Interview with Patrick Vermeren
By Bärbel Schwertfeger
This interview originally appeared in German in the German HR magazine Wirtschaft + Weiterbildung (January 2020). Translated with permission.
In his book “A Skeptic’s HR Dictionary” Patrick Vermeren, from Belgium, debunks numerous myths related to the field of Human Resources (HR). In over one thousand pages, he explains why HR managers so often stick to nonsense theories and models.
Your book has over 1,100 pages. How long did it take you to write it?
I started writing it in 2015, though not fulltime, of course, as I also work as a consultant and coach. However, I had already read a lot of articles and books and had also written about some of the topics in my previous books. Writing the book was a very long process and at times I wanted to give up, but I kept telling myself that I should finish what I had started. I hope the book will be a small contribution to the professionalization of HR.
What was your motivation to write the book?
I’ve known for a very long time how much nonsense and pseudoscience plagues HR. And I have the impression that it is getting worse. It is really surprising how many new, pseudoscientific models are being distributed and used, while in my professional life I have seen the damage that such methods can do. People have been fired based on dubious tests and questionnaires, they have been denied access to better-paid jobs because of improper recruitment practices, they have even subjected themselves to pseudoscientific assessments. Some people have lost their self-confidence and have even fallen into deep depression. People often underestimate that there is a large gap between science and practice. HR practitioners are often ignorant of scientific discoveries because, though the knowledge is widely dispersed, it is often not accessible to the public because it is behind a paywall. Moreover, many models and methods have never been scientifically researched because researchers find them too absurd to waste their time on. That is why you will probably never find a data-driven, critical, scientific evaluation of models such as the Enneagram or equicoaching (which involves horses). So, my ambition was to write an extensive one-stop book where you can find multiple evaluations.
How did you decide what is a myth?
Based on the book Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (eds. Massimo Pigliucci & Maarten Boudry), I decided to evaluate theories, models, and their derivatives, such as personality questionnaires, based on two main criteria: theoretical soundness and empirical evidence.
At one end of the pole of the theoretical soundness continuum we find bad theories that contradict physics, chemistry, or biology. At the opposite pole we find sound theories for which many convergent findings from different areas of research can be found or on which the body of top experts agree.
At one end of the empirical evidence dimension we find the highest level of evidence: carefully conducted reviews such as sound meta-analyses conducted by many researchers. At the opposite pole, we find systematic reviews that have refuted the theory, or for which the theory has in the meantime been withdrawn.
I have evaluated each model and theory as objectively as possible using a theoretical-empirical grid and have shown the graphical representation of each evaluation in every chapter. Some results were a complete surprise to me. For example, I was unaware of how bad Positive Psychology showed itself to be both theoretically and empirically. I was unaware that it had so many methodological problems and that some papers had been partially retracted. That’s why I ultimately designated Positive Psychology as a near-myth.
Why is HR in particular so vulnerable to pseudo-science?
I think there is a large number of contributing factors, the most important being a lack of knowledge and competence.
A lot of HR professionals may not be capable of distinguishing between good and bad scholarship, or don’t go to the trouble of immersing themselves in the scholarly literature to verify whether a theory or model is sound. For example, research in Belgium and the Netherlands has confirmed that HR professionals have very little training in psychology. In a scientific test of their knowledge about HR topics, most respondents could not answer half of the questions correctly, thus revealing that many HR professionals have very limited knowledge of academic findings on HR concepts and instruments. This applies to both external providers (consultants, trainers, and coaches) and internal HR staff and line managers. Perhaps this is because HR seems to attract all kinds of people with different educational backgrounds, such as economists and legal counselors.
But lack of knowledge is insufficient as an explanation?
There is a second factor, which is that it seems the HR field is particularly attractive to the credulous, the romantics, and the idealists. They are often unaware of how notoriously unreliable our brains are, and are ignorant to the fact that their personal beliefs are in conflict with findings from academic research. HR practitioners are often Platonic Idealists, who believe that everyone is fundamentally good, talented, and intrinsically motivated. They also have a strong belief in egalitarianism.
