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HAVE PSYCHOMETRICS BEEN USEFUL TO MANAGEMENT?
Methods of assessment which rely on traditional psychometrics (the so-called "science" of measurement and the sanction of the American Psychological Association) are as useless to management for understanding people and making decisions as operating instructions in a foreign language. Most assessment methods are based on an abstract nomothetic paradigm, meaning that they look for general factors applicable to all people. They are thus incapable of yielding reliable or even relevant information about the individual, as such. An idiographic approach, on the other hand, takes an individualized approach, saying there are no general factors to explain people, or those which do exist are inadequate in truly understanding the individual. The fatal decision made by psychology a century ago to emulate physics in research methodology, assumed that there were universal qualities of people, governed by laws and principles which could be discovered. With their discovery, the nature of human beings would be then understood and behavior made predictable. As has been painfully obvious for many decades, universal qualities or traits apparently do not exist. Traits which have been observed and measured often vary from one situation to another; for example, consider the psychological trait of "sociability." Now think about someone you know who is very sociable around family and close friends but very withdrawn and quiet at work or when meeting someone new. So laws or principles governing the nature and behavior of the person have not been unearthed. As a result, millions of individuals from the last five generations have suffered impoverished lives because a means of understanding their unique personal identity was not available to them. Consequently, the prevailing belief from much of psychology denies that the person has any unique, innate personal identity. Its methodology for research and measurement don't focus on the individual as such, and cannot shed light on the matter. Psychometricians didn't consider the individual person the proper focus of research because they thought it couldn't add to "scientific knowledge" about the person. Such a view becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have this well-developed, terribly complex machine called psychometrics which is unable to say anything certain about the person. It can't, because each person is unique, possessing a unique nature, and exercising unique behavior, and the science of measurement has focused on general factors, not uniqueness. So some 47 years ago, more out of ignorance and frustration with the inability of psychology to produce a science of persons, I started to probe the life experiences of individuals when they were intensely pursuing what they did well and found deeply satisfying. I moved our paradigm from abstract nomothology and its search for general factors and universal principles,, to an idiograhic model studying the person as an individual. It was a form of operational research, studying phenomena recurring in every person we studied. The fatal flaw of the nomothetic approach was to assume that without general factors or traits, the description of human personalities was "only chaos." We have found that an idiographic model can give full acknowledgement of the rather obvious truth that each person is unique, yet also describe useful dimensions of behavior in a common language that gives deep insight into how people function. Out of this research accessing the heart and mind of the person yielded fruit that will ultimately change the way we educate, work and worship. For every person possessed a certain personality which had the same structure, same kind of content and same dynamics. We refer to these as motivated abilities, subject matter, circumstances, relationships, and payoff - 5 core dimensions that provide deep insight into what a person loves to do and how, when, where, and with whom they do it. But the pattern of these specific behaviorial elements (typically 25-35 of them) was unique for each person . We had discovered a true Science of Persons which could predict, explain a comprehend the nature and behavior of each person. So with over 50,000 people studied in depth, one-at-a-time, I believe it is time to walk away from a technology that doesn't work. Because each person is so meticulously designed to function in a highly particular way seeking one particular consummation………. any test, or series of tests, contrived experiment, simulation, structured interview, or personality inventory which does not know the dynamic innate nature of the person being 'tested', can only arrive at conclusions which at their best are partial, uncertain, or situational, and at their worst, false and misleading. The problem is one can't tell which it is, and thus many have been operating in the dark, guessing how it all comes together. This inherent weaknesses in assessment methods (judged valid by their own set of criteria) have been responsible for a level of job mismatch in every organization from 50% to 80% -- these are not our numbers but come from a variety of studies. Instead, consider a method of assessment we call a discovery process which has been eminently useful to management of several hundred large, prestigious organizations in business, research, religion, government and charity. Here's why and how. Managers are making decisions about recruiting, screening, placing, utilizing, motivating, resolving disputes about, developing, confronting, resolving operating problems involving, encouraging, communicating with and trying to understand…….. individuals. Always it is individuals. Even when they are a group, they are a group of distinct individuals. Even when you get down to the workers, they are unique individuals. If you understand their uniqueness, you can improve their contribution far beyond the limits of their current job role. Because these actions and relationships are the continuing essence of a manager's job, you need to find out what makes the person come alive and stay alive, to discover the unique heart and mind of the employee. If the idea is for both to prosper, the manager must know how to productively understand and shepherd the unique strengths and motivation possessed by each employee. The manager needs to know the person better than his/her mother. Use of our System For Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA®) has been especially effective in providing management with solid, reliable data in their selection, development, utilization and the many people decisions and actions required every day. We have identified 8 criteria which must be met by any assessment method to be of value to management, each of which captures prominent features of SIMA.
Copyright 2007 Arthur F. Miller
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