Organisational Coaching

What data can not tell you.

I don't have a GPS. Well strictly my phone has one and I did play with it for a while however I never got around to subscribing for the map updates and it remains one of my phone's many unused features. Instead Google maps is my friend. So when I'm meeting a new client, Google is open, the destination is found and the route is planned. I don't always estimate the travel time correctly however I rarely get lost.

So it's always been a source of wonder to me how someone can get lost with a GPS.

Our inability to perceive the world around us is a fascinating area of psychology. For managers this is dangerous. Below are a couple of examples which may help us to see just how much we miss.

How effective are you at interviewing job candidates?

Recently I read Intuition, Its Powers and Perils by David G. Myers. Very entertaining read. It is a more rigorous version of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Whereas Blink was full of stories and human interest, Intuition quotes the research. This happens to be a style of book that I thoroughly enjoy. Myers fills the pages with references to the original research while developing his argument.

Myers has a chapter on recruitment in which he presents the interview illusion (so called by Richard Nisbett). The interview illusion is the self-deception that managers and recruiters are able to read people well during an interview.

Myers present four reasons for the interview illusion and these are relevant warnings for anyone involved in recruitment.