Category Archives: Training & Development

Gauging Difficulty: Cognitive Factors that Affect Performance

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As work tasks become more difficult, many people think that a person will generally set lower or more realistic expectations for performance progress, which should subsequently influence the level of performance success. While research has demonstrated relationships among task difficulty, performance expectancies, and performance outcomes, recent evidence is also pointing out that several cognitive factors complicate this relationship.  These factors are: Continue reading →

Leadership Development on the Job

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Organizations spend billions of dollars on leadership development each year in hopes of reaping benefits of superior leadership (e.g., productive employees, strategic growth, higher profits). While most of these billions are spent on programs conducted outside of the leaders’ day-to-day jobs, informal on-the-job experiences and challenges prove to be the most educational and enriching for leaders. Continue reading →

What Makes A Leader Ready To Lead?

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Organizations need leaders to move them in the right direction. Strong leaders can be developed, but how can organizations know when a person is ready for leadership development? Organizations must start by enhancing their capabilities for leadership development by focusing on individual’s “developmental readiness”.

What is developmental readiness?

Developmental readiness (DR) is a person’s ability and motivation to add new knowledge/information into the long-term memory. There are five factors that are generally related to one’s leadership developmental readiness.

  • The nature of one’s goals:

People who are learning goal-oriented see themselves as continuously improving through learning and are more likely to use/solicit feedback for developmental purposes, while those who are performance goal-oriented are more likely to view themselves as having less flexibility for development and avoid challenging opportunities where they may face failure or negative feedback.

  • The level of someone’s confidence in their developmental ability:

How confident a person is in their ability to improve (or develop) a particular skill or ability influences the way information related to development is interpreted and used, which can partly determine how engaged a person will be in leader development.

  • The level of self-awareness a person has:

How clear people’s views of themselves are can affect how well they are able to incorporate developmental experiences and feedback. The greater the clarity a person has, the better the ability to find meaning in developmental opportunities and feedback.

  • The level of self-complexity a person has:

Higher levels of complexity are indicative of greater cognitive and affective associations, and better ability to process and refine developmental information.

  • The possession of second-order thinking:

Having an awareness of personal cognitive strengths and weaknesses allows a leader to reflect on experiences and focus on how they are being interpreted.

How can organizations use DR for development?

Leadership is contextualized, meaning the organization’s environment has an effect on the DR of its individuals. The environment in which DR occurs can aid or retard an individual’s development.

Those responsible for developing leaders must be able to adapt their techniques/modes of development to the individual through providing individual consideration.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Avolio, B.J., & Hannah, S.T. (2009). Leader developmental readiness. Industrial Organizational Psychology, 2, 284-287.

How Learner Control Affects Web-Based Training Objectives

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Organizations frequently  utilize web-based training because of the efficiency and flexibility it offers. As the popularity of this training option increases, so does the need to understand how it can be used most effectively. One demonstrated technique is maximizing learner control.

How Does Learner Control Affect Learning and Retention?

Learner control involves giving individuals a certain degree of control over the training. For example, learner control could be as simple as allowing employees to progress through the training at their own pace or as complex as allowing employees to determine what type of information they are learning. Typically, some degree of control between these two options has been found to be optimal.

When individuals have control over the learning environment, they may be more cognitively engaged, as they focus on information that is relevant and interesting to them. Because of this, they often experience more positive reactions to the training than if they had little or no control. In turn, they may also process the information more thoroughly and deeply, thereby increasing retention.

These positive reactions can be important in keeping trainees motivated, as well as implementing the training in the workplace. This is because as positive reactions towards the training increase, so does the individual’s motivation to complete the training successfully. Additionally, the individual is more likely to have more motivation to apply the learned behaviors or knowledge on the job and be more confident in doing so.

