How Industrial and Organizational Psychology Faculty and Students Clear(ed) an Academic Gap -- 3rd. Ed.

A Ketchup Drop for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Faculty and Students (3^rd Edition)

By Rom Antony Day

Third Edition, Sunday, September 20, 2009

The beauty of a degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology (I/O Psy.) I think is that instead of involving only one side (the hands-on or the scientific method) of, metaphorically speaking, the equation, it encompasses both. Thereby the hands-on side enjoying backing by the scientific method, its Siamese-twins or if you are free spirited its soul-mate(s). This sibling {the scientific method] of the hands-on side of the equation of I/O Psychology you might say helps to keep the emotions in check and under control in the decision making process. Thereby, insuring accuracy, equity and fairness. Notice that I said equity not equality.

Equality is not a true-fairness concept I believe. On the contrary, equality disregards the in-put and out-put ratio of resources used to get a result. It ignores the difference between reducing cost and increasing productivity and the fact that often both need to happen. Reducing cost and decreasing

productivity and as such outcome / results is a poor ROI (Return –On-Investment). We all want a good bang for our buck; don’t we? Employees trade time for money. The goose (employer) trades money for time; but time used which yields results which matter to revenue.

There is a good bridge to cover the flaw of a degree in I/O Psychology which can be easily solved, but it takes additional money, effort and time. It [undergraduate degree in I/O Psychology] comes without the academic and much less practicum of basic business sense, economics, the marketing and sales of ideas, recommendations, and the use of non-statistical analysis metrics, aside from the more advanced statistical graphics at which we are very well trained at, to speak the language of the people who provide the money and do not have the statistical research, design and analysis academic background. He who has the money….. eh? So shall we say, it might be useful to use their non-scientific lingo? I shall answer yes we should.

Now I/O Psychology degreed employees even with PhD’s but without the college of business academic background are not any panacea whatsoever for statistics, economics, finance and sales and marketing are different yet complimentary and necessary topics especially for the I/O Psy degreed practitioner who is applying it at work as opposed to merely teaching it in a university class-room.

However an I/O Psychology student could easily combine this degree with a business minor thought by faculty who not just lecture from a podium based on a book they read but from those who have done it or currently do it in an active consulting practice. The proof is in the pudding. And so here lays a potential solution to the weakness in an I/O Psychology degree. Take a marketing minor from the college of business which teaches basic economics, finance, marketing, advertising, public relations, employee relations (how to protect a company from litigious people), business ethic, and personal salesmanship; furthermore it allows you to practice the concepts you learn in group and individual projects by going out into the world outside the university. It would also be helpful to take a course where you would have to read The Wall Street Journal, discuss its articles in the classroom and state your grounds from a business ethics view point about the situation presented in the article along with a vignette (a succinct written analysis of it).

I firmly think that these two academic and practitioner areas (business and I/O psychology) go hand-in-hand. It is kind of like you can not kill the goose (Psychology theories) that lays the golden egg and still expect to get its eggs. Industrial and Organizational Psychology brings tones of (many) concepts and theories which are applied in the various college of business core areas. Now College of Business Faculty shall we say are savvy. They take the brilliancy of I/O Psychology theories and teach how to apply them in for example marketing, personal sales and advertising to make us money more quickly. This is where the brilliancy of I/O Psychology needs savvyness. Why can’t I/O Psychology programs add basic business Subject matter and even accounting by collaborating with the College of Business faculty? It seems like a win/win situation. I mean Frederick W. Taylor was using accounting back in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. He interfaced with people from several functional areas of expertise. Why is it not a basic understanding of it and such topics required to complete and I/O Psychology degree beginning at the undergraduate level so that its graduates can inch up their earning power?

