability and knowing how to put information across.
Certainly instructing or teaching is a crucial function for many HRCs.
For many, alas, the term training has a poor reputation and trainers are considered rather lowly (paid) sorts of consultant, especially when teachers are trained to deliver packaged courses.
148 All in the Mind: Psychology for the Curious Process
Some HRCs specialize in process or interpretation as opposed to product.
When, for instance, a management team is underperforming or suffering low morale, the process‐oriented HRC might be called in not only for diagnosis, but also to provide a cure. Process skills are closely akin to group psychotherapy, and indeed that may be how the consultant was originally trained.
Just as most accidents are the result of human error, so, quite com
monly, poor business operations are the result of human frailty. Whether one prefers to use meaningless euphemisms like personality clash or not, many people recognize that the quality of human relationships in offices, teams, and departments contributes to business success or failure. It is the intangible psychological factors of morale, conflict, and lack of commit
ment that the process consultant hopes to make manifest and explicit.
Good HRCs, and those with psychoanalytic training, are frequently able to reveal unexpected or even paradoxical findings, such as depression amongst employees being a consequence of their anger.
To some, process consultants represent the wackiest California‐type psychological airheads who ask both intrusive and daft questions primarily to embarrass. Furthermore, they may not even come to a conclusion, write a report or deliver any tangible outcome. Insight alone is often the orally explicit goal of the process consultant. It is nearly always the case that process work has to be done by the outside consultant. Politically, the personnel department may wisely judge it necessary to lure in consultants, albeit at some cost.
Systems
Some HRCs are specialists in devising, operating or tweaking systems like a performance management system, selection system or staff development system. More often than not this involves the development of fairly sophis
ticated computer‐based statistical software. As a result, these HRCs are not the warm and cuddly process type but hardened fellows.
Because writing software and developing systems is very time consum
ing, these HRCs tend to offer a fairly fixed package. It is true that it can be personalized or adapted to suit each organization, but these modifica
tions are usually fairly minimal. In this sense the systems HRC sells pack
ages used by the personnel department.
Some computer‐illiterate and number‐phobic directors are highly gul
lible to the hard sell of systems HRCs, for two reasons. First, they may not
be able to make an intelligent judgment on the usefulness, limitations or appropriateness of the system. Second, perhaps more importantly, person
nel managers are eager to show that they are up‐to‐date, “scientific,” and sophisticated, and hence are impressed by the large irrelevant packaging rather than the content. But all organizations need efficient, computer‐
assisted systems. Some HRC systems experts can devise very useful systems that may last organizations for years.