Practical Implications

Because satisfaction with web-based training can affect not only the successful completion of the training but also the individual’s probability she will transfer the training into the workplace, it is important for organizations to be mindful of using learner control when developing and implementing web-based training. Organizations should:

  • Design the training with the trainee’s reactions in mind – ensuring individuals will react positively to the training is essential in ensuring trainee engagement and successful implementation in the workplace. This could also be useful to determine if employees will use the control they are granted appropriately, as trainees may not always make choices that will increase their learning/retention.
  • Use some degree of learner control – allowing trainees to have some control, such as the ability to select presentation modes, start or pause the training, and review previous material may be beneficial.
  • Make the features known to trainees – simply giving the trainee some instruction or education about the various learner control tools available and how to use them most effectively is necessary for the successful execution of a learner controlled web-based training program.

It is in the DeGarmo Group’s opinion that using methods like pilot testing could be useful to ensure that each of these methods are being used to optimize performance. If a strong negative reaction is found, then the training could be modified based on suggestions for improvement.

Using these simple techniques can help to maximize the effectiveness of web-based training. This is increasingly important because of the growing popularity of this training medium. Designing the training with employee reactions in mind, allowing some degree of learner control, and making the features known to trainees can ultimately increase the overall effectiveness of the training.

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

The DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Orvis, K., Fisher, S., & Wasserman, M. (2009). Power to the people: Using learner control to improve trainee reactions and learning in web-based instructional environments. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (4). 960-971.

Promotion of Voluntary Employee Development Programs

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Continuous employee development is imperative in order to maintain a competitive edge in today’s constantly changing business environment. Although many organizations realize this need, employees may be reluctant to voluntarily participate in development programs – this may be because the employee does not see the need for development, does not know about development opportunities, does not feel necessary resources/means are available to participate, etc. So how can organizations encourage employees to participate in these voluntary programs without making participation feel mandatory?

Factors Related to Voluntary Participation

Many factors influence employee willingness to participate in development opportunities, including:

  • Availability of activities – It is important for employees’ to not only have opportunities for participation, but also have multiple options for participation.  Simply offering a variety of development opportunities and making these opportunities known is crucial to employee involvement. Although this seems somewhat rudimentary, many organizations fail to advertise and publicize development opportunities, which can reduce participation.
  • Attitudes and intentions to participate – Employees who believe that development opportunities will be pleasant and worthwhile are more likely to participate. Additionally, if the development will have some utility or future benefit to the individual they may be more likely to participate.
  • Subjective norms – Norms and expectations established by other individuals in the organization, both supervisors and peers, can affect an employee’s desire to participate in development opportunities. Additionally, others’ opinions about a specific development opportunity can influence an individuals’ willingness to participate (i.e. coworker has participated in development and discusses their positive/negative experience with another coworker).
  • Perceived control and support – Employees must feel as though they have control over whether or not they participate in development. Allowing employees to choose development opportunities can not only encourage participation but can also increase engagement in the development program. Additionally, the perceived support from the organization, supervisor and peers can be important. This can include:
    • Monetary compensation – Company pays for development or rewards the individual monetarily for completing the development program (i.e. pay raise, bonus, etc.).
    • Fostering an organizational climate that encourages development – Company policies and procedures support, reward and recognize employee development. This could include formal recognition of the employee, first choice on work projects or informally acknowledging employees’ efforts.
  • Reactions to employee development – An individual’s opinion about a specific development opportunity can also impact willingness to participate in future programs. Positive development experiences in the past will influence the desire to participate in the future. Therefore, both the perception of the training itself AND the perception of trainings in the past can influence employees’ willingness to participate.

Practical Implications

Organizations offering voluntary development opportunities should keep in mind that it is important to:

  • Offer a wide variety of quality trainings employees perceive as beneficial and applicable to their job. Employee surveys could be a useful mean in determining what employees perceive as valuable.
  • Make these development opportunities known to employees. This can be done through advertising and should make the utility and applicability of the development clear, as well as illustrate how the organization will support the employee.
  • Ensure employees are rewarded for their participation (whether it be monetary or recognition) as many times employees are devoting time and effort, above and beyond their normal work duties and responsibilities, to participate in the development.

Organizations that develop a culture and climate that values high quality development could gain a positive reputation with not only their employees, but also other organizations and individuals, which could ultimately also give the organization a competitive edge recruiting employees. Therefore, the organizational benefits of active employee development could extend beyond advancing employee knowledge and should be utilized to the fullest.

