Announcing The Indigo Podcast: An Exploration of Human Flourishing at Work and Beyond

When Chris Everett and I formed Indigo Anchor in 2018, we knew we would be a different kind of management consulting firm.  We would not be interested in fancy suits, not interested in churning out reports that were unhinged from real change. Nor would we be interested in peddling the latest organizational pop psychology.  

What we wanted to do was bring evidence-based approaches and strategies from academia, the military, and successful enterprise organizations to clients that were truly ready for the change required for improvement.

Fast forward to 2019, we’ve stayed true to these values and have had tremendous success where our competitors have previously failed.  And we’ve received validation that we are indeed “different.” We are “bold” … “challenging” … “funny” … “intense.” We’ve had clients laugh, cry, cheer, yell, and yet ultimately succeed when they thought success was elusive. We’ve gotten results for every client on every engagement leaving them with increased revenue, increased profits, happier employees, and happier boards of directors.  When approached, we only take on the work if we know we can leave the organization better than we found it.  

We’ve turned work away when organizations have floundered in describing the results they’re seeking, when they’ve wanted a solution that won’t fix their problem, or when their ask has been unrealistic. 

While we’re obsessed with quantifiable results, we also have a soft side that revels in the complexities of humanity with all of its intangibles and idiosyncrasies.  We are lovers of people and community. We have a higher purpose beyond the bottom line, and that is to see people flourish at work and beyond. 

In many of our engagements, clients have taken us aside to tell us how the communication and leadership skills we’ve taught has helped them in their marriages, with their children, and with their extended families. 

So, we started thinking to ourselves that we and our clients should have a place to learn from each other and invite others to do the same. We did not want this to be a sales pitch or marketing ploy for our company; however, we wanted the community to be distinct.  

How were we going to do this?  Forum-style like Reddit? Conversations or groups on LinkedIn? Start a Facebook page? As we discussed our options, preferences, and talents as well as who our audience would be and their preferences, we landed on the format of a podcast.  

Why a podcast? 

We liked the idea of podcasting for several reasons: it’s interactive and it’s digestible when you live a busy life on the go. We saw it as a way to extend beyond ourselves and engage in conversations that are essential to building community. We also anticipated that our audience likely includes those who already listen to podcasts and would enjoy that format.  

We are proud to announce The Indigo Podcast, which is set to launch Nov. 4, 2019.  It’s an informative, real, quirky, and somewhat irreverent resource for executives, managers, leaders, and anyone else interested in flourishing … in the world of work and beyond.  

During the last several months, we have been putting our heads together to come up with the best content that would be the most useful to our audience. We’ve recorded several episodes already. 

In every episode, we’re seeking to do some combination of the following:

• promote the flourishing of people and organizations

• bridge the gap between social science and management practice

• provide an antidote or counterpoint to the ever-increasing overly simplistic reductionist approaches to work and life

• feed the curiosity of people who want to make the world a better place through work

• inspire listeners to become lifelong learners and bold difference-makers

Initially, the podcast will feature me along with my fellow co-founder and principal at Indigo Anchor, Chris Everett.  We will also feature interviews with respected experts and other people of interest. The first several episodes will be on the subjects of thriving in the face of bad management, flourishing in a turbulent operating environment, agility and why it matters, and exploring why managers derail and how to avoid it.  

Our style is rather different from many of the business, management, or leadership podcasts that currently exist. Most notably, we recognize that the world is messy and that solutions often require a nuanced view of reality. Most of life does not lend itself to lists of easy steps to follow or “silver bullets” that fix everything. Our conversations, therefore, are fairly in-depth. And while we often provide perspectives and evidence-based ideas that our listeners will find immediately useful, our overall goal is to help our listeners think, learn, and maybe even laugh a little.  

We’re hoping that listeners and subscribers will find our podcast to be a refreshing resource for proven tools in the areas of management, leadership, human resources, organizational behavior, dealing with change, organizational culture, hiring, process improvement, organizational agility, and related topics. 

The Indigo Podcast launches Nov. 4, 2019 on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, GooglePlay, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Castbox.  

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To learn more about The Indigo Podcast, visit: https://www.indigotogether.com/indigopodcast  

Indigo Anchor is a management consulting firm serving clients across a wide range of industries, sectors, sizes, and locations.  Visit: https://www.indigoanchor.com/

Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a military uniform, or in a corporate boardroom advising top management teams. He is an award-winning assistant professor of management at Cleveland State University, a co-founder and principal of the consulting firm Indigo Anchor LLC, and a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He regularly consults leaders and organizations across a wide range of sectors and industries. He earned his undergraduate degree from Villanova University and his master’s in industrial and organizational psychology and Ph.D. in organizational science from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Connect with Ben on LinkedIn. For more, visit: www.benbaran.com 

For additional information, contact Ben Baran at ben@indigoanchor.com

Wellness? How About Comprehensive Employee Fitness

Within the military, attention in recent years has been shifting among senior military leaders toward a model of health for service members that included the idea of resilience. Notably, in 2011, a whole special issue of the high-visibility journal American Psychologist focused on the U.S. Army’s idea of “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness,” or CSF. In the opening article, then U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Casey Jr. described it this way:

“… the Army is leveraging the science of psychology in order to improve our force’s resilience. More specifically, we are moving beyond a “treatment-centric” approach to one that focuses on prevention and on the enhancement of the psychological strengths already present in our soldiers. Rooted in recent work in positive psychology, CSF is a “strengths-based” resiliency program that shows promise for our workforce and its support network so our soldiers can “be” better before deploying to combat so they will not have to “get” better after they return.”[i]

Although I’m a Sailor (i.e., in the Navy; more specifically, the Navy Reserve) and not a Soldier, the notion of resilience has seeped across the branches of service. And while most of the personnel burden for the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan has fallen upon the Army, the Navy has also begun to appreciate the notion of resilience. That’s good, because resilient service members will be better equipped to handle the increasingly dynamic nature of their work, and, when they eventually leave military service, they’ll have yet another skill that transfers to the civilian workplace.

It’s also a concept that’s critical for leaders working in any industry that’s either beginning to experience—or is in the throes of—what’s becoming the turbulent, modern business environment. Work organizations that embraced a concept of “comprehensive employee fitness” would surely benefit through the more engaged, more motivated workforce that would result.

Potential Aspects of Comprehensive Employee Fitness

If we look at the psychological research behind the idea of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, we can get an idea of what it might mean across other contexts—including in civilian organizations.

The fundamental concepts are: grit, hardiness, adaptability, agility, and resilience. To be clear, researchers haven’t reached a total consensus on how all of these ideas are different or similar. But there’s consensus that all of them have positive outcomes. And for the sake of becoming a resilient person and developing into a person who thrives in the face of what’s becoming a world characterized by continual, rapid change, it’s important to become familiar with these ideas. So let’s take a quick look under the hood of each one.

Grit: Just Keep Swimming

Grit is about picking long-term goals and going after them with gusto, regardless of the obstacles. When I think of “grit,” I think of John Wayne. (Thanks, Hollywood.) Grit isn’t about one’s mental ability. It’s not about one’s intelligence quotient, or IQ. But what’s great about grit is that it captures that ever-important quality of stick-to-itiveness, something that I think we can all relate with as a key to success from our childhood, from school, from our careers.

That’s why, in part, that grit is starting to get more serious attention from researchers. For example, Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has been studying grit for a number of years. Her research confirms the value of grit as a predictor of success above and beyond that of IQ and one’s personality.[ii]

That’s not to say that talent is irrelevant. What it means is that if you’re going to be a high achiever, you’ve got to have not only some level of talent, but you’ve also got to have the perseverance and long-term orientation to set big goals and keep chasing them—doggedly, day after day after day.

