So Ed, in 1965 you
wrote a book that
has an interesting title,
Organizational Psychology,
which summarized the
field at that time.
We're now 50 years
later, exactly in 2015
as we sit here and
chat, and I'm wondering,
one of the themes that
I detect in your article
is a comparison between what we
knew then and what we know now.
And I think in a lot of ways
you would probably acknowledge
that we have moved forward.
But in other ways, I
think, what have we
really learned in the field?
And I'm wondering if you could
speak a little bit to what
sense have we had progress
in the areas of our field
that you cover in your article?
I think what research showed,
way back from leadership
research and so on, is
the same thing as what
we're rediscovering.
But there's a huge difference
in how these things get applied.
So it's not that
the knowledge has
changed so much as the form
in which it's been applied
has changed a lot.
And that turns out to be because
organizations have changed
and society has changed.
So the leadership issues,
the organizational issues,
how you structure
things, is today
a different set of problems.
So a piece of
knowledge like things
work better when the boss
involves his subordinates,
was already known in the '50s.
But the application of that
in today's auto industry
versus today's Google
are so different that I
think the struggle in the
field is to keep figuring out
how to apply what
we know, in the face
of all kinds of
organizational forces
that work against
the application.
Because I think we are using
maybe 20% of what we know.
Because organizationally,
bosses don't want
to involve their subordinates.
There are all kinds
of cultural reasons
why they prefer to
stay autonomous.
And so the knowledge, and
the application of knowledge,
is where I see less progress.
And so what do you think
is the barrier to managers
or to organizations as a whole?
I think you kind of touch on
The McGregor Work, Theory X,
Theory Y a little bit
and those mindsets
that managers or organizations
have about their people.
But what is preventing
that from occurring?
I think as I got more into
the concept of culture, which
I always was
interested in, I began
to see cultural forces
at the national level,
the occupational level, and
at the organizational level,
as being the major
counter-action to a lot of what
we know about teams,
about team building,
about how to manage people.
So you keep rediscovering
that if there
is an organization that does it,
by what we know from research,
they really do better.
But for that few
organizations, there
are 100 organizations that
don't use the knowledge.
And if you say why
not, because there
are other economic
forces, or social forces,
or personality
factors, that make
those managers, those
leaders, believe
in a different set of theories.
Management by fear.
We know that that doesn't work.
But I keep encountering
managers, who say,
well that's the
only way to do it.
Because it works for them.
So, I think the whole field
is kind of bifurcated by what
we know versus what
actually gets applied.