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

The DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hurtz, G. & Williams, K. (2009). Attitudinal and Motivational Antecedents of Participation in Voluntary Employee Development Activities. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (3). 635-653.

Making Leadership Development Work

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Experience is the key to learning how to be an effective leader. The problem with leadership development is ensuring that potential leaders are provided experiences – for how can one learn from experience if there are no experiences to learn from?

Decades of research on leadership (how it’s developed and what is most effective) has illuminated a set of common “facts” about how/why experience is essential.

“Facts” about learning experiences.

  • Leadership is learned from experience: Research has shown that natural ability has little to do with becoming a leader when compared to experience.
  • Early experiences are indispensable: Early work experience (short & long-term assignments and contact with other very good/poor supervisors) are essential.
  • The challenges present are what make an experience effective: The unexpectedness, complexity, and pressures are a few of the challenges that make experiences effective.
  • Experiences teach different lessons: Depending on what challenges are presented, people are able to learn different ways to handle them.
  • Experiences can (and should) include “developmental” aspects: Feedback and coaching can enhance the learning experience, particularly when someone is having problems with presented challenges.
  • Getting people the experience(s) they need is essential: Making experiences available is crucial, but matching developmental needs must also be intentional and a priority.
  • Learning takes time and is ever-changing: There will be successes, delays, stops & starts, and learning from experiences is most likely when people are willing and encouraged to embrace the “lessons”.

Why don’t more organizations use this info?

There are a few reasons why more organizations aren’t using this knowledge to develop their leaders more effectively.

First, is the assumption that people either have leadership ability or they don’t, which can lead to the dismissal of those who don’t immediately succeed at challenges – believing there is a lack of leadership ability.

Secondly, results are achieved in the (relatively) short-term, while development is a longer-term objective. Pressure exists to provide challenging opportunities to those with “proven” success, instead of to those who may get greater benefit from the experience.

Additionally, the cost of experience-based leadership development is more difficult to calculate as compared to tracking the costs associated with training programs, consulting fees, or tuition, and therefore the ROI is more difficult to demonstrate for “experiences”.

Many organizations think they are including experience needs in their development opportunities. Job rotation and special projects are common techniques, but their focus is often on meeting business objectives (completing the assignments or learning different job responsibilities) and less on actually learning from the experiences.

“Experiences” can be a part of development.

Imperfect as they may be, there are some strategies organizations can use to try to ensure that “learning” is an integral component of providing experiences.

  • Go with the flow: Work with others’ points of view and interject how experiences have contributed to current leaders’ success to make it easier for them to understand the need for truly meaningful experiences in leadership development.
  • Make development a part of strategy: Identify the organization’s strategic initiatives, and the leadership challenges that will likely be present for them. Then the skills needed for those challenges can be developed by providing needed experiences (e.g., projects or mentors).
  • Use business initiatives for development: Moving leadership development away from typical HR processes and toward a business initiative almost ensures it will remain a top priority, instead of becoming a routine “procedure” full of forms and other paperwork.
  • Create a “leadership developer” role: Put someone in charge of understanding the organization’s potential leaders, their strengths and weaknesses, and the experiences that can be offered. Give this person the ability to take advantage of experiences as they arise, by influencing which leadership candidates may be best suited for different activities.
  • Concentrate on learning from experiences: The emphasis (and record keeping) should be on whether someone learned/gained anything from different experiences, not just on the fact that they had them.
  • Make “mastery” of job demands a criteria: There are a variety of ways to overcome challenges. Instead of the “one best way”, focus on if the skills or demands were mastered through a variety of ways.

Practical applications

Many HR departments already have processes in place (e.g., talent management or coaching) that could be redirected to focus on mastering skills learned through different experiences. The key is to make sure they are being utilized appropriately, focused on experience-based learning, and not treated as standard operating procedures which often lose their meaning and importance.