It’s a lot like the fish Dory, the lovably absent-minded character from Disney’s Finding Nemo, who said, “When life gets you down, do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do? Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”[iii]

Hardiness: Always Find Meaning

Hardiness is a personal quality or characteristic that develops early in our lives, but likely becomes shaped or even strengthened by life events. Whereas grit has to do with tenaciously pursuing future goals, hardiness is about having purpose and meaning in life. Paul Bartone, a senior research fellow at National Defense University who has studied hardiness extensively, puts it this way, saying that hardiness “involves the creation of meaning in life, even life that is sometimes painful or absurd, and having the courage to live life fully despite its inherent pain and futility. It is a global perspective that affects how one views the self, others, work, and even the physical world.”[iv]

Any adult who has tried to do anything remotely difficult experiences failure at some point or another. Many of us fail over and over again. If we have grit, we keep going. If we are hardy, we find meaning in the journey.

Not surprisingly, hardiness is another characteristic that tends to predict high performance, specifically leader performance, above and beyond IQ.[v]

Adaptability: Accept External Changes

Adaptability describes the ability to change in order to fit with external demands. Elaine Pulakos, president of Personnel Decisions Research Institutes and a well-known researcher within the field of industrial/organizational psychology, has studied adaptability as it relates to job performance along with other researchers. Their findings include uncovering eight different dimensions of adaptability as it pertains to peoples’ behavior at work.

Namely, adaptability tends to involve one or more of the following dimensions: handling emergencies, handling work stress, solving problems creatively, dealing with uncertain situations, learning, interpersonal adaptability, cultural adaptability, and physically oriented adaptability.[vi]

As such, being adaptable involves being able to “fit” within numerous types of different circumstances. And with an ever-changing organizational landscape, having employees with these types of abilities will surely set organizations apart from those that do not.

Agility: Become Proactively Nimble

Agility allows people (and, and many argue, whole organizations) to create and implement strategies that allow one to deal with continuous change.[vii] It’s about having nimbleness and a proactive posture about oneself that supports continual effectiveness. Clearly, agility is a characteristic that’s important for all employees, leaders, teams, and organizations in a rapidly changing world.

My colleague Nick Horney, who co-founded the consulting firm Agility Consulting and Training in 2001, puts it this way with regard to leaders:

“Leadership agility is the capability of a leader to dynamically sense and respond to changes in the business environment with actions that are focused, fast and flexible. It is about a leader’s ability to prepare all employees … to shift their mindsets and supporting skills from ‘I know change is coming, but I can’t really see the potential changes that might impact our organization’ to ‘I see change coming and am prepared and already doing something about it.’[viii]

Resilience: Thrive Amidst Adversity

Finally, there’s resilience. Whereas agility reflects a certain perspective toward change and volatility, resilience is more about how we deal with and react to adversity.[ix] Given this difference, it’s no wonder that the U.S. Army is partnering with researchers to uncover how to build resilience among its people. And while preparing for and enduring the year-long deployment I spent in Afghanistan, it became clear to me that resilience is a fundamental concept and aspect of personal, inner strength that’s necessary for thriving in adverse circumstances.

One part of resilience is about your attitude. That is, we always have the ability to choose how we react to a situation. That’s true, and it’s important to remember because that concept will get you through many a tough circumstance.

But it’s also important to remember that adversity also really can affect us—deeply, personally, suddenly, unexpectedly. We don’t simply experience stressful circumstances, make a choice to not let it bother us, and move on. We can own our attitude, but we need resilience to make it for the long haul.  

A fascinating, related concept regarding how people react to adversity is that of “posttraumatic growth.”[x] Such an approach is rather different from the notion of posttraumatic stress, which is most commonly referred to in the context of posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Stories of PTSD among returning veterans continue to surface, and it’s certainly an issue with which the military and its supporting organizations (e.g., the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) need to deal. But it’s not the whole story.

Posttraumatic growth has to do with the fact that people who encounter highly stressful situations are by no means guaranteed to develop PTSD; rather, some people can grow as a result of their trauma and become more resilient over time. As such, experiencing adversity may boost resilience among some people, and those changes may be more dramatic among those who were less resilient beforehand.[xi] This idea is one that I think has great merit and should receive continued attention by both researchers and those on the frontlines of dealing with adversity or helping those who do.

The takeaway for the rest of us?

Adversity can make us stronger.

Below, I outline more key details that highlight the similarities and differences among grit, hardiness, adaptability, agility, and resilience. As you already likely understand, the concepts are certainly related. One way I like to think about is as follows: Having grit, hardiness, and adaptability will make you more agile and resilient. And being agile and resilient will allow you to succeed in times of turbulence and adversity, respectively.

1. Grit helps you set long-term goals and drive persistently toward them when you encounter obstacles and want to quit. 
2. Hardiness helps you find meaning and live with a purpose when the world around you seems cruel, unfair, or meaningless. 
3. Adaptability helps you bend, change, or otherwise adjust when external demands change or require different behavior. 
4. Agility helps you proactively create novel pathways toward effectiveness when change becomes increasingly rapid and unpredictable. 
5. Resilience helps you cope, press through, recover, and become stronger when adversity strikes through truly disruptive change, tragedy, or unexpected turmoil. 

So how might an organization go about increasing its comprehensive employee fitness?

Is it about selecting the right people? Developing and training the people you currently have?

Yes and yes.

A full roadmap for such a program is beyond the scope of this post, as my hope is simply to introduce the idea and concepts.

Yet a central take-away point is that it’s not about avoiding hardship or adversity. It’s about coping with them proactively—and even more, it’s about using those experiences as a source for lessons about what works, what doesn’t, and about how we are often much stronger than we ever imagine.

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com.

Ben is also the author of the e-book, The Navy’s 11: Reflections and tips for leaders everywhere based upon the U.S. Navy’s Leadership Principles. It’s full of ...

• Leadership guidance, based upon the U.S. Navy's Leadership Principles, which have been used to create and sustain the greatest navy known to humankind;
• Real-world examples, based upon my nearly 20 years of experience with the U.S. Navy and a decade of academic research combined with business consulting;
• Actionable tips, meant to help you implement the leadership principles in your daily life and work; and
• Much more!

Click here to get your FREE copy today.

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References and Further Reading

[i] George W. Casey, “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness: A Vision for Psychological Resilience in the U.S. Army.,” American Psychologist 66, no. 1 (2011): 1–3, doi:10.1037/a0021930.

[ii] Angela L. Duckworth et al., “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals.,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1087–1101, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087.

[iii] “The Best Dory Quotes,” Disney Blogs, accessed June 3, 2014, http://blogs.disney.com/oh-my-disney/2013/06/26/the-best-dory-quotes/.

[iv] Paul T. Bartone, “Resilience under Military Operational Stress: Can Leaders Influence Hardiness?,” Military Psychology 18, no. S (2006): S131.

[v] Paul T. Bartone et al., “Big Five Personality Factors, Hardiness, and Social Judgment as Predictors of Leader Performance,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal 30, no. 6 (2009): 498–521.

[vi] Elaine D. Pulakos et al., “Adaptability in the Workplace: Development of a Taxonomy of Adaptive Performance.,” Journal of Applied Psychology 85, no. 4 (2000): 612–24, doi:10.1037//0021-9010.85.4.612.

[vii] Cynthia A. Lengnick-Hall, Tammy E. Beck, and Mark L. Lengnick-Hall, “Developing a Capacity for Organizational Resilience through Strategic Human Resource Management,” Human Resource Management Review 21, no. 3 (September 2011): 243–55, doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2010.07.001; Joseph McCann, “Organizational Effectiveness: Changing Concepts for Changing Environments.,” Human Resource Planning 27, no. 1 (January 2004): 42–50.

[viii] Nick Horney, Bill Pasmore, and Tom O’Shea, “Leadership Agility: A Business Imperative for a VUCA World,” Human Resource Planning 33, no. 4 (2010): 34.

[ix] Anthony D. Ong et al., “Psychological Resilience, Positive Emotions, and Successful Adaptation to Stress in Later Life.,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91, no. 4 (2006): 730–49, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.730.

[x] Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun, Trauma & Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995).

[xi] Richard G. Tedeschi and Richard J. McNally, “Can We Facilitate Posttraumatic Growth in Combat Veterans?,” American Psychologist 66, no. 1 (2011): 19–24, doi:10.1037/a0021896.

What a Professor Learned by Taking Online Classes

Taking classes while working full-time is tough. That’s one of the lessons I learned firsthand during the past two years. 

