Human Resource Management and leadership

The HR professionals both love and hate the business of human resources, but why. As one of colleague see it diagnosed the vivacious young girl with schizophrenia at 21 and she was not accepting a disease, as like many patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, and based on it she often refused to take her medication.

 Diversion of thinking:

She became desperate after that, and she has put her fate into the hands of a charlatan. As he had convinced her, it was the medication that caused her to feel ill. So he advised her to abandon that medication and also convinced her to take his Bach flower remedies instead. Then her condition soon deteriorated. One day, he received a phone call from her family member because she was standing on the escape ladder of the apartment building where they were living. She was threatening to throw herself off the building, so he runs away towards his home and saved her through different management techniques. They sue the said Charlatan, but the harmful effects had developed and damaged her already.

Several times, she had committed suicide attempts, and this was the turning point for him in his career because he knows the actual consequences of the Pseudoscience, through his personal experience, he has faced. He also realized the dangers of Pseudoscience its quackery attempts. He was co-relating this incident with human resources and its consequences.

 Transactional Analysis

At the start of my career, I had attended certain training in transactional analysis, and this theory states that during the first three years of our lives we make our life script, including the diseases we will have and defeated. It was very shocking to hear these sounds, because we discovered the dangers through the said incidents, so we challenged the trainer and asked him  “ Does the schizophrenia could be a choice too” and he confirmed with yes it had been.

In fact, the said woman was his sister-in-law, and they have been informing before by the psychiatrist that it is nonsense, but she had killed herself at 36 years only, which is very sad news and actual cause to negate the imposter’s expert’s opinions.

Spiral Dynamics Theory

And yes, i noticed how dangerous it might be, but I also - with a shock–realized that HR might be dangerous too. And I have experienced many examples. Take, for example, the case of Pete, who had been a successful manager for several years until the purpose where he had to require a test supported an entirely crazy theory called "Spiral Dynamics".

It explains human evolution. And he lost his position as a manager and even got fired after a couple of months. And still today, five years later, he hasn't been ready to find a replacement job, mainly because he often felt too depressed. And he and his wife had to sell their house and that they now sleep in a little apartment.

Research work on the job position

This made me furious and still makes me furious if I see we lure desperate or vulnerable people in. So I hitched the skeptic community and sort of Don Quixote, I began on a mission to reveal the reality about the various HR models and questionnaires.

I consulted the scientific literature to find out whether these models were theoretically sound and what was the evidence, be it positive or negative. So in fact I started watching the practices we used at the bank first, where I worked.

Performance score theory

There was the practice of employee performance scores, giving people a score per annum, and that we even applied a forced ranking thereon. And we also created big pay gaps and paid individual bonuses, and that we imposed top-down performance goals on people. And in coaching, I had to attend training based on John Whitmore’s GROW model, and in fact, Transactional Analysis. And it led me to believe training that folks have four distinct learning styles.

Maslow’s Pyramid and others

I learned about Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. I learned about the so-called Communication Rule by Albert Mehrabian. And our leaders had to follow a course in Situational Leadership by Ken Blanchard or a training supported the Stages of Grief model by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and applied this as a guide for change.

I even had to follow a training in speed reading. Now, what did I determine about all of those models once I applied these criteria? Well, all of those models were simply wrong. Now, this left me very confused and sometimes angry. I felt confronted. And maybe by now several you've got recognized several models and have an equivalent feeling already.

Because indeed, changing our deeply held convictions is often very challenging. This jogs my memory of this famous quote; ("The truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off.") But I looked for the reality, so I continued.

HR recruitment process

In recruitment, I found practices like graphology or brain scans, allegedly predicting your future performance or your honesty. And I acknowledged that tons of the questionnaires used the poster format or the forced-choice format, basically making you select between apples and pears, albeit you like them both. And in development I found out that Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI was very popular - it's a fad that never dies. And there's also the ever-increasingly popular Insights Discovery.

Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument

There was the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, making us believe that we have four distinct thinking styles and they're in delicate areas in our brain. And there's the Enneagram and there are the Belbin Team Roles. And in coaching, I found out that Neuro-linguistic Programming was very popular, or NLP. But also Alpha training, making you think that you simply can become more creative or be ever more intelligent by plugging into the universe.

And believe it or not, but some people actually believe that you simply can become a far better leader of individuals by getting feedback from a horse. And what is it with human resources that they so often follow the latest myth? Take, for example, the 70:20:10 model by Charles Jennings. He is an Australian engineer who claims to be an expert at learning.

But the research sucks' and the true experts in learning say it's total nonsense, and some of them even call it an urban myth. So maybe by now, you can raise your question if I have ever subjected you to any of these models.

Human Resource management system

Why doesn't it surprise me? So I continued, and there is more, and therefore the list behind me is basically very long, and this is often evidence of the very fact that human resources and management thinking are really very problematic.

Let me give some examples. In HR systems, for instance, there's the practice of giving people an annual score and applying a forced ranking. Some organizations even follow the recommendation of Jack Welch, who was the previous CEO of General Electric, to fire, per annum, and therefore the bottom 10%. Fire or yank - that's why they called it "rank and yank".

This is strange because already in 1996, Kluger and DeNisi had conducted a meta-analysis showing that giving people a score features a zero effect on performance. But only within the previous couple of years have some organizations abandoned this practice.

Tournament Theory

And take, for instance, the large pay gaps created by order Tournament Theory. it had been a theory invented by two economists. But this led to less information sharing, more fraud, lowered group performance, the simplest people actually leaving first, and tons of individuals perceiving the payment policy as highly unfair. This theory, in the US, led to the CEO to worker average pay ratio explosion.

In 1983, the typical CEO gained 46 times more. By 2013, it had already increased to 331 times more.

But if you compare it to the wage, it's even a staggering 774 times more. And it doesn't have to be like this, because we all know in HR systems there are good frameworks and tools.

Productivity Measurement and Enhancement System 

Take, for example, the Productivity Measurement and Enhancement System - ProMES: a meta-analysis has shown that it increases productivity whilst people keep their autonomy. And that they can take part within the in goal setting and in the decision about their performance indicators. And sometimes theories are really absurd, and it doesn't require tons of intelligence to know.

Take, for example, the Enneagram. It’s extremely old. It goes back several thousands of years ago to a Sufi sect, but the foremost important proponent was Gurdjieff. And he believed we are three-brained beings, here on this Earth to serve the Moon. Because we are forever in debt towards the Moon, because it split the Moon from the world. Are you able to believe that? Or take Organizational Constellations where they put people during a room, and thru a sort of paranormal or quantum process, they solve their problems.

Quantum physics

The only problem is, quantum physics simply cannot operate during a warm environment like our brain. And a few believe the paranormal. Few people realize that Carl Gustav Jung believed in the paranormal, which tests like MBTI or it supported Insights Discovery.

They prefer me to call it a questionnaire, but…He believed that during a faraway parallel universe information is stored. And this information contains pre-existent psychological archetypes. And you'll get access to them through a mystical process. Very absurd.

Dead Theories

Some theories are just dead wrong. Deem example LIFO, Enneagram, or MBTI, that make us believe that the distribution within the population looks a touch bit like this: a dichotomous distribution. If you compare it to other features of humans like physical height, this can mean that we might almost haven't anyone between 1.60m and 1.80m. Of course, simply impossible?

And we all know that most human features and also our personality traits follow a pleasant, continuous distribution. Like this. And this is often something that already Darwin had told us. Because he explained evolutionary processes cause variation, leading to this nice normal distribution. And take the parable of NLP or the training styles.

They are both supported by the false premise that some people are more visual, others are more auditory, and yet others are more kinesthetic. And this is often entirely wrong, it's entirely false, because a bit like all other primates, our site is that the most dominant in literally everyone, as extensive research has shown.