Rethinking an organization’s current development processes and the emphasis of them may be necessary to ensure that the opportunity (and requirement) to learn from experiences is a primary focus.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: McCall, M.W. Jr. (2009). Recasting Leadership Development. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 3(1)

The Value of Training and Selection

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Human capital is the combined knowledge, skills, and other abilities of an organization’s workforce. Organizations that pay in to human resource development up front will reap the benefits of a more productive and knowledgeable workforce, as well as cost savings over time. Human capital can be broken down into two forms:

  • Generic Human Capital – general skills or abilities of employees such as writing skills and cognitive ability. These can be either inherent to the employee or learned through previous jobs or education. These skills can be selected for during the hiring process.
  • Firm-Specific Human Capital – knowledge and skills that are specific to a particular job or organization. For example, a specific protocol that employees are required to follow.  These skills must be trained by the organization.

Human capital is a valuable asset, especially as today’s jobs are becoming increasingly unstructured.   Organizations need employees who are able to fill a variety of roles and complete a large variety of tasks. These employees can be acquired and developed through selection and training.

Shifting Focus

Traditionally, HR researchers have tended to assess the value of HR practices such as training and selection as ways to improve “micro” level outcomes, such as individual-level job performance and transfer of training. This type of research tells us little about the benefits of training and selection on a “macro” level – focusing on broad-level outcomes such as team and organization performance. Unfortunately, managers and HR professionals are typically held accountable for these broad level outcomes, rather than individually-focused results.

New Findings

New research has recently shown that selection and training do in fact lead to “macro”-level organizational outcomes. These include:

  • Customer Service Performance is influenced by selection and training. High quality customer service leads to a number of positive outcomes for organizations including customer satisfaction and retention.
  • Unit-level Retention is related to training. Employees who receive adequate training will be equipped with the skills necessary to perform their jobs effectively. Well-trained employees will be more likely to remain on the job.
  • Financial Performance is related to both selection and training. Customer satisfaction can lead to increased financial outcomes as a result of repeat business and word of mouth promotion. Increased retention will save the organization money because the valuable human capital obtained through training will remain with the organization for longer periods of time, thus reducing costs associated with hiring, training, and related administrative activities.

Changes over time

In addition to the macro level impact that selection and training have on organization-level outcomes, research has also revealed that changes in selection and training practices over time also result in changes in overall human capital quality. In essence:

  • When business units increase investment in selection and training, overall quality of human capital will increase.
  • When units decrease investment in selection and training, overall quality of human capital will decrease.

Practical Implications

The study’s authors offer practical implications that can be taken from this research:

  • Investment in human capital, through training and selection, can result in substantial payoffs for organizations in terms of increased customer service, increased retention within work units, and increased profits.
  • Because HR processes are often evaluated in terms of broad level outcomes such as financial performance, it’s important to emphasize to senior-level management other, non-financial benefits, such as improved performance, that investing in selection and training can have for the organization.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Iddekinge, C.H., Ferris, G.R., Perrewe, P.L., Perryman, A.A., Blass, F.R., Heetderks, T.D. (2009). Effects of selection and training on unit-level performance over time: A latent growth modeling approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 929-843.

Leadership and Assertiveness Costs

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There can be too much or too little of a good thing when it comes to assertiveness in managers. Recent research has found ratings of managerial leadership are highest at a moderate level of managerial assertiveness, with low and high assertiveness being associated with lower ratings. This summary will review possible work-related costs that may explain this effect.

Assertiveness Defined

Assertiveness is defined as speaking up for oneself and acting in one’s own interests (i.e., values, goals, and preferences). Assertiveness is thought of in terms of a continuum, ranging from being submissive to hostile. It is a relatively unique characteristic in that assertiveness can be a problem if it is too high or too low; other characteristics (such as intelligence or charisma) are usually only considered problematic if they are too low.

Aspects of Leadership

The research examined how perceptions of managerial assertiveness affected ratings of four leadership aspects:

  • Motivation
  • Social Influence
  • Managing Conflict
  • Team Work

A pattern was found that showed extreme ratings of assertiveness negatively affected the ratings of each of these aspects.