But there’s more. 

To begin, I’ve been a business professor since 2011, so I’ve had the opportunity to teach many students—about 1,000 to date. And I’ve taught in the three primary formats: solely face-to-face, solely online and in a hybrid structure, which is a combination of face-to-face and online. I’ve taught both graduate and undergraduate students, many of whom were extraordinarily busy with part- or full-time jobs, families and other time demands outside of their coursework. 

I always knew that these students were busy, but from January 2015 to October 2016, my appreciation for their balancing-act of responsibilities grew. 

Substantially.

That’s because during that time, I became the student. I became the juggler of taking classes and raising kids and being a spouse and working full-time. And in addition to gaining some valuable knowledge from the coursework itself, I gained a new appreciation for what it’s like for many of my students. 

The courses I took were all online through the U.S. Naval War College, and these courses were part of a curriculum that’s the U.S. military services expect their officers to complete (particularly as they become more senior). In addition to my professorial work, I’m an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and it was time for me to buckle down and complete this requirement. 

Overall, my experience taking these courses was highly positive—the U.S. Naval War College does a great job with distance education. As a positive unintended consequence, however, I think this experience made me a better professor. It gave me a fresh perspective. So, for the benefit of other educators (and those who take classes from them), here are a few specifics:

• Online courses must be especially well-organized. Given that professors don’t have the opportunity to discuss schedules and requirements in real-time with students, online courses must be designed with extraordinary attention to detail regarding what’s required and the course timeline. A careful, thorough syllabus is a great start, but whatever online platform used for the course must also be carefully designed to facilitate easy use for the student. For example, have clearly labeled links and folders. And a pleasant color scheme doesn’t hurt. 
• Communication must be redundant and systematic. Sure, you may have everything spelled out in the syllabus, but instructors can’t “fire and forget” with online courses (if they care about student engagement and learning, that is). Send out a weekly e-mail that reminds students what’s going on, what’s due and other pertinent information. 
• Student performance isn’t a perfect reflection of how much they know or care about the course. I don’t have any data at my fingertips, but I wonder if students who take online courses are also more likely to be students who are working full-time or trying to balance other activities than those students who go the traditional, face-to-face route. That seems plausible. At any rate, my experience taught me that to survive and turn assignments in on time, students (like me) often have to satisfice. That is, due to my other time demands, there were times when I turned in assignments that I knew weren’t my best work—far from it. I had to sacrifice quality to just get the darn paper done on time. 
• Although some students may want a lot of feedback on their work, many others may not. The simple truth—and I’m talking to my fellow professors here—is that many students are simply trying to complete the course and get a decent grade. They might not care about “getting better” by learning from your extensive comments on their work, for example. One potential implication for professors, I think, might be to avoid the temptation to “over grade.” Provide students with their grades and some feedback, but don’t go crazy with trying to note every single way in which their work was deficient. Specifically tell students that they are absolutely invited to request additional feedback if they want it. That way, you can tailor your efforts as the instructor to the level of feedback that students want. 
• For online courses, group projects are even trickier than in face-to-face courses. I’m not necessarily saying that instructors should never have group projects in online courses, but if you are, be absolutely sure that the assignments given to the group are carefully thought through. That includes thinking about the types of interaction that group members will need to have in order to complete their tasks. For example, highly complex, interdependent work is often best-suited for real-time discussion. But the people in an online course are often in the online course precisely because they have crazy schedules, so they are unlikely to find good times to talk with their fellow team members. 
• Finally, some variety—and humanity—can be engaging. If every single one of the modules in an online course has exactly the same structure, it can be boring. I found it refreshing with some modules included a new video or interactive component related to the material. And it’s also helpful when the instructor finds ways to remind the students that a real human is behind the course. 

As the higher-education landscape continue to shift and technologies continue to develop, online education will also evolve. Within such technologies and changes are great opportunities for students and educators alike. 

But for those of us who design and administer courses online, it’s critical to empathize with our students and their learning experiences. And sometimes, it might take actually enrolling in a course to gain such empathy. At least for me, it did. 

Find this thought provoking? Leave a comment, like and share!

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com. 

What 280 Executives Said They Face

Turbulence ahead.

That’s one key message I learned while writing the inaugural issue of The VUCA Report™, which outlines findings from an ongoing study I’m spearheading here through The Strategic Agility Institute.

This study essentially focuses on two elements: (a) the forces of change that executives face and (b) what they’re doing about it. We were fortunate to have had 280 responses (from almost as many different organizations) to analyze for this first issue of The VUCA Report™.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this global, collaborative effort.

Regarding the forces of change, we built upon the “VUCA” framework, which was first coined by social scientists at the U.S. Army War College in the early 1990s. VUCA stands for four aspects of turbulence, so to speak: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Our analysis of the data suggests that VUCA will continue to increase, with a current VUCA Index™ of 69.57. This is an estimate from 0 (much less) to 100 (much more) regarding the expected level of future turbulence.

Additionally, we asked the 280 executives in our sample about their perceptions of 35 disruptive trends. These 35 trends fell across five categories: (a) technological advances, (b) economic and financial issues, (c) environmental and societal concerns, (d) geopolitics, regulations and security issues and (e) workforce dynamics.

It’s important to note that our data were from executives across all functions and numerous industries, so we’re relatively confident about what these data reveal. Interestingly, of the 10 most highly rated disruptive trends, five of them were in the category of workforce dynamics.

Leaders in the world of human resources, talent management and organizational development: Take heed.

We then turned our focus to agility, which describes the ability to sense and respond to change quickly at the leader, team and organizational levels. Our experience—and that of many others—strongly suggests that agility is the antidote to VUCA. As such we asked our respondents to rate their own organization across the 15 capabilities within The AGILE Model®. On average, our respondents rated their capabilities in the areas of bias for action and customer focus as relatively strong—but they rated their capabilities in decision making and real-time feedback as relatively weak.

Finally, we included three open-ended items in the survey to gather our respondents’ thoughts across three questions related to agile practices. These questions are displayed below along with a word cloud for each that depicts the top keywords from the responses.

What is the most important practice that your organization is CURRENTLY doing that is helping you become more agile?

What is the most important practice that your organization SHOULD DO in the future to help you become more agile?

What is the biggest OBSTACLE keeping your organization from becoming more agile?

The full version of The VUCA Report™, of course, contains much more detail and analysis that you may find interesting and useful. We’re providing it to the entire world for the premium price of … nothing.

It’s totally free.

All we ask is that you take the survey that’s collecting data for the next version—Volume 1, Issue 2—of The VUCA Report™. After taking the survey, you’ll be immediately provided with a link that you can use to download this inaugural issue.

Click here to take the survey and download your copy of the inaugural issue of The VUCA Report™. 

Together, we hope that The VUCA Report™ and other initiatives that we’re spearheading here at The Strategic Agility Institute will help us all become increasingly focused, fast and flexible in this VUCA world.

Find this thought provoking? Leave a comment, like and share!

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com.

HR in 2016: Top Industry Insights from SHRM, Bersin and SIOP

One increasingly common trend is, well, trend reports. Professional organizations, research firms and consultancies frequently publish what they see as the latest developments or top predictions for the future. Depending on the source, these trend reports can be thought-provoking and insightful.

At the very least, I find it interesting to see what various leaders see on the horizon. 

Recently, three such organizations published their trend reports for 2016—all focusing on the workplace and human resources (HR) topics. These three organizations are the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Bersin by Deloitte, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). 

Below, I’ve summarized each and provided links for the full reports. 

SHRM—What HR Needs to Know in 2016

The approach. SHRM used its competency model to organize its report. As such, the report outlines key areas within each of SHRM’s HR competency areas, with notable writers and researchers providing their thoughts. 

• Leadership and Navigation: It’s All About Teams
• Relationship Management: The New Flexibility
• Consultation: Preparing Your Company for the New Overtime Rules
• HR Expertise: Facing the Future of Work
• Critical Evaluation: Put Your Analytics into Action
• Global and Cultural Effectiveness: Recruiting Is Social and Talent Is Local
• Ethical Practice: HR Must Champion a Principled Culture
• Business Acumen: Building a Better HR

I recommend checking out the complete report, as each of these areas has its own article. Click here for more from SHRM. 

