Pop psychology in the workplace

In a recent Forbes magazine, a piece titled "I Feel Your Pain" discusses the varioius fads that businesses buy in to. They promise to enhance performance, promote understanding, resolve dischord and make things generally better. Somehow, they never quite seem to.

The theory originated in education, as a way of helping teachers and students communicate more effectively. Since it made the leap to the workplace a few years ago, companies like Bank of America, Cendant, Adidas and Levi Strauss have climbed aboard the learning-style bandwagon. Most workplace problems, believers explain, stem from a clash of cognitive styles: when a visual manager sends a written memo to an "auditory" employee, for example, or when a pragmatic manager rejects as too pie-in-the-sky the contributions of a theoretical subordinate. The sales pitch of one learning-style tester declares: "Knowing exactly how to speak to each individual will eliminate this problem forever!" Proponents claim that its application can work wonders, increasing efficiency, boosting morale and reducing turnover. Sounds good, as an auditory learner might say–except that there's little scientific evidence to support learning style, in theory or in practice. Despite decades of research on students and teachers, the concept is still highly controversial within educational circles, and it's almost completely unproven in workplace settings. Studies, where they exist, are conducted with small groups, may not be peer-reviewed or published and are frequently carried out by learning-style proponents rather than neutral investigators.

And a lot of stuff seems to be picked up without proper evaluation.

If you ever want to give your supervisors or the people offering the course a hard time, you can ask questions like: "Where are the studies validating this method published?" "How was this test validated?" "What sample group was this tested on?" "Do you have data showing improvement, and how much improvement?"

For many of the employees on whom it is imposed, learning style will inspire only a sense of déjà vu. It wasn't so long ago that we were supposed to develop our workplace "EQ"–that's Emotional Intelligence–and before that, to remember our Myers-Briggs personality type. (Now was it "ExtrovertedIntuitive FeelingPerceiver" or "Introverted Sensing Thinking Judger"?) Corporate America, it seems, has an unappeasable hunger for the newest, hottest management concepts–all of which, on closer examination, appear eerily similar. Like learning style, they are determinedly inoffensive, careful not to wound feelings or bruise egos. They make everybody feel "special," gifted with some unique talent or ability. And all leave the problems they purport to address–sluggish productivity, poor communication, sagging morale, high turnover–essentially untouched. Perhaps that's because these instruments are not so much diagnostic as therapeutic, not about solving problems but about making people feel warm and fuzzy.

Indeed, the courses I've had seem to present only the diagnistic information. You can diagnose yourself and others as falling into one or another group. Unfortunately, only the most general strategies are ever presented for dealing with these different groups.

So far, the best rules for getting along seem to be two basic ones: Try not to offend, and try not to be too easily offended.

Well, look on the bright side. It may turn out some day that membership in a particular Myers-Briggs personality group might allow you to claim discrimination if you're fired for clashing with your boss.