Assertiveness Costs: The Buddy and the Boss

The differences in leadership ratings may be based on different social and instrumental costs associated with varying degrees of assertiveness. When managers exhibit low levels of assertiveness, they may be more well-liked but be perceived as weak and not able to get the job done; this weakness can be thought of as the instrumental cost of being too passive or submissive. On the other hand, managers who are extremely aggressive may be thought of as highly effective in terms of getting work accomplished but suffer a social cost in that they are not well accepted as leaders because they are personally disliked.

Implications for Practice

Managers with a generally moderate level of assertiveness may be viewed more positively as a leader compared to low or high assertiveness managers. Moderate managers have the ability to accomplish the instrumental tasks at work without being socially abrasive. Some suggestions for encouraging managers to be moderately assertive include:

  • Using skills training and coaching to teach managers how to be more (or less) assertive
  • Regularly emphasizing the importance of moderate assertiveness to help ensure managerial behavior doesn’t revert back to previous unsatisfactory levels
  • Changing managers’ norms about what is considered acceptable assertiveness

A key to improving perceptions of managerial leadership is changing managers’ expectations about what level of assertiveness is appropriate when their expectations are not congruent with how much assertiveness is actually necessary. This can be done through changing norms and skills using training or coaching. For those people who will not change their assertiveness if needed, other methods may be necessary in areas such as hiring or promotion to reduce the number of these individuals in managerial roles.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Ames, D. R., & Flynn, F. J. (2007). What breaks a leader: The curvilinear relation between assertiveness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 307-324.

Two Ways to Activate Employee Creativity

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Creative thinking is valued across occupations and industries. Even in the most simple of jobs, creative ideas are necessary to solve novel problems that arise. For some occupations, creativity is a bona fide requirement. Creativity is also crucial for organizational growth and long-term success as companies must develop new ideas to stay competitive within their respective industries. When ideas and products can be easily mimicked by competitors, an organization’s best bet is to distinguish itself by consistently presenting fresh and original work. So how can organizations increase the level of creativity in their workforces? Evidence shows that creativity can be increased by influencing moods and emotions of employees. Before going into how emotions affect creativity, though, creativity should first be defined.

How is Creativity Defined?

Creativity involves:

  • The number of ideas someone can generate (called fluency)
  • The uniqueness of the ideas (i.e., originality)

Having a strong command of one of these dimensions does not mean someone will be particularly effective at the other. For example, a person can be fluent and produce many ideas, none of which are particularly original, while another person may only come up with a few ideas which are all highly unique. On the other hand, there are those people who are able to come up with many ideas, several of which are very original.

The Influence of Emotions

Moods and emotions are known to influence creativity, although in a more complicated way than people may realize. Conventional thought holds that to boost creativity, positive moods and emotions should be increased while negative moods and emotions should be decreased.

However, beyond being positive or negative, affective states can also be characterized as activating or deactivating. Activating states increase arousal while deactivating states decrease arousal. This distinction appears to affect creativity levels.

Specifically, activating emotions increase creative behavior while deactivating emotions do not. The table below categorizes different emotions depending on whether they are positive or negative and activating or deactivating:

 

Activating

Deactivating

Positive

 Happy, Elated, Excited Calm, Relaxed

Negative

 Angry, Fearful, Worried Drained, Discouraged

Emotions under the “activating” column are more likely to increase creativity while emotions under the “deactivating” column are more likely to decrease creativity.

Paths to Creativity

Both positive and negative activating emotions lead to increased creativity, but they do so in different ways. Happiness and excitement increase a person’s cognitive flexibility, which can increase both fluency and originality. Cognitive flexibility involves creating ideas that span several different categories or perspectives. Negative activating emotions such as fear may increase persistence and focus, which can lead to more creative ideas but at a cost of longer time spent on trying to be creative.