Bersin by Deloitte—Predictions for 2016: A Bold New World of Talent, Learning, Leadership, and HR Technology Ahead

The approach. It isn’t exactly clear how the author(s) derived the 10 areas highlighted in this report, but I infer from the introduction that the 10 areas came from a qualitative, narrative categorization of what they have seen, researched or experienced during the past year. (If you have insight on the methodology, please feel free to leave a comment.) 

1. Digital HR Arrives—Changing the Way HR Organizations Design and Deliver Employee Solutions
2. The Need to Improve the Employee Experience and Harness People Data Drive the Stampede to Replace Dated HR Systems
3. New Models of Talent Management Emerge—Creating a New Generation of Talent Management Platforms
4. The Rush to Replace and Reengineer Performance Management Accelerates around the World
5. Engagement, Retention, and Culture Persist as Top Priorities—With New Feedback and Analytics Systems Coming to Market
6. Global Leadership Development, Coupled with Career and Talent Mobility, Takes on a Fresh New Focus. Mentoring and Coaching Grow Rapidly
7. The Revolution in Corporate Learning Continues as a New Model Evolves
8. Diversity and Inclusion Merge with Key HR and Business Strategies—To Move Well Beyond Compliance and Become a Strategic Part of Business
9. People Analytics Accelerates Its Growth—Evolving to a Mainstream Program in the HR Function
10. The HR Profession Leaps Forward as a New Breed of HR Leaders Enter the Stage

Click here for more from the Bersin by Deloitte report (you’ll need to provide some information in order to download a copy of the report). 

SIOP—Top 10 Workplace Trends 2016

The approach. SIOP derived its list by asking its members for their predictions. Then, they asked their members to rank-order the items on the list. About 700 of the organization’s members participated (full disclosure, I was one of them). 

#10. Using Social Media to Make Employment-Related Decisions
#9. Building Healthy, Diverse Workforces
#8. Work–Life Balance Across Generations
#7. Increased Focus on Business Agility and Flexibility in Work and Business Processes
#6. Increasing Focus on Health and Wellness in the Workplace
#5. Employee Engagement
#4. Changing Nature of Performance Management and Development
#3. Managing Virtual Teams
#2. Trends in Technology Are Changing the Way Work Is Done
 #1. Leveraging and Maximizing Big Data and Applying the Correct Analytics to Make Better Business Decisions

Click here to see more details about this list. 

So are there any themes that cut across multiple reports? From what I can tell, it seems like there are a few, such as:  

1. Technology is changing HR and the way people work (Bersin, SIOP)
2. Evolving views and practices for performance management (Bersin, SIOP)
3. Workforce well-being and diversity (Bersin, SIOP, SHRM)
4. Using data and analytics for people-related planning and operations (Bersin, SIOP, SHRM)
5. Agility and flexibility for processes, planning and leadership across the organization (Bersin, SIOP, SHRM)
6. Engagement and culture (Bersin, SIOP, SHRM)
7. New models for leadership and teams (Bersin, SIOP, SHRM)

Which of these HR trends do you see as most prevalent in your industry or organization? Are there any that surprised you or any that you think are missing from these lists? Leave a comment below!

Find this thought provoking? Like and share!

By the way, we’re collecting data for our own unique type of ongoing study: The VUCA Report. I’d love to have your insights.

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com. 

Can HR Drive High Reliability?

Positive thinking is sometimes overrated. In fact, too much positive thinking can be disastrous. While optimism can help people and organizations bounce back from tough times, when allowed to dominate the psyche during good times, it can blind us to the possibility of what could go wrong.

It’s important, periodically, to think creatively about potential doom.

Such “preoccupation with failure” is one pattern of behavior that helps some organizations have far fewer accidents than we would expect given what they do. For example, plenty could go wrong in a nuclear power plant or aboard a naval aircraft carrier. But few errors devolve into disasters in either, in part because its people explicitly know what failure could look like and catch small problems before they become catastrophes.

These types of organizations are “high-reliability organizations,” and I think there’s something that human resources (HR) departments could learn from them.

In particular, what might happen if we tried to apply the five hallmarks of high reliability to HR practices? This is a topic that I addressed in “High-Reliability HR: Preparing the Organization for Catastrophes,” which appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of People & Strategy. 

To summarize some of the key points of that article, consider the following five hallmarks of high reliability:

1. Preoccupation with failure: What could go wrong?
2. Reluctance to simplify interpretations: What’s the true cause?
3. Sensitivity to operations: Are we in touch with the ground-level reality?
4. Commitment to resilience: How do we recover?
5. Deference to expertise: Who knows best?

I argue that HR could play a pivotal role in helping an organization adopt these principles. For example, HR could help with scenario planning based upon identified risks, developing leaders who promote a climate of healthy questioning, assisting with reporting and analyzing near misses, training employees on actions to take during catastrophes and implementing hiring practices that select employees with the specialized skills needed by the organization.

Some may say that HR has no place in disaster planning or emergency preparedness, suggesting that such efforts need to be solely under the purview of business continuity, security or risk management functions.

But shouldn’t HR be concerned holistically about the human side of the organization’s survival and success? Isn’t HR as a function positioned well to act as custodians of a culture that moves the organization toward high-reliability?

Or maybe we should go back to calling HR the “personnel” department.

Regardless, it’s worth it for us as HR professionals to liberate our thinking as we think about what the HR function is and how it contributes to the overall organization in the 21st Century. My full article on this topic applies the high-reliability HR framework to the topic of an active shooter on a college campus, and it’s meant to provoke a conversation about the potential role of HR in ensuring a secure enterprise.

To download the full article, click here. 

Does HR have a role in helping the organization prepare for disasters and bounce back when they occur? Leave a comment below!

Find this thought provoking? Like and share!

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com. 

Stop Wasting Your Time and use Zotero to Organize Research

It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I think it was. Using Excel 2007 to organize all of my research references worked very well during my time in graduate school. But that was in 2009. The world—and its technology—have changed. So now I’m happy to tell anyone and everyone to NOT follow the advice I presented in my 2009 blog post about using Excel to organize all of your research articles.

Instead, use Zotero.  

Zotero has been around for a few years, but it only recently (in my estimation) reached the point at which it does everything I want it to do. Granted, I wasn’t really paying attention to research and related technologies while I was on my all-expenses paid trip to Afghanistan from December 2012 to December 2013. But let’s just say that since I’ve been back and diving into research again, I’ve been thrilled with Zotero.

To set the stage, understand that I have thousands of PDFs of scholarly journal articles. These are all somehow related to work I’ve done or work I’m still doing. So any technology that helps me manage them has the potential to save me a substantial amount of time. Even more significantly, a well-designed technology has the potential to help me organize my actual thoughts.

I downloaded Zotero a few weeks ago. It’s free to download from www.zotero.org. I have it installed on my home computer and on my work computer. Zotero is free to use up to 300MB of storage; after that, you can buy more space.

I’m not going to outline all of the features of Zotero here, as I probably don’t know all of them yet. But here are a few of my favorites:

1. It automatically syncs what I do on my home computer with the cloud. I worked on research from home today, but when I go to the office tomorrow and fire up that computer, Zotero will look exactly the same as it does at home.

2. It can pull the metadata from PDFs. That means that once you put PDFs into your library, you can have Zotero retrieve the citation information for the article.

3. You can tag, categorize, write notes, and otherwise make sense of your articles. It’s easy.

4. Zotero has a plug-in for Microsoft Word, so that I can use it to manage my citations and reference list when drafting a manuscript.

5. It’s relatively intuitive to use. And if there’s something you’re trying to do and can’t figure it out, simply Google it and you’ll likely find the answer quickly.

I felt compelled to write this quick update given that I still have people contact me and tell me how great my simple Excel 2007 spreadsheet is for organizing references. But it’s now official. I’m urging you to use Zotero for your next project. It’s so much better. I’m not an expert on other systems like EndNote or Mendeley, but Zotero has made such a big impression on me during the past two weeks that I’m confident to recommend it. It's to your benefit, of course, to explore the advantages and disadvantages of various tools. All I'm saying is that Zotero is working quite well for me. I'm thrilled with it. 