A third factor is our coalitional psychology or us-versus-them thinking: once you self-identify with a (virtual) tribe or an in-group that believes in Platonic Idealism or other nonsensical models, it is often difficult to remove yourself from that in-group. You don’t want to admit that there are also people who are not talented or motivated because you want to stay loyal to your in-group. Belonging to an in-group was very important to our ancestors, as belonging to a larger group offered protection against hostile human out-groups and predators of the animal kingdom. This us-versus-them thinking is still part of our DNA. If people belong to, for example, the tribe of the ‘Jung-believers’ (like adepts of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [MBTI], Insights Discovery, etc.), they will likely feel hostile towards people like me who don’t belong to their belief system. They will stereotype critics such as myself as ‘scientific extremists,’ ‘skeptics,’ ‘biological determinists,’ etc.
So, we are all prisoners of our evolutionary heritage?
Partly so, and this is also due to the fact that we have an innate tendency to believe and trust authority figures. That’s the fourth factor. And evolutionarily-speaking, this makes sense, as children in the Pleistocene had to learn from adults if they were to survive. Adults trust other adults just as much. The combination of our credulous nature and our innate laziness—just like other organisms, and as the laws of thermodynamics predict, we don’t want to waste energy—makes us highly receptive to authority arguments. Trusting authority figures is an easy and energy-saving approach. If someone says that a model was developed by a psychologist who conducted many years of research, we feel inclined to believe that. Scientists like the famous Robert Cialdini have provided strong evidence for this inclination. Many swindlers and fraudsters are aware that most people are credulous and inclined to trust other people.
But that still does not explain why HR professionals stick to dubious models, which we know are worthless. So why would HR consciously ignore science and fail to give up the nonsense?
This is a question that has kept philosophers and psychologists busy for a very long time. Scientists such as Robert Cialdini, Anthony Pratkanis, or Jesse Bering have tried to offer answers. Pratkanis discussed the rationalization trap: once salespeople or con artists get a foot in the door, for example by offering you a free trial, they soon come up with a larger offer for which you have to pay. Once we have accepted this, then we want to believe in the theory or model, and we want to be consistent, as Cialdini explains. As soon as that model is criticized, we start to experience cognitive dissonance that we want to stop, so we dismiss the criticism.
The following psychological trap is the sunk cost bias. This is our tendency to finish something because we have already invested time and money into it. We don’t like to accept our loss, even if that would be the rational choice. Lastly, Jesse Bering has hypothesized that our brain is not ‘designed’ by evolution to seek out the truth, but to be a survival machine. Our brain has many flaws: one of the flaws is that most people are more motivated by winning an argument rather than being right. Moreover, in defending the arguments of your in-group, you are showing everyone how loyal you are. The combination of these elements is a dangerous cocktail: people find it almost impossible to abandon the theory or model they deeply believe in.
That doesn’t sound very encouraging. What do you hope to achieve with your book?
I don’t believe I can convince die-hard followers of some models. They are so deeply entrenched in believing a myth that any attempt to dissuade them from their pre-existing beliefs is bound to fail or even backfire by strengthening their false beliefs. The more emotional or ideological their beliefs, the more likely it is that the evaluations I present in my book will be totally ineffective. Nor does this book focus on people who have low moral standards and who feel no remorse if they cheat, mislead, or lie to people. These latter are making good money in doing so and are unlikely to stop. I have learned not to waste my energy on these two groups. This book is aimed at people with high moral standards who simply did not have the right information when making their initial judgements. In Belgium, where my book was already launched in October 2019, many HR professionals expressed their support for my call for action. Nevertheless, I am afraid that a majority—especially in the training and development departments that believe in the nonsense—are the biggest group.
In your book you evaluate 25 myths. These encompass NLP, The Leadership Circle, the MBTI personality questionnaire, and the Enneagram. But you also include the widespread theory of Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory, which is mainly promoted by Frédéric Laloux in his book “Reinventing Organisations.” This is like the Bible for new leaders. When reading your chapters on this, one wonders: why do intelligent people believe such esoteric nonsense?
