New York, New York, the song made famous by Frank Sinatra, conveys a vagabond's dream to become king of the hill in a city [New York] that never sleeps . . . "if I can make it there I can make it anywhere."

Considered in terms of personal competence, the lyrics of this tribute to New York City create at least two misconceptions: New York City is a magnet that attracts people of extraordinary talent; anyone who succeeds in New York City has the ability to succeed anywhere in the world.

True enough, devote New Yorkers consider their city to be the greatest in the world. The same is also true of devote residents of any city in the world. Taken another step, people who work for multinational corporations headquartered in New York City might very well consider their employer to be the greatest organization in the world. Then again, people who work for a small local business resident to a rural place are equally entitled to believe the same of their employer.

Moreover, as personal experience with relocating life-long New Yorkers to Salt Lake City revealed, most people have difficulty adapting and some simply can't adapt. And having worked in a broad spectrum of organizations, I can unequivocally state that most people are average when it comes to competence.

Competence is not a matter of where you work, the size of your organization, your position in your organization, or your desire to become "king of the hill."  Competence is measured by the results of your work. If your results consistently fall short of expectations, or if a tough day at work is one where you go home really tired from watching other people work, you are incompetent. If your results are average, you meet expectations sometimes and come up short on others, you fit in nicely with the vast majority of workers who do just enough to get by. If your results consistently exceed expectations, you are part of a very small minority that actually makes a difference wherever you work or what you do.   

The cold hard fact is that anyone reaching "king of the hill" status in their profession does so as a result of effort—putting more in to their work than the vast majority of people are willing to do. And make no mistake, achieving such "noble" status is independent of your organization's reputation, size, business or where it is located.

Wess Roberts posted this on 4 Aug 2008

      "We were orphans out there.  We had no parents!" Pete exclaimed, as he characterized the solitary peril in which the USS Pueblo found itself during its first and only mission: to conduct electronic surveillance operations off the coast of North Korea.  Although he was speaking figuratively, Pete knew only too well what being an orphan is all about. 

      Orphaned at birth, Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher recalls his early childhood.  "People were shipping me everywhere.  I never stayed wherever I was sent for very long, so I didn't ever get the sense that I belonged anywhere.  And that can be tough on anyone because everyone, even as a child, needs to feel like he belongs.  If you don't belong to something, survival becomes your only purpose, and life can be very lonely.  It wasn't until I was sent to the Catholic Mission and Orphanage in northern Idaho that I ever felt like anybody needed me." 

      The Sisters who ran the Mission gave young Lloyd Bucher his first sense of purpose by assigning him the chore of milking cows twice a day.  "It made me feel good.  Milking cows was something I could do and I got pretty good at it.  For the first time in my life I felt like people needed me and it made me feel wanted." read more...

As the pool of presidential hopefuls whittles down until the Democratic and Republican parties seat their respective candidates, voters will continue to be bombarded with ads, debates and appearances aimed at persuading them to vote for the most "qualified" among the bunch.

But what exactly qualifies one to hold such an influential office? Looking back at the qualifications former presidents have brought with them to the Oval Office reveals that there is, in fact, no education or experience prerequisites. The same is true of religion despite some current efforts to marginalize Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon. Although no U.S. president to date has been a racial minority or a woman, neither condition suffices as a prerequisite to leading the free world.

What about celebrity endorsements? While having celebrity support may help a candidate draw some media attention, the cold hard fact is that celebrities, like non-celebrities, tend to support the candidate of their own choosing and that choice hardly qualifies one candidate over another.  And there is a relative political graveyard of candidates who received the support of celebrities.

So, back to the original question: what are the qualifications to lead the free world? This question has no pat answer. Let's just hope that whoever gets elected has what it takes to fill that role responsibly both domestically and abroad.
 
Wess Roberts posted this on 21 Dec 2007

   I’m often asked my opinion, both as a psychologist and author, of personality screening for job applicants.  According to a 2005 Washington Post story, 30% of all companies use personality tests in hiring.  The intent is to quickly narrow down a large list of candidates for a position according to their responses to statements such as, “I see myself as a successful person” or “Honesty is important to me.”

   Personality tests do not provide perfect assessments of who one is nor can they reveal the person who will actually show up once hired.  Job applicants are cunning. They know, or quickly learn, how to overcome virtually every hurdle they have to clear in order to be hired. This is not a crime but adapting self to circumstance.  

   The best future team members do not always give great interview and their resumes do not exactly match the ideal education and experience profile for the open position.

   Making hiring decisions is and will forever remain to be an art. And the best at the art make mistakes.

   New hires often change once they are on the payroll. Job performance levels rise and fall like the tide. Unresolved or unexpected personal issues influence attitudes and very often interfere with the application of aptitude.

   Personality testing should be left to mental health professionals working in a clinical setting. Hiring managers should get on with hiring the best applicants available and deal with problems that may appear later.

Wess Roberts posted this on 18 Dec 2007

The U.S. sits poised on the front porch of the 2008 presidential election, and over a dozen candidates are caught up in their campaigns to become its forty-fourth president.

Sitting on the sidelines you have to wonder if these myriad candidates have two sets of ethics: one to get elected, one to abide if elected.

Truth be known, the ethics you witness candidates display in an attempt to get elected are the ones they will carry into office

Why? It takes a lot of effort to maintain two sets of ethics when you are under the microscope of public and media scrutiny. And if you have any ethical skeletons tucked away in your personal-life closet, they will surely be exposed, if not overblown and spun beyond their significance by eager reporters salivating to spill the goods on political candidates.

The latter point gives rise to second ethical consideration. Shouldn't the media be held to the same standards of ethical scrutiny? A retraction printed days later and cloaked between the obituary section and the weather report doesn't reverse the damage done by flawed reports that harm a candidate's image.

Alas, a third ethical consideration surfaces: our own ethics. What manner of people are we? Do we take delight when the chinks in politicians' armor are exposed? Does such make them less moral than we are? Or do we overlook those chinks in hope that whomever is elected as our next president will do his or her best to act ethically while at the helm of a nation dearly in need of a leader we can place our trust in?

Wess Roberts posted this on 15 Dec 2007