I suggest getting used to Zotero by using it for one project. For example, use it for one manuscript or research project. That way, you won’t be feeling the need to change your entire system that you’ve been using. You’ll be able to learn the features and benefits of Zotero as you go through your first project.

And then—I’ll wager—you’ll be hooked. I’m pretty sure I am.

Ten Ways to Annoy Professors

Attention all college students: Your professors, like all other people on the planet, form impressions about you based upon your behavior. And yes, we may sometimes talk about the worst of you with each other, shaking our heads in disbelief. We may wonder about your ability to become productive working adults and contributing members of society.

But it gives us no greater joy than to see you thrive and to play a small role in helping you succeed.

If, however, you are determined to annoy your professors this academic term, here are a few tips. And just in case you’d like to avoid making yourself look like a donkey’s hind end, I've included a few ideas about how you might want to act instead. By the way, these bits of advice will also serve you well in your interactions with current and future employers, bosses, co-workers, classmates, and others.

I’ve also included my own classroom policies so that any of my students can know exactly where I stand. Fellow professors, feel free to copy, paste, or otherwise claim any of this that might be helpful to you. Or add your comments below. Or disregard this altogether.

So, students, to annoy your professors this semester …

1. Get too casual with them. Address them by their first names without their prior permission or use an incorrect title when communicating with them either in person or in writing. For example, call them “Mr.,” “Ms.,” or “Mrs.” when he or she has a Ph.D. Better yet, just go with “Bob” or “Hey.” This is a fantastic way to get off on the wrong foot with your professors.

To avoid annoying your professors, err on the side of formality instead of informality. If your professor has “Ph.D.” or “Dr.” listed in reference to him or herself on his or her syllabus, website, or other course materials, use “Dr.” In all other cases of doubt, just ask. Your professor will likely find it impressive that you cared enough to find out.

My policy. On the first day of class, I explicitly discuss with students “what you should call me.” They have four choices: Dr. Baran, Professor Baran, Dr. B., or Professor B. I’ve found that this accomplishes two goals. First, it lets them know what’s appropriate. Second, I’ve found that students are more likely to initiate conversations with you if they have an exact script of how to start that conversation.

2. Send them unprofessional e-mails. This one is quite easy to do, and it takes very little time. Simply send your professor an e-mail that (a) lacks an appropriate subject line, (b) has no salutation or refers to him or her in an inappropriately casual way, (c) uses poor grammar, (d), doesn’t completely describe your question or problem, (e) doesn’t include your first and last name at the end after a proper closing, or (f) any combination of the above. To make your e-mail even more annoying, you could send it from your non-university e-mail account that you set up when you were 15, something like “bieberfever” or “ihatehomework” @ whatever.com.

To avoid annoying your professors, repeat after me, “An e-mail is not a text message. An e-mail is not a text message. An e-mail is not a text message.” Good. Knowing that a fundamental difference exists between the two mediums is a start. Use proper grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Use your university e-mail. That helps them know that you’re actually a student, and they can verify that you’re enrolled in one of their classes. Use their preferred title (see #1 above), followed by a comma. Then, skip a line. Describe your problem or question politely. (NEVER e-mail something that you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading out loud to your professor in person.) Then, skip a line, type “Sincerely” or some other appropriate closing. Under that, type your first and last name.

Here’s an example:

###

From: j.student@state.edu To: Baran, Benjamin Subject: Meeting availability on Sept. 12

Dr. Baran,

I hope you are well. I understand that your office hours this semester are on Wednesdays from noon to 4 p.m. Unfortunately, I am scheduled to work during that time, and I have a few questions about the class.

Would you possibly be available in the morning on Thursday, Sept. 12? If not, perhaps there is another time that would work for you.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely, Jane Student

###

My policy. Here’s what I include in my syllabi, under the heading of “communication.” I also discuss this during the first day of class.

Your e-mails should include a subject in the subject line, a salutation (either Dr. Baran, Professor Baran, Dr. B., or Professor B.), then you should describe your question or problem completely, and you should sign your e-mail with your first and last name after an appropriate closing (such as “sincerely”). If you send me an e-mail that is not in this format, I will likely respond and request that you use proper e-mail etiquette as listed in the syllabus.

Like many of the points listed here, I describe the reason behind my policy, which is something like this: “I want you to make excellent first impressions with everyone you meet in a professional context. So we’re going to practice that in this class.” I teach in a college of business, but I think this idea applies broadly.

3. Play with your phone in class. You can do this either in the open, with your phone and hands above your desk or you can do it below the desk while staring at your crotch. Either way, your professor WILL notice. And he or she will most certainly be annoyed. You could even simply answer your phone or let it announce its presence with your catchy pop-song ringtone for a while. That’ll do the trick as well.

To avoid annoying your professors, pretend that you’re in a very important business meeting. Put your phone on silent or turn it off. Put it in your pocket, purse, or backpack so that you’re not tempted to play with it. If you have a bona fide need to monitor your personal electronic device—for example, a family member about to give birth or die—discuss this with your professor after the first day of class.

My policy. I include the following in my syllabi: “Be courteous. Please DO NOT use your cell phone during class (including text messaging and e-mail). If you use a laptop computer during class, use it appropriately (e.g., don’t go on Facebook, etc.).” I also discuss this policy during the first few class meetings. If a student violates this policy during class, I stop talking and stare at him or her until the behavior ceases.

4. Talk and giggle with your classmates during their lectures. Your professors probably won’t mind if you quickly and quietly ask a classmate for a pen. So to annoy them properly, you need to get a conversation going. You could even combine this tip with #3 above and pass your phone back and forth. That way, you can both share the hilarity of whatever inappropriate photo you saw on Facebook. And don’t worry, even if you stop your giggling and talking when your professor looks directly at you, he or she probably already noticed it and is annoyed.

To avoid annoying your professors, show some respect by paying attention and being quiet. Save your conversations with classmates for appropriate times in the class, during breaks, or outside of class entirely.

My policy. In my syllabi, I include the following in the “expectations of class members” section: “I expect all students to show respect and consideration for the instructor and other students. This course focuses on class discussion and participation. The ability to show respect and consideration is essential to creating an effective learning environment.” We then talk about what that means during the first class. If someone is being disruptive, I pause and stare at them. If it happens more than twice, I call them out in class and tell them something along the lines of “I need you to please stop talking to each other as it’s distracting to me, and it’s probably distracting to other students. Thank you.”

5. Ask them for special treatment and cite everything other than you as the cause of your woe. Sometime around the end of the academic term, tell them that you need extra time to complete the course project because you have _________ (fill in the blank with “lots of other classes,” “a full-time job,” “an undiagnosed disorder,” or some other excuse). Or tell them that for you the rules of mathematical rounding should be magically suspended to elevate your grade to the next higher level. Claim that the exam has “trick questions,” which is why you performed poorly. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you never came to class and didn’t study, of course. In general, approach your professors with the belief that you are entitled to special treatment—exceptions to the rules of the syllabus, the college, and the universe. Use your imagination! After all, you are … YOU.  And you’re very special.

To avoid annoying your professors, don’t ask your professors to change the rules or make exceptions for you. The only exception to this rule might be if some truly extraordinary, unexpected event happens in your life. In that case, try to have some documentation to back your story and discuss it with your professor as soon as possible. Don’t wait. And keep your options open—your professor may not have the same solution in mind as you do.

My policy. I list the following in my syllabi and discuss it—along with related issues of student responsibilities and expectations—in class:

Being able to meet deadlines is essential to your success in your career and life. The class schedule identifies the last date that assignments will be accepted. No late work will be accepted and a zero will be assigned. All assignments are due on the assigned date and time listed on the course schedule. Anything after the due date/time (even just 1 minute) will be considered late and will not be accepted without complete, verifiable, written documentation of the extraordinary event that justifies (in my judgment) why you were late. Circumstances that potentially meet these criteria include your own prolonged hospitalization or the death of an immediate family member.

