For all our recruitment tests and practices in HR, the problem of psychopaths in the workplace remains a problem that’s hard to solve.

Everyone has worked with a psychopath. I’m a lay-person, so I use the term in it’s popular sense, but I’m on their case because they're so disruptive. Sometimes they are the obvious bullies in the office,…

Continuing the riff on the theme of unconscious bias, here's an article from my blog archive (Feb 2010) that's relevant.

Do you think you’re good at judging people?  You are, but probably not in the way you think…

We all live complicated lives and nature has given us neurological shortcuts so we don’t have to relearn everything as we go.  For example, when we encounter a…

So every week or so, I plonk the baby in the car and head to my Mum’s to have a coffee and talk about life, love and the universe.  These chats are not usually very long – but always illuminating.  This week Mum read a copy of Inside Cover that quoted from a certain Mr A Taysom whose minute paper had some interesting thoughts (read here).

I was laughing as I listened – half of me thinking…

Lately, and nostalgically, I have been revisiting some of the music of my youth. The Who has made something of a popular comeback of late with many of their tracks being used as theme music in US TV shows such as House, NCIS and Two and a Half Men. But before those famous songs, came The Who’s seminal rock opera…

An exhaustive review has been completed and the verdict is in.  The demise of Australian cricket was not caused by the inability of the Australian batsmen to cope with reverse swing or Mitchell Johnson’s failure to consistently land the ball on a good length.  No, Australian cricket is in the doldrums due to ineffective leadership, unclear accountability, a poor culture, a lack of feedback, and poor talent and succession management practices.…

Gaining top talent is not just a matter of building consistent brand images that are reflective of the working reality within the organisation. Successfully attracting and employing top talent is highly correlated to the candidates experiences within the first 90 days after their commencement. It is during this time that the candidate evaluates the consistency of the espoused culture and culture in action. This evaluation is based upon many aspects of the working reality including, welcome…

The rate of blogging on the HR Daily Community has slowed a little this week, so I thought I'd share some stats that might inspire you to get writing!

In the six weeks since our launch, the Community has had nearly 10,000 visits, and 18,000 page views, 15,000 of which were individual blog posts.…

There has been an interesting discussion lately on a Psychometrics Linked In Group. The discussion was begun by Prue Laurence, Director at Psylutions, a workplace psychology consultancy in Melbourne where they are currently conducting a survey about cheating in workplace psychometric tests and people’s attitudes to psych testing.

Cheating on psych tests is a subject that…

When most people think of a garden, they picture a flat piece of ground with plants growing on it. Sure, this is the traditional way of thinking but there are many other options available . . . growing plants on lattice or against a wall (called “espalier”) are two established methods. However, there is a new method that is growing in popularity . . . the vertical garden. It’s ideal for people with small spaces or those who want to maximise every growing surface. Plants are hung almost like…

In February 2009, Gary Hamel made a presentation to a Boston Business School symposium. The major points Gary made that reinforce my messages to you all over the last seven years:

• Management is bankrupt. We are looking to our employees to innovate.
• Our customers are not number one. Our employees are. The customer is number two. Shareholders are number three.
• We…

If you need to say, “No” to a group, an employee, or a client, it’s vital to be cognisant of these strategies:

• Be polite. This way you maintain dignity and can prevent a discussion deteriorating into a slanging match. By remaining polite, nearly always the other people will remain polite, also.
• Desist from arguing. Convince people that your decision is the best one by citing facts. In an argument, we tend to raise the volume of…

I planted an olive grove for my old age. I imagined friends and family gathering under the dense shade of the silver trees, sitting at antique wooden trestle tables spread with white tablecloths and wine and cheese, as we watched children play on rugs laid under the trees and run through the gnarled trunks, playing hide and seek and discovering secret worlds.

But, despite the Mediterranean climate of South Australia, where I planted my little olive grove in the garden of our…

Last week I attended the first ever Sourcing Summit, and before I go too far into this I must congratulate both Phil Tusing and Andrea Mitchell for putting on the first event of its type in Australia.  I think it was a great success…

Change Management, is it an art or a science? That is the question that often confronts in the early stages of an organisational change management project. It's a question that I have never been able to answer definitively.  Those practitioners who have spent years immersed in complex methodologies based on behavioural psychology principles are able to sustain a…

Achieving organizational alignment is a strategic HR activity that can deliver significant benefits to an organization. Alignment is more than ideal state. It is imperative to ensure the organization is successful in getting all employees to move into the same direction, to achieve the vision of the organization.

Alignment is one of the power words in an organizational change consultant’s toolkit. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t use or refer to alignment.

Some years ago, I…

A few recent conversations with our company’s receptionist have reminded me of two things: 1 – HR’s unique opportunity to bring people and resources together; and 2 – It is often the “little” conversations that spark the true “eureka” moments and help people and resources connect in meaningful ways.

Playwright … Parent … Receptionist

In chatting with our receptionist, Carla, over the past year, I’ve gotten to know her from a variety…

There are a lot of silly tests on the market which label people, many of which aren’t validated scientifically (no matter what the publishers say) but are nonetheless used to “explain away” behaviour. (“What can you expect from a ‘high Z’ Symbolic Symbolic with OKNL tendencies?”) I mean, really, why not just resort to horoscopes?



Annie Murphy Paul’s book, The Cult of Personality, demonstrates why most commonly used behavioural assessment and personality “profiling”…