AI Assessments, Non-Competes, & A Farewell to Ed Schein
After 12 years as a Naval Aviator and Marine Corps Officer, Jonathan Noftsier transitioned to a career in I-O psych consulting. In this episode, we talk about Jonathan’s transition from Executive Officer (XO) to I-O consultant, what civilians get wrong about the military, and how to translate military experience for civilian interviewers.
Farewell to Ed Schein (1928-2023).
A few words from Ed on leadership:
All of us exercise leadership at different points in a process. So it’s pointless to try to figure out what a leader should be. We should all be concentrating on acts of leadership. I think that was the way I’ve always thought about it … yes, you can look for competencies and all this stuff, but that’s not the important stuff. The important stuff is the activity.
On coercive persuasion:
I discovered in [a POW camp] and then in other settings that if I have you physically captive, I can influence you if I choose to. There is no way you can be strong enough to resist all the things I can do if you can’t leave. So it applies to the POWs, but it applies equally to the golden handcuffs. If I’m economically committed to this institution, I have tenure, I am going to allow myself or be forced to be socialized into their culture. There is no gain in being a dissident or a deviate if I’m stuck there. If I’m stuck there, I’m going to sooner or later be influenced.
On getting a sense of your place, professionally:
It has struck me that I’ve been out in Palo Alto for a year now. I have not been invited to do anything at the Stanford Business School … so the degree to which I’m invisible to the graduate school of business at Stanford, is clear data as to what my more traditional colleagues think of me. They may not dismiss me, but they also have no interest in me.
All of the above quotes are from an oral history Schein recorded back in 2012. Fun and interesting throughout.
SIOP has released Considerations and Recommendations for the Validation and Use of AI-Based Assessments for Employee Selection. Worth a look, even if you don’t work in recruiting/talent acquisition.