Amazingly, discussing these issues openly at the beginning of the academic term has not only decreased requests for special treatment, but it also has dramatically reduced the numbers of grandmothers, second cousins, and other distant relatives of my students who have “died” around the dates of final exams.

6. Ask for a letter of recommendation when they hardly know you—or when they know you because you’re a terrible student. This one may take some bravery on your part, but it’s a wonderful way to annoy your professors. To do it right, skip class frequently, earn about a “D+” average on exams, and avoid participation in class at all costs. Then, send your professor an inappropriate e-mail (see #1 above) and demand for a letter of recommendation to be delivered to you in less than 24 hours.

To avoid annoying your professors, only ask for letters of recommendation from professors who know you well. Ideally, earn a high grade in their class. And being a good class participant can’t hurt either. If you’ve accomplished these steps, notify your professor at least four weeks prior to the due date for the letter and provide as many details about the letter requirements as possible.

My policy. Although I don’t currently have a policy about letters of recommendation in my syllabi, I’m considering including one in the future. When approached by students, I typically tell them that I normally only do letters of recommendation for students whom I’ve had for more than one class or otherwise have gotten to know well. I will often require the student to meet with me privately to discuss the letter and its purpose. In addition, asking for the student’s résumé can help in the process.

7. Tell them that you really need a certain grade. Directly after the first class or during the professor’s first office hours, explain to him or her how you will absolutely need an “A” in this class in order to get into graduate school, maintain athletic eligibility, or some other reason. He or she will love to hear this.

To avoid annoying your professors, realize that you’ll get the grade that you earn. Don’t talk about grades with your professors unless there’s some confusion or you think there was a mistake of some kind. Work hard in the class.

My policy. You will get the grade you earn. Period.

8. Don’t read their syllabi. The syllabus is full of all kinds of helpful information for you regarding the class. Professors often spend quite a bit of time ensuring it’s accurate and trying to make it useful. But if you ignore it, you can annoy your professors by asking them all kinds of questions to which the syllabus has the answers. Ask these questions in class, in the hallway, during office hours, via e-mail, or by phone. It’s up to you!

To avoid annoying your professors, read the syllabus. Then read it again. Then, if you have questions about the class, check the syllabus to see if it has the answer. It probably does.

My policy. I review the syllabus thoroughly during the first class period. I also create a graded quiz for online classes that require students to dig answers out of the syllabus. That way, there’s at least some level of common understanding at the beginning of the course. When students ask questions that clearly could have been answered by reviewing the syllabus, I politely invite them to read it again. If questions still remain, I gladly answer them.

9. Show up late or leave early without an explanation. Here’s another easy one—just waltz in or waltz out of the classroom after the class starts or before it’s adjourned. Make some noise with your bag and kick your chair a few times for effect. And start talking on the phone during your transit.

To avoid annoying your professors, arrive five minutes prior to the start of class. Don’t leave until the class is clearly finished. And don’t start packing your things early either.

My policy. I make a promise with all of my classes that I will always start right on time and that the class will always end at or before the time it’s supposed to end. I am unwavering in my commitment to this principle. In return, I request that students respect everyone else in the class by showing up on time and waiting until it’s concluded to leave.

10. Don’t participate in class discussions at all, or dominate all discussions.  For this one, you can choose one of two extremes. On one end, you can choose to give your entire class the silent treatment. Just sit there. Say nothing. On the other end of the spectrum, you can raise your hand every two minutes, blurt out your thoughts to every question posed to the class, or pontificate at length about every issue. Either way, you’ll be sure to annoy your professor.

To avoid annoying your professors, participate in class by asking questions, volunteering your thoughts, and offering your perspective. But if you find that you’re talking significantly more than everyone else in the class, that’s probably not a good thing. Let someone else share the “stage” for a minute. This is a fine balance, but it’s one that will serve you well in group interactions of all types throughout your life.

My policy. Mutual respect is a fundamental principle in my classrooms. We talk about what that means with regard to class participation, and we discuss the two extremes. Somewhere in the middle, for most students, is just about right.

In addition to the points listed above, numerous other methods surely exist for annoying your professors. But with some effort and attention to detail, these 10 ways should help you immensely in becoming “that student,” dreaded and talked about by professors across campus. Or, if you prefer, you can avoid these common pitfalls and develop inspiring, developmental relationships with your professors. Either way, you’re in the driver’s seat.

And maybe realizing that is half the battle.

Response Surface Analysis Spreadsheet: Update

In 2010, my co-authors and I published this paper in the Journal of Business and Psychology: Shanock, L. R., Baran, B. E., Gentry, W. A., Pattison, S. C., & Heggestad, E. D. 2010. Polynomial regression and response surface analysis: A powerful approach for examining moderation and overcoming limitations of difference scores. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25: 543-554.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We recently submitted a correction regarding a few technical details presented in the original article. We also revised the helpful spreadsheet for conducting response surface analysis that the article mentions.

Click here for more details regarding the corrected article. Download the corrected spreadsheet here.

Employee Motivation: Expectancy Theory

Expectancy theory is one of the most well-known theories of work motivation. It takes a rational approach toward human behavior, assuming that people make conscious decisions among alternatives. In this clip, I explain the basics of expectancy theory and some of the potential implications it has for managers. 

Coping with Animal Euthanasia: Strategies for Shelter Workers

It’s the “American dream:” a nice house, white picket fence, two-car garage—and, of course—the family dog. Pets are an almost ubiquitous aspect of American culture. But pet overpopulation in the United States makes the euthanasia of more than 3 million dogs and cats every year a tragic necessity. And conducting animal euthanasia takes its toll on those charged with this gruesome responsibility.

In a special report published July 1 in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, my coauthors and I tackled one part of the animal euthanasia issue. Specifically, we analyzed ways in which experienced animal-shelter workers advocate coping with the stress related to the euthanasia task. We focused on 242 workers’ responses to the following question, which we included in a survey of 62 animal shelters across the country: “What recommendations would you give to someone who is just starting out in this career field? That is, what would you tell them to do, or not to do, to deal with the euthanasia-related aspects of this job?”

Through systematic, rigorous qualitative data analysis procedures, we found that these experienced workers suggested eight general types of coping strategies, as listed below.

• Competence or skills strategies. These types of strategies included gaining appropriate education and training and practicing proper techniques when conducting euthanasia.
• Euthanasia behavioral strategies. This category of advice centered on specific practices to follow when conducting euthanasia, such as allowing enough time for the procedure, having someone else euthanize special pets, and keeping the euthanasia room neat.
• Cognitive or self-talk strategies. These pieces of advice were primarily ways in which workers could manage stress through their own patterns of thinking. For examples, workers should realize that euthanasia is sometimes the best option for certain animals, avoid blaming themselves, learn about the reality of sheltered animals and overpopulation, and focus on successful aspects of animal welfare.
• Emotional regulation strategies. These types of strategies involved ways in which workers should deal with the emotional aspects of their work. For example, acknowledging their feelings and venting when appropriate. Another strategy within this category involved workers altering their levels of emotional attachment to animals, striving to maintain a healthy balance between becoming completely detached from the animals and becoming too dependent upon them for their emotional well-being.
• Separation strategies. Respondents suggested that sometimes it’s helpful to find ways to distance themselves from their work. For example, they advocated keeping work separate from non-work activities and seeking diversions through hobbies and reflection.
• Get-help strategies. This category of advice focused on ways to cope with euthanasia-related strain that involve assistance from others, including communicating with management about concerns and seeking counseling from professionals.
• Seek long-term solution strategies. These types of advice involved those aimed toward focusing on ways to reduce the frequency of euthanasia overall. For example, respondents advocated that workers should learn about and promote responsible pet ownership. One way in which this could take place is through participating in various types of community outreach programs.
• Withdrawal strategies. According to respondents, euthanasia is such a tough part of their jobs that sometimes workers should know that the job is not for everyone and, as a last resort, seek a different type of job.

The full report includes more information, including examples of survey respondents’ actual comments in each category of coping strategies. Overall, this study provides valuable insight that could help animal shelter workers, especially newcomers to the job, to deal with the strain caused by having to conduct euthanasia.