Implications for Practice

These results suggest that a workplace climate that promotes activating emotions may lead to increased creativity. Some steps that can be taken to promote these types of emotions include:

  • Increase employee engagement and satisfaction at work by such actions as giving employees more voice in procedures and making jobs feel meaningful to them.
  • Promote trusting and cooperative work relationships through teamwork, mentoring, and developing a positive workplace culture.
  • Utilize negative activating emotions when necessary by promoting persistent effort to meet difficult organizational and work goals.
  • Encourage a sense of urgency to promote excitement by emphasizing the immediate nature of and energy required for completing a project.
  • Reduce organizational constraints that can discourage employees, such as inadequate communication, unnecessary paperwork, or overly restrictive procedures that interfere with work and motivation.
  • Aim for increasing positive rather than negative activating emotional states when creative ideas are needed quickly.

In work situations when fear, anxiety, or even anger are normal emotional reactions (e.g., during a recession or when facing an impending deadline), experiencing some level of negative activating emotions is not necessarily detrimental. Feelings of fear can help focus thoughts on coming up with creative solutions when needed.

There are different ways that emotions affect how one comes up with creative ideas. Which emotions to encourage at a particular time will depend on the nature of the work and the context in which creativity is needed.

Interpretation by:

Don Johnson

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: De Dreu, C. K. W., Baas, M., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). Hedonic tone and activation level in the mood-creativity link: Toward a dual pathway to creativity model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 739-756.

Developing Active and Effective Employee Training

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As the nature of work-related expectations continues to change, organizations and individuals must adapt to new ways of learning within the workplace. Creating a dynamic environment capable of responding effectively to the demands of continuous change requires empowering employees and may be achieved through training that utilizes active learning.

What Is Active Learning?

Active learning allows participants more control over their environment and the responsibility for learning. Three formal training design elements for guiding participants are used with active learning:

  • Cognitive – how is the trainee focusing attention?
  • Motivational– where is the effort of the trainee being directed?
  • Emotional – in what ways is the trainee “managing” emotions?

These active learning design elements ensure that the employee learns and retains the training objectives through active participation. It allows the participants to explore or experiment with the information or task presented. The information presented gives the trainee an opportunity to infer various principles and strategies for effective performance.

An active learning approach goes beyond “learning by doing” and focuses on how the training affects the trainee cognitively, motivationally, and emotionally.

Traditional learning approaches, such as lectures followed by practice opportunities, are more passive in nature. The key distinction between the active and passive approaches to training is this: with active learning the individual is actually constructing and processing the information while with passive learning the information is simply presented and rehearsed.

How to Include Active Learning in Training

Each active learning design element contains a set of specific components for inclusion in a training program, and ensures that trainees maintain control over their learning.

Cognitive. Instead of expecting trainees to retain information that has simply been presented to them, exploratory learning allows trainees to specifically focus their attention on the task presented. This can be accomplished through:

  • Active Exploration – trainee is given minimal guidance, and allowed to freely explore and experiment with the tasks
  • Guided Exploration – trainee explores the task in a systematic way, planned by the trainer

Although participants using exploratory methods may perform poorly on training evaluations, their transfer of knowledge and skills back to the job is typically better compared to trainees using traditional, instructive training methods.

Motivational. Framing errors as part of the learning process encourages trainees to maintain their focus and learn from their mistakes. Simply acknowledging that errors will be made positively affects overall performance. In contrast, trainees who are encouraged to avoid errors (often characteristic of passive learning techniques) may perform well during the training, making minimal mistakes, yet are unable to transfer the learning to other settings.

Emotional. Maintaining emotional control during training can help trainees to reduce performance anxiety and decrease negative emotional reactions. Reinforcing positive thoughts or emotions throughout training can be useful, especially during portions of the training that are particularly demanding or difficult.  This can be as simple as including emotional cues and statements within the training like “Maintain a positive attitude”. This can increase trainees’ emotional control, improving both training performance and transfer of training to the workplace.

Practical Implications

Employers who want to use a more active approach to learning must take steps to ensure that trainees are attending to the cognitive, motivational and emotional processes occurring during training sessions. The formal training design elements incorporate exploratory learning, error-tolerance and reinforcing positive emotion can increase active learning in trainees. As with any training development, the overall goals of the training (i.e. mastery of the information) and individual differences of the trainee (i.e. cognitive abilities) must be taken into account; however, active learning can be an extremely useful method for increasing employees’ knowledge and skills.