It is truly bizarre, but that is where our innate laziness has its effect. I think that when a company believes in Frédéric Laloux’s model, probably no one has thoroughly read his book, because if they had they would have discovered that by page three he is already writing total nonsense. He writes that we have not one but three brains. Many people also ignore the fact that his ideas harken back to the model of eight levels of human existence proposed by psychologist Clare Graves—whose work was never taken seriously by academic colleagues. When people asked one of Laloux’s students, Christopher Cowan, where the empirical evidence was, he explained that Graves kept his data in a barn and that he accidentally threw away a large part of his research data upon cleaning out said barn.
This model denies that we are a product of Darwinian evolution. On the contrary, it claims that we are jumping with large quantum leaps from one ‘level of consciousness’ to another, until we reach a level where competition and egoism disappear, and we become good people through and through. Ken Wilber has built on Graves’ model in his Integral Theory: for me this is a wild mix of ideas taken from traditional philosophy, mysticism, spiritualism, New Age, and psychology. Wilbers’ ideas have in turn inspired Frédéric Laloux. Wilber believed we will ascend and transcend in an upward spiral and thus become an ideal living organism. Platonic Idealists of course love to believe this because they are deeply convinced everyone is intrinsically good and that we can all realize this without leadership. People love such stories.
But this line of thinking is entirely in contradiction with the findings of modern science and everything we know from biology and human development. In my view, Spiral Dynamics or Integral Theory are ideologies. They are more like religions rather than methods that can help companies to become more productive and look out for the wellbeing of their employees. Rather than believing in such naïve theories, companies should learn to accept reality and choose sound methods to improve their working conditions.
You designate self-directing teams and organizations without leaders as a ‘near-myth.’ How come?
When I apply the two criteria—soundness of the theory and the strength of the evidence—it seems utterly improbable that it could work. Leadership has developed over millions of years in all social species, including humans. In our social species, leadership plays a very important role, for example for coordinating efforts of collective action and reducing and preventing in-group conflicts. Why would we suddenly no longer need leadership? The proponents of these theories offer absolutely no explanation as to why human evolution would have suddenly taken such a great leap.
Some academic theories have tried to think of substitutes for leadership, such as the Socio-Technical Systems Theory. But ultimately, academic researchers have all reached the conclusion that organizations do not work without leaders. The same is true for self-directing teams. This is the only chapter where I also looked at some anecdotes from companies that claim to have no or few leaders, such as the Brazilian corporation Semco or tomato company Morning Star from the United States. Most of these companies do have leaders, sometimes even very strongly outspoken and authoritarian ones. Even these anecdotes tell false stories. A leaderless organization sounds attractive to some because they like to believe that such a thing is possible.
Another myth you describe is the approach where managers need to be coaches for their employees.
It is very difficult for both managers and employees to distinguish between the two roles that a leader plays. The first role of a manager is being responsible for employee performance—think of the annual performance appraisal—and therefore can decide about the career of a collaborator. At the same time, the manager is expected to coach the employee. But that does not work; just consider the dilemma for the employees. If you trust your manager and open up about your weaknesses and fears, this could potentially negatively influence your appraisal score and your career. Now that the manager has this information about the employee, it could play a role in their appraisal of the employee. This is of course the reason why clinical psychologists subscribe to an ethical code, stating that they are obliged to secrecy and commit to not using the information for any other purpose. Of course, they will never share it with the manager of their patient.
I also found no empirical evidence of positive effects if a manager acts as a coach for their employees. I also find the popular idea that coachees should always find their own solutions very unbelievable—even in a work context. Employees expect expertise from their manager—they expect to learn from him or her. If I go to a doctor because I suffer from knee pain and he asks me what I think I should do about it, I would doubt his competence. After all, I have consulted him because I expect a certain level of expertise from him. Another reason why I challenge the manager-as-coach idea is that managers are not educated nor trained to conduct coaching conversations, and therefore could cause a lot of harm.
You also consider mindfulness a ‘near-myth.’
This is a very delicate topic and many people will feel upset about what I have found. I was very open to the idea of Mindfulness, so what I found during my literature review was a big surprise to me. It is really troubling how bad the research thus far is from a methodological point of view. There is a lot of criticism of mindfulness research from peer academics. So far, it is rather unclear whether we should consider mindfulness an ideological movement rather than a psychological theory. One meta-analysis that calculated the effects of mindfulness interventions on several psychological pathologies like depression, panic attacks, and heightened stress found that only 19 out of 2,448 selected articles complied with the standards of good scientific methods. These 19 studies further showed only a small effect on hypochondria—the unfounded fear of suffering from a disease.