With increased public outreach and education—in areas such as spay and neuter programs, animal adoption, and responsible pet ownership—euthanasia should become less necessary as an over-population control measure in the United States. But in the meantime, shelter workers and their managers may find the strategies advocated by respondents in our study to be helpful ways to maintain their psychological well-being despite the threats posed by animal euthanasia.

Reference: Baran, B. E., Allen, J. A., Rogelberg, S. G., Spitzmüller, C., DiGiacomo, N. A., Webb, J. B., et al. (2009). Euthanasia-related strain and coping strategies in animal shelter employees. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 235, 83-88.

SPSS Syntax 102: Recoding and Computing Variables, Calculating Descriptive Statistics

Once you’ve set up your SPSS data file, created variable and value labels to aid in interpretation of future analyses, and cleaned the data as necessary, it might be time to recode and compute new variables. You may also want to calculate some basic descriptive statistics regarding key variables in your data set. All of these tasks are remarkably simple using SPSS syntax. As a reminder, this forum focuses on common analyses performed by researchers and practitioners within organizational behavior, industrial/organizational psychology, and human resource management. An in-depth explanation of everything SPSS syntax can possibly do is far beyond this forum’s scope. The focus here is on practical issues and no-nonsense knowhow to bolster your productivity.

Recoding Variables

Although you may need to recode variables for a variety of reasons, the most common reason by far that I have to conduct this procedure is to deal with “reversed” items. That’s because I deal primarily with survey data about employee’s attitudes, such as job satisfaction, supervisory support, organizational commitment, and other related variables. Reversed items are those items for which the response options mean the exact opposite of the other items in a measure.

Here’s an example. The Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986) originally had 36 items designed to assess employees’ global perceptions about how the degree to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. More recently, researchers (e.g., Roch & Shanock, 2006) used the six-item version of the original measure listed below with satisfactory results. Responses range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

1. My work organization is willing to help me when I need a special favor. 2. My work organization shows little concern for me. 3. My work organization takes pride in my accomplishments at work. 4. My work organization values my contributions to its well-being. 5. My work organization strongly considers my goals and values. 6. My work organization really cares about my well-being.

Notice how item number 2 differs from the other items. In responding to this item, an employee who perceived a very high level of organizational support would likely respond “disagree” to item number 2 but “agree” to the other five items. That’s because item number 2 is a reversed item. To properly analyze any measure that uses a reversed item, the analyst must recode that variable. Here’s the syntax to do just that (replacing “VARNAME” with the actual variable name):

recode VARNAME (1=5) (2=4) (3=3) (4=2) (5=1) INTO VARNAME_R. exe.

Running that syntax will create a new variable named “VARNAME_R,” which has been properly recoded. Now, we need to compute a new variable that takes the mean of each respondent’s responses to the items in each measure.

Computing New Variables

To continue the example above, we need to create one variable that represents respondents’ overall perceptions of organizational support, not just their responses to individual items. The process for doing this correctly may vary depending on what you’re measuring; for example, some psychometric scales require summing the responses while others take the items’ mean.

To calculate a composite variable for the measure described above, we take the mean. The syntax to do this is as follows (replacing “VARNAME” with the actual variable name):

compute VARNAMEOVERALL = mean (VARNAME1, VARNAME_R, VARNAME3, VARNAME4, VARNAME5, VARNAME6). exe.

Note that I used VARNAME_R instead of VARNAME2, because that’s the variable created during the recoding process. Running the compute command above will result in a new variable titled “VARNAMEOVERALL,” which is the mean average of the responses given to each of the measure’s six items. Also, the compute command works for all sorts of other transformations (not just taking the mean of other variables). So you can use it in many other instances as well.

Calculating Descriptive Statistics

Finally, you may want to know some basic information about your variables such as the frequency of responses to each of the response options and the items’ maximums, minimums, means, and standard deviations.

To do this, simply run the following syntax (replacing “VARNAME” with the actual variable name):

desc VARNAME1 VARNAME2 VARNAME3. freq VARNAME1 VARNAME2 VARNAME3.

Summary: The Running List of Syntax Discussed Thus Far

So here’s a running list of basic SPSS syntax that I’ve discussed on this forum thus far. Simply replace “VARNAME” with the variable name and make other adjustments as necessary for your specific situation.

Variable and Value Labels

variable labels VARNAME 'description of item or variable' . value labels VARNAME 1 'strongly disagree' 2 'disagree' 3 'neither agree nor disagree' 4 'agree' 5 'strongly agree'.

Compute New Variable

compute VARNAMEOVERALL = mean (VARNAME1, VARNAME_2, VARNAME3, VARNAME, VARNAME5, VARNAME6). exe.

Recode New Variable

recode VARNAME (1=5) (2=4) (3=3) (4=2) (5=1) INTO VARNAME_R. exe.

Descriptive Statistics and Frequencies

desc VARNAME1 VARNAME2 VARNAME3. freq VARNAME1 VARNAME2 VARNAME3.

To tell SPSS to run syntax commands, first copy and paste it into your syntax file. Then, simply highlight it and type CTRL+R on your keyboard. You can also select “run” from the menu at the top of the syntax file or click on the right-facing triangle in the menu bar.

References

Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 500-507.

Roch, S., & Shanock, L. (2006). Organizational justice in an exchange framework: Clarifying organizational justice distinctions. Journal of Management, 32, 299-322.

Using Excel 2007 to Organize Research References

After two years of work toward my Ph.D. in organizational science, I’ve conducted numerous literature searches and downloaded quite a few full-text PDFs of research articles—1,374 of them, to be precise. So it’s fortunate that very early in my graduate school experience, I figured out a way to organize all of those files in a manner that I can easily (a) locate, (b) search, (c) sort, and (d) modify. In this short article, I explain what I did and how it helps me stay organized. Then, I provide a downloadable Excel 2007 workbook that you can use in the same manner. To be fair, a number of software programs designed to catalog and store research references and citations exist. I tried to familiarize myself with EndNote, which seems to be a good program for this purpose. My problem with EndNote, however, is that I needed more flexibility in how I kept track of all my references. I also wanted to use a program that is portable; that is, I wanted to be able to open and use my reference catalog on whatever computer I chose to work. Most computers can open Excel 2007 files, but that’s not exactly the case with EndNote. So I went with Excel.

What did I do? It’s quite simple. I created a spreadsheet with separate columns for important information pertaining to research articles: topic, author(s), year, citation, abstract, journal, and so forth. But the truly helpful column that I included in the workbook was the “full text” column, in which I inserted hyperlinks to the full-text versions of the article PDFs. That means I can access the full text of any of my references with a simple mouse click.

So now what I have is a large spreadsheet with 1,374 rows. Each row contains information about a research article that I’ve used at some point on a project or for a class, spanning a number of topics from industrial and organizational psychology, organizational sociology, organizational communication, organizational behavior, and the management sciences. In a few short moments, I can easily sort or filter the spreadsheet by any number of meaningful criteria, including the project or class I for which I used the reference, the article’s topic, author, year, and journal name.

Many of my classmates have asked about this spreadsheet and have found using it to be quite helpful. You may find it useful as well. Therefore, I created an example spreadsheet to get you started. Pay special attention to the comments regarding columns G, H, and I. Download the spreadsheet and start getting organized today.

UPDATE (March 20, 2012): It's been a number of years since I came up with this, so be sure to also investigate some of the new (and improved versions) of software out there that could help you with these same issues (e.g., EndNote, Mendeley, etc.).

UPDATE (Jan. 21, 2014): Consider using Zotero for organizing your research, NOT an Excel spreadsheet. Read more.

SPSS Syntax 101: Basic Guidelines, Variable and Value Labels

Perhaps you’re now convinced that using SPSS syntax might save you some time in the long run. Maybe you even now know how to create a new syntax file. So what do you do with that file and how do you make it manage or analyze your data?