Sometimes theories are wrong in other respects like, they provide wrong measurements. Take again these forced-choice questionnaires: they often cause entirely opposite selection advice, compared to normative tests, for instance. Or take the MBTI again: it's many flaws, and therefore the US National Research Council has calculated that if people take the test a second time after only four weeks, then the median of individuals having a completely different personality type may be a staggering 60%.

Imagine what it might do to your family life…if you had to wonder every four weeks what personality type will your relations have? And again, it doesn’t have to be like this, because in recruitment and selection, we all know what quiet tools are good predictors, like intelligence and a few aspects of personality.

And indeed if you check out personality, there are theories supported that, just like the five-factor model or the six-factor model. And that we have excellent tests just like the NEO-PI-R, measuring the five-factor model of personality or the HEXACO, measuring the six-factor model of personality. And if you check out the important research data, then we indeed see that these traits follow a pleasant distribution, like this in extraversion.

So there's no such thing, there aren't four types like in LIFO or nine as in Enneagram or 16 as in MBTI. There are actually more combinations than the number of individuals living on this Earth.

Conclusion:

Finally, I also acknowledged that many people lie, not only about the so-called scientific status of their theories but also about their own degrees. I contacted several universities, and that they told me that tons of individuals lie around their Ph.D. for instance. Therefore, the problem with all of this is often, of course, if you set in the garbage, then inevitably garbage must begin.

Nobody has ever been ready to prove that you simply can take the right decisions supported entirely false information. And therefore the burden of proof, of course, is on them, not on us. And that I know some people say it's only a tool or only a discussion starter.

Let’s consider this: imagine you are on a city trip in Paris and you're lost and you ask someone for directions and that person says, "Well you can have my map because I'm going home." And you gratefully unfold that map, only to know it's a map of New York.

So you ask that generous person what it means, and that person says, "Well, it's only a navigation starter." Of course, that's silly. Like that city map - that wrong city map - won't get you anywhere within the city, a wrong test or IQ test won't get you anywhere, for example, for your career decisions. So the best choice we actually have is science and reason. And we do not have to be so negative about science because it's only a way we've invented ourselves to beat our biases and thinking errors.

It has allowed us to abandon practices like magic healing or witch-burning, and it's given us many benefits like purified beverage and lately, the web. So we don't have to be scientists ourselves, but we can enjoy science. Would you accept having surgery from a surgeon who never updates her skills? Would you accept taking a drug that doesn't help, but has a lot of side effects? Would you accept it if an engineer lies about his degree as an engineer and builds an unstable bridge? Would you dare to fly with somebody who has never been trained as a pilot and fly this plane?

I think the answer is a clear no. So if you do not accept a flawed biopsy, you ought to not accept a flawed test, and if you do not accept a bogus cancer therapy, you ought to not accept bogus coaching. Think of the damage it can do if you employ pseudoscience.

So if we do not accept poor practices and lies in other fields of our lives, we should always not accept them in HR. Especially not since there are many valid alternatives that always are cheaper, easier to know, and more accurate. And we have them in training, and that we have them in coaching. And we even have good explanations like psychology-supported biology, explaining things like why we both compete and collaborate, for instance. So the list of valid alternatives and approaches is extremely long too.

So there's really no excuse not to use them. It's time to abandon these poor practices, it's time we abandon the gurus like NLP guru Emile Ratelband and Richard Bandler, and switch towards the Champions League of biologists and psychologists instead, like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker.

I have made an option to abandon the bad, the wrong, and therefore the pseudo models because they will do potential harm to people. And I embraced the science-based instead, because they are much more reliable and that they allow me to act morally. And that is, of course, a choice we all can make. Because with knowledge comes responsibility. I urge all the leaders to critically question their HR practices.

Muhammad Israr Umar An NGO worker for the last 17 years

 muhammadisrarumar6@gmail.com