Moreover, to date there is no convincing evidence that mindfulness has a lasting positive effect on healthy people in a work environment. Some experiments and a meta-analysis have shown that mindfulness training can actually reduce employee motivation to engage in prospective tasks. Even financial incentives couldn’t overcome the demotivating effect of mindfulness. This is clearly not in the companies’ interests. I don’t exclude that mindfulness can have positive effects, but as yet there is a lack of methodologically sound studies.
The longest section of your book is about myths and pseudoscience, though you also offer scientifically valid alternatives. How important was it to you to show these as well?
It is very important because many people ignore the sound research that does exist. A lot of scientific models or instruments are not publicly available because they were not intended for commercial purposes. But most of the time, they are indeed cheaper and offer better and more accurate information. The book title therefore is a little bit misleading. Aside from the 400 pages on myths and 250 pages on partial truths, my book also includes about 400 pages and 15 chapters on sound knowledge and models.
Can you give examples?
In most cases, the status of the science is provisional, so some of these theories or models can be improved, refined, or even partially refuted. There is only one theory related to our field that is beyond any doubt, and that is evolutionary theory. I don’t think we have a single theory in psychology or HR that comes close to the soundness of this theory. Evolutionary psychology comes the closest and offers a framework to construct good hypotheses. We are a social species that has both positive and negative aspects. We want to belong to a group and tend to collaborate within our group and avoid unfair internal competition.
Evolutionary psychology can therefore provide us with valuable information for employee policies. For example, if we unilaterally set individual performance goals, we in fact stimulate internal competition instead of collaboration. There are also good theories about human behavior, like the interpersonal circumplex. Techniques used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offer a solid basis for behavioral change. To assess personality traits, we now have the five or six factor models of personality—Big Five or OCEAN, or HEXACO—whichcan be used in coaching and recruitment.
There are many models and methods with strong empirical evidence, for example how ambitious and engaging goals can increase productivity, or how leadership can be developed. The problem is that many scientists don’t publish their findings in articles targeted at ‘normal’ audiences, and therefore their findings are unknown to many HR professionals.
Despite your book being able to open the eyes of many, do you ever feel like the ancient hero Sisyphus? As soon as you have debunked one myth, the next one pops up?
Alas, that is true: the time and effort it takes to debunk a myth is many times greater than the effort to produce nonsense. Producing nonsense can be done in no time: you make up a theory, present it with attractive graphical representations and colors, package it within a marketing campaign, and hocus pocus, you make money. I am afraid the fight will never end.
About the author
Patrick Vermeren has been in the business of human resources since 1997. Since 2001 he has worked as a practitioner-consultant for a Belgian provider of training and coaching. He has worked for a Belgian bank (Dexia) and an American multinational (Procter & Gamble) as well as in the automotive sector. He has written several books in Dutch, one of which has been translated into English: Around Leadership. Bridging the Scientist-Practitioner Gap. He has also (co)-published two academic peer-reviewed articles: “The undesired popularity of typologies” (For the Dutch magazine Gedrag en Organisatie—Behavior and Organization) and “Integrating Leadership: The Leadership Circumplex” (European Journal of Work and Organisation Psychology: M. Redeker, E. de Vries, Danny Rouckhout, Patrick Vermeren & Filip de Fruyt). He also became famous via his TEDx talk in March 2016: The uncomfortable truth about HR.
The book
A Skeptic’s HR Dictionary. The Good, the Bad and the Partially True. The ultimate self-defense guide for CEOs, HR professionals, I/O students, and employees. The book is available on amazon.com, amazon.de and amazon.fr. The book reveals 25 myths such as Alpha training, Belbin’s team roles, organizational constellations, questionnaires such as DiSC, MBTI, and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), the Leadership Circle, Transactional Analysis, and Spiral Dynamics. He also describes partial truths or near-myths such as e-learning for social skills, SMART-goals, Positive Psychology, and HR Analytics. A full table of contents can be viewed at www.askepticshrdictionary.com.