As a reminder, this forum focuses on common analyses performed by researchers and practitioners within organizational behavior, industrial/organizational psychology, and human resource management. An in-depth explanation of everything SPSS syntax can possibly do is far beyond this forum’s scope. The focus here is on practical issues and no-nonsense knowhow to bolster your productivity.

To begin, let’s cover a few guidelines regarding the use of SPSS syntax.

• Notes: You can make notes to yourself within the syntax file about what you are analyzing, why you are analyzing it, what results you found, and anything else that may help put your analysis in context for future reference. To make a note to yourself, simply precede your note with an asterisk (*) and end your sentence with a period. That will ensure that SPSS will skip over that sentence when running the analysis you specify. It is sometimes useful to use many asterisks in a row to demarcate different sections of your syntax.
• Sensitivity: Although syntax is not case-sensitive (to the best of my knowledge), syntax code is very sensitive to every other character you type (including periods and other punctuation).

Now, let’s practice. Open a data set and create a new syntax file. Click anywhere in the syntax file’s blank box. Insert a row of asterisks, a description of the file, another row of asterisks, and a period. Save your file somewhere appropriate with an appropriately distinctive file name. Your syntax should now look something like this (click on the image for a larger view).

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The next step is to insert code into your syntax file that will specify the types of analyses that the program will conduct on your data. Three general ways that I typically generate code are through (a) directly typing it in from memory, (b) copying, pasting, and editing syntax from another source, and (c) using the program’s “paste” function. I recommend starting your foray into SPSS syntax using methods (b) and (c), which may or may not naturally progress into method (a).

One common task when setting up your data for analysis is properly inputting your variable and value labels. This is helpful because when you run analyses, the SPSS output will include the labels assigned to the variables that were analyzed, assisting in your interpretation of the results. Let’s imagine that one of your variables is “overall satisfaction with life,” being measured by one item on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Forget, of course, that using a single item to measure a construct is a bad idea from a measurement perspective.

Let’s go ahead and designate a variable in your data set as having the name “lifesat.” Select the “variable view” on the bottom left corner of your data file and type “lifesat” into the upper left cell under “Name.” You can quickly assign labels to both the variable itself and to its values using the syntax below:

variable labels lifesat 'overall satisfaction with life' .

value labels lifesat 1 'strongly disagree' 2 'disagree' 3 'neither agree nor disagree' 4 'agree' 5 'strongly agree'.

To run this syntax, first copy and paste it into your syntax file. Then, simply highlight it and type CTRL+R on your keyboard. You can also select “run” from the menu at the top of the syntax file or click on the right-facing triangle in the menu bar.

An output file should appear which will simply repeat the syntax listed above. Note that you will receive an error message if there is no actual variable named “lifesat.” If you look at the “label” and “values” columns in the data set, the labels and values specified above should now appear.

This procedure is especially useful when setting up an SPSS data file from raw data, which often is in the form of an Excel spreadsheet or comma-separated values (.csv) file. For example, this is specifically how the popular online survey tool SurveyMonkey compiles data for users to download. It is especially helpful when conducting initial SPSS data file setup to list all of the variable names in one column, followed by all of the corresponding variable labels in the adjacent column, and then use the concatenate function in Excel to help create all of the syntax for you. Download this Excel 2007 spreadsheet for a quick template; pay attention to the comments in each cell regarding instructions. Note that the workbook has two spreadsheets, one for variable labels and one for value labels.

I have frequently found these basic SPSS syntax procedures to be useful in the initial-setup phase of data analysis. Future posts will discuss and explore using syntax to actually analyze your data, but these initial procedures are useful because they will aid in the interpretation of those analyses.

SPSS Basics: Getting Started with Syntax

Getting started is half the battle, especially when trying to learn a new software program or trying to accomplish a new task in a familiar one. In a previous post, I discussed some of the advantages of using syntax in SPSS instead of the software program's drop-down menus. As an astute reader commented, syntax can be very frustrating because it requires the user to follow its specifications very closely. That means that any misplaced characters or punctuation can prevent your program from running correctly, or from running at all. So is SPSS syntax worth learning for garden-variety social scientists studying organizational behavior, industrial and organizational psychology, and other related fields? Absolutely. But that's because I'm going to try to demonstrate how you can use SPSS syntax in a smart, efficient way to do the basic tasks that you may encounter on a relatively frequent basis in graduate school classes, research projects, and in providing consulting recommendations.

I'll do that through posting actual syntax code that you can copy, paste, edit, and run on your own data. That should help with tasks including computing and recoding variables, calculating descriptive statistics, and conducting analyses such as reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlations, and hierarchical regression--including mediation and moderation analyses. I'll also post some of the tips that I've learned the hard way regarding keeping your syntax and data files user-friendly.

To get started, however, I'm going to assume that you've never used syntax before. You may even be a little scared of it. You're studying or previously studied psychology, organizational behavior, or human resource management because you want to help people and organizations work and play well with one another.

No one told you'd have to be a statistician or computer scientist. But neither am I. All I'm saying is that good consulting and good science builds from an understanding of research methods; therefore, it makes good sense to figure out how to use the tools we have available in the smartest, most efficient way possible. Statisticians, computer scientists, and actuaries: You may want to search elsewhere for solutions to your specific challenges.

SPSS File Types

SPSS has three common file types associated with it. First, there's your data file. This file ends with the file extension .sav. Second, there's your output file. This file ends with the file extension .spo, and SPSS automatically creates it when your run an analysis. Third, there's your syntax file. This file ends with the file extension .sps.

Creating a New Syntax File

To create a syntax file, start by opening the SPSS program or a data set (.sav file). Then, go to the drop-down menu at the top of the screen, go to "file," then "new," and select "syntax file." A new screen should open that looks like the image below. Note that an empty data set is in the background, and the new syntax file is in the foreground.

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The syntax file in the foreground serves as your "command center," so to speak, for your data analysis. I recommend maintaining a single syntax file for each project. For example, I used the same single syntax file for all of the analysis relevant to my master's thesis and have separate ones for other projects. Basically, the syntax file is a text document that you can save, "save as," copy and paste items into and from, and so on.

Helpful hint: If you're ever on a computer that doesn't have SPSS yet need to open your syntax file for some reason, you can open it as a text file in Notepad or Wordpad. You won't be able to run the program, but you'll be able to see it, read the notes you made in it, and copy its contents.

So now you know (a) what a syntax file looks like and (b) how to create a new one. Future posts will address next steps and general tips for using the file to analyze your data. Congratulations--you got started, and that's half the battle.

SPSS Basics: Why Syntax Beats Point and Click

Consider yourself very, very lucky: It wasn't that long ago that researchers were calculating all of their statistics by hand, without the use of powerful statistical programs like SPSS, SAS, and Excel. But just because software running on powerful computers allows anyone to spit out statistics doesn't mean that you don't have to know what you're doing and to conduct your analysis in a meaningful way. Because, after all, the numbers that your software program of choice quickly hurls back at you after a few short commands is only as good as (a) the data itself and (b) what you told it to do in terms of analysis. It seems that different academic disciplines gravitate toward different software programs, and many researchers in industrial/organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management tend to use SPSS. And that's just fine for the majority of the types of analyses we like to conduct (with structural equation modeling being a notable exception). One of the big differences between SPSS and other statistical programs is that it has a variety of "point and click" options, meaning that one can tell the program to run a variety of types of analyses without having any knowledge of the program's programming language simply by using drop-down menus. While that may sound nice to beginners, it has its pitfalls. Most notably, it encourages a haphazard approach toward data analysis that in the end leaves users wondering, "What did I just do?" So I strongly encourage anyone getting started with SPSS to quickly learn to start doing all of their analyses with syntax.

What's syntax? Syntax is what we call the programming language used to conduct data analyses in SPSS without using the “point and click” method. It's useful for a multitude of reasons, including:

• It helps us conduct our analyses in a meaningful, systematic manner
• It is a lasting record of what analyses we conducted
• If something does not work, we can easily find out why
• It can perform operations that are laborious or impossible using the drop-down menus
• It is easily transferred among collaborators

Future posts on this forum will further expand upon the basics of using syntax for analyzing data in SPSS. But for now, consider abandoning the "point and click" method. You'll be glad you did.