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Bell, B. & Kozlowski, S. (2008). Active Learning: Effects of Core Training Design Elements on Self-regulatory Processes, Learning and Adaptability. Journal of Applied Psychology. 93 (8). 296-316.

Knowing Not What One Does: Implications for Low Performers

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Research has shown that, when compared to others, most people overestimate their own performance. Many, if not most, workers often say that they are above average or in the top percentage of performers. However, most people cannot be above average (i.e., only 50% can), which indicates that many people are overestimating their abilities.

Overestimating abilities seems to be most common for low performers. People with low levels of knowledge and skills have been known to grossly over-predict their performance in a variety of performance domains. This overestimation occurs even when people are given incentives to be more accurate in their self-performance assessments, which indicates that people are truly unaware that they are overestimating – they likely wouldn’t sacrifice compensation or rewards by intentionally distorting their assessments upward.

What makes this effect particularly troubling is that it occurs even when low performers are engaging in activities they routinely perform and receive some feedback on. Also, overestimation can occur in performance domains where low performers can be a danger to themselves or to others.

Why Does This Occur?

Low performers who truly overestimate their abilities may do so because they lack the metacognition necessary to accurately gauge how well they are (or aren’t) doing. In other words, these people overestimate their performance because they are unable to accurately recognize and distinguish between good and bad performance.

Such an overestimation of ability, combined with a lack of metacognition, can cause great difficulties for organizational attempts to improve performance. It can especially present challenges for productive performance appraisals and training interventions.

Implications for Practice

The following tips should help bring low performers’ assessments closer to reality, which is important for them to be able to regulate their actions and continue to improve their performance.

  • Improve selection procedures. Improving on the organization’s hiring and selection system better places the best skilled or most knowledgeable applicants into matching job openings, as well as identifies those employees who are most likely to benefit from training if it is needed (i.e., have the requisite ability to profit from learning experiences).
  • Frequent and productive performance appraisal. While some organizations have yearly performance appraisals, it can be beneficial for all employees (especially low performers) to have substantive appraisals more often. Low performers need to understand as soon as possible where they are underperforming and what actions can be taken to correct the problem.
  • Increase/Improve training and development. Some low performers may not have learned the knowledge and skills required for success. While it is an important element to employee training and development, feedback alone does not increase employee learning. Acquiring knowledge and increasing skills are also important aspects of training and development. Rehearsing and repeating information, combined with elaborating on how pieces of information tie together, encourages in-depth thinking about information which leads to a deeper understanding of material.
  • Comparative frames of reference. Providing clear examples of what constitutes poor, average, and excellent performance can help employees judge the quality of their own performance relative to a standard.


  • Encourage positive thinking. Hearing bad news is hard for many people to take, especially if they feel there is little hope for improvement. When training underperforming employees, it is important to emphasize that their knowledge and skills can be improved.

By improving how applicants are hired, evaluated, and trained, organizations can help ensure that all employees are in better positions to assess their own performance and adjust their behavior accordingly to increase productivity.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Ehrlinger, J., Johnson, K., Banner, M., Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (2008). Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 98-121.

A Perspective on Success

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From childhood, we are told that if we simply believe in ourselves, we can do anything. Although cliché, there is some truth to this concept – the way we view ourselves can shape our career and define our professional experiences, both financially and emotionally. This view of ourselves is known as our core self-evaluation.

What is Core Self-Evaluation?

Core self-evaluation is the way an individual views himself/herself, specifically, the basic assumptions one makes. These views can ultimately affect success as a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that if a person views himself as a poor performer it can lead him to actually perform poorly and vice versa.

How Can Self-Evaluation Ultimately Affect Career Success?

Career success is not only one’s status, as compared to others, but also how quickly status is obtained and how content the individual is with the position.

Individuals with high core self-evaluations:

  • Perform better
  • Hold more challenging jobs
  • Feel more satisfied with their jobs
  • Recover more easily from job loss
  • Feel happier in life

Individuals with positive core self-evaluations often have a positive start to their careers. Consequently, these individuals are awarded with incentives and resources which are motivating and allow them to become more established within the organization.  Over time, an individual will experience more success as he/she is, generally, more satisfied with the job, performs better, and is open to challenges.

