Hogan and Chamorro-Premuzic argue that all large scale social phenomena—wars, economic disasters, etc.—can be explained in terms of personality. For individual lives, character is fate, and the fate of nations (and other organizations) depends on the character of the leaders. Put more simply, who is in charge really matters. When competent people direct organizations, the… Read more »
Author: RHogan
Q&A with Dr. Hogan: Rules of Engagement
From casual Fridays to corporate retreats, companies spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars to develop passionate, committed employees. Yet, according to a recent Gallup poll, more than 71% of employed adults aren’t engaged at work.
Why Organizations Behave Irrationally
Q&A with Dr. Hogan: Psychopaths in the C-Suite
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by disregard for the rights of others, lack of empathy or remorse, and grandiosity. Although the world’s prisons are full of people who fit this description, not all psychopaths are in jail. In fact, a surprising number can be found in the corner office.
Five Essentials of Execution
1. The agenda to be executed should make sense to those who must execute it — people should be persuaded that the agenda is worth following.
Self-Deception and Evolutionary Theory
I have been interested in the problem of self-deception (doing things for reasons that we don’t properly understand or acknowledge) my entire adult life. Writers as diverse as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and JP Sartre thought self-deception was the primary source of human misery. They also argued that people should try to overcome their… Read more »
The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship
The future of the US (and world) economy depends on the activity of entrepreneurs, who create businesses, jobs, and wealth. Although, as Adam Smith noted, they do this for perfectly self-centered reasons and the fact that others profit from their activities is of no interest to them. Adam Smith was speaking from personal experience, and… Read more »
Workforce 2018: The Future is Now
The US economy is dragging and unemployment rates are at historically high levels, but this too shall pass. Carnevale, et al. suggest that the so-called Baby Boomers are rapidly leaving the labor market, and that by 2018, the US will face a serious shortage of people having the necessary expertise for the economy. This raises… Read more »
How to Defend Personality Measurement
Critics of personality measurement make two claims. The first is that personality measures yield only modest to non-significant validity coefficients. To support this claim, critics typically cite Guion & Gottier’s view that “there is no generalizable evidence that personality measures can be recommended as good or practical tools for employee selection.” But what did Guion… Read more »
Engagement: Part II
The data are quite clear: employee engagement is the “g” factor in organizational life. Engagement, which is easy to measure, predicts every important organizational outcome at both the individual and the group level. Higher levels of engagement bring better financial results in terms of lower turnover, lower absenteeism, higher productivity, and higher customer satisfaction. When… Read more »