If I/O Psychology programs are unable to face the music, which is that they are not preparing their students to compete in corporate America in the hopes that their students will go on to get an MS and perhaps a PhD which still will not give them the business academic background and practice, inform them for goodness sake about the badly needed subject patching to the degree!!! No matter how posh a student turns out to be from the I/O Psychology program, they still will need a basic business knowledge as I have mentioned to get a better bang for their invested time and money. They will also more often than not need the feeling of wanting to win based on actual results which most be conveyed using marketing, persuasion, sales, and metrics for instance, in a let’s say cut-throat (competitive) corporate America world weather in the non-profit or for-profit employer-sector. And this is no different in non-profits which are not corporations; in fact you may need other skills such a dealing with political correctness and whinnying politics of the so called minority which when convenient refers to themselves as majority but when not they keep their protected status of minority. The competitiveness, yet disguised, in the non-profit sector-employers based on my experience is even more typical than such a sector would want its outsiders to think; this is probably for [because] they depend on federal grants and state grants which are numbers driven, specially when funds come from the U.S.A. Federal Government. It is very much the survival of the fittest; and often the fittest at making you feel all like a family, fluffy type of stuff to get each other to cooperate with one another inter-organizationally and intra-organizationally. So watch out if you are interested in joining the non-profit sector thinking it is all easy-does it; we are all a happy family!!! Not at all. It can naturally be very retaliatory, inflammatory and a defamation (liable) prompt environment where although numbers driven results are paramount, in the final analysis they do not count more often than they do. It is like walking on a tight rope lifted above thin ice, especially in the San Francisco area of horrendous political correctness by unqualified non-English speakers or English-as-a-second language speakers with the worse and most limited command of the English Language to whom many fearful human resources cater just to keep their HR jobs often.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Numbers are king and you can not always use sophisticated statistical analysis to show success; Communicating the bottom line, break-even point, cost of service, paid on account, credit / debit in accounting can help you out quite a bit.

Even if your job often seems to require fostering a nice, should not- we-all get- along fluffy milieu, you most know how to persuade, sell your ideas to get the funding and later-on pass the evaluator(s)’s checkmate point. What are your numbers this quarter, this month as compared to the previous? What variables are confounding the results etc? I found that the for-profit corporate sector is far more flexible from many angles with regards to this matter; but you still have to not just tell, but persuade and show with specific, measurable, trackable and tangible results because it does not have the luxury of free money coming out its ears from government grants. However, it is more based on facts than on feeling and oversensitivity or lack of political correctness; but based on whether you can get the job done. This gives you both angles (the good and the bad) of the two different employment sector and of a degree in I/O Psychology vs. one supplemented with the college of business basics via say a marketing minor.

If you know both extremes of something and you can think on your own feet, you might make a better decision. The view from the top is different; this is where you are when you can see both or all angles. Just as if you would set a drop of ketchup at the top of a snow-covered mountain; you won’t miss the ketchup at the top; and the ketchup drop if it had eyes could see much of or all that lays ahead and below it; the good and the bad and if could share it with the snow; it can save the snow money, time, unnecessary effort and aches. But it is up to the snow to reach out to the ketchup for the ketchup is only a tiny amount compared to the huge pile of snow. And so you could say this article is a ketchup drop where you can see through its eyes of hands-on professional experience to make the I/O Program better and if a student of it to prepare yourself better or at least get a feel for what might be ahead. It is not all as good as milk with honey when you have the business background; however I might say that in my personal opinion I am sure it would be more difficult to compete without it.

I am reminded of the old saying … many over-educated derelicts.., genius will not, persistence will. But then again it alone can not be superior to three traits by

Taylor: Character, common sense and intellect. The intellect requires revamping or submerging depending on the situation at hand. Sometimes it is like Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to in his essays -- you have to cut out all niceties for it often will not get anything done but just give you a smile. And remember the song about smiling faces; smiling faces don’t always tell the truth. However often having a smile on your faces does surely help; as my ex-wife, [Name omitted to protect and preserve her privacy as an individual Citizen of The United States of America that she is via the naturalization process], says it very eloquently in her outgoing emails I receive:

“…the world will not overlook you for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars and matters of the heart; so give the world a smile and the

world will give you joy.“

I find this often a good reminder to do it [smile] and it saves a day. Just like a professional colleague, [Name omitted to protect and preserve her privacy as individual Citizen of The United States of America which she is by birth], would often point out on the phone to me to sound more upbeat, more enthusiastic; it sure helps to get the job done. And a former intimate personal friend [Name omitted to protect and preserve her privacy as an individual Citizen of The United States of America which she is by birth], a former professional outcomes manager / evaluator, has in the past advised me to not be too impulsive in my responding to say a letter. I could say they have been my ketchup drop in these matters at times, for which I am totally appreciative. However, they are surely far better than just a ketchup drop; they are real human beings.

I hope this article can serve you as a ketchup drop to you -- I/O Faculty and students of I/O Psychology.