What Effect Does Core Self-Evaluation Have on Education and Health?

Education and health are related to core self-evaluation. The more positive your core self- evaluation the:

  • More likely you are to attain a higher education early in life
  • Less likely you are to get sick, or face adverse health effects

Core self-evaluations are extremely important, as they can influence educational goals. Negative core self-evaluations can be particularly detrimental, since they can become part of a reinforced cycle – the lower a person’s core self-evaluation, the less likely the person is to pursue a higher education, the less education obtained then reinforces the lower core self-evaluation. Additional negative outcomes, such as increased risk for illness, a decreased likelihood for work success, can ultimately affect pay, occupational status, and job satisfaction.

Final Thoughts

It is easy to see how a positive core self-evaluation can lead people to become more successful. Simply believing in yourself, and knowing what you can achieve can make you more happy and successful (and possibly rich!)

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

The DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Judge, T. & Hurst, C.  (2008). How the Rich (and Happy) Get Richer (and Happier): Relationship of Core Self-Evaluations to Trajectories in Attaining Work Success. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (4), 849-863.

Communicating Effectively Through E-mail

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Within the past few years, email has become an increasingly widespread form of communication.  Most of us now use email on a daily basis, both for business and personal use.  Not only is email used as a supplement to traditional forms of communication, such as speaking in person or on the phone, in some relationships email is used almost exclusively.  Using email for communication has several distinct benefits for organizations, it:

  • allows people to communicate across long distances
  • Is less expensive than long distance calls or in-person meetings
  • Increases information flow between co-workers, clients, and customers

Despite the many advantages email offers, there are also negative consequences that can result from the increased reliance on email for communication.  Employees report feeling less connected to their co-workers because of reduced interpersonal interaction.  Additionally, communicating though email can often result in miscommunication.

Why Miscommunication Occurs

Whether they mean to or not, users both express and interpret emotion through email.

Because email communication does not include the non-verbal cues such as facial-expressions, pitch, volume, and intonation of speech that we often use to understand someone’s emotions, there can be problems with interpretation.

Consequences of Miscommunication

Miscommunication can result in an email being perceived as more negative, more neutral, or sometimes more positive than intended.  For example, someone receiving a succinct, to-the-point email may interpret the sender as being upset or angry, when in fact the sender was just very busy and did not have time to write a longer message.  If this communication had taken place over the phone or in person, the “sender’s” tone of voice and body language could have suggested that he or she was very busy.

Some other detrimental consequences of these misperceptions can include a lowered sense of community among co-workers, misinterpreted feedback about performance, and general confusion. Email may also result in miscommunication because of the lag in response time between communications. In some cases, a long wait for an email response can be interpreted negatively.  Furthermore, if there is a misunderstanding, it cannot be corrected as quickly as face-to-face or phone communication.

As email is a relatively new form of communication, there is no widely accepted standard for communicating emotions. Emoticons – symbols that are used to express emotion in electronic communication – are not always interpreted the same way by everyone.  This is especially true across cultures. For example, East Asian cultures use emoticons that are drastically different from those typically used in the U.S. In addition, many email etiquette experts recommend against using emoticons in business communications because they can appear unprofessional.

Practical Advice for Effective Communication

There are several practical strategies that can be used to increase the effectiveness of email communication:

  • Be aware, and make employees aware of the problems often encountered with conveying emotion through email.  This will help employees with both sending and receiving emails.
  • Respond to emails quickly and increase the amount of detailed feedback provided.
  • Offer email training to all employees to establish organizational norms about email communication.
  • Use alternative methods of communication – such as speaking in person, or over the phone – when dealing with sensitive topics or performance feedback.

Perhaps with time social norms for communicating emotion through email will be established. For now, however, organizations should encourage the use of these guidelines to improve their email communication skills and prevent against the negative aspects of email use.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

The DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Byron, K. (2008). Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by email, Academy of Management Review, 33, 309 – 327.