Human Assets

The idea that a strength can be too much of a good thing is hardly new. For example, 'results-orientation' can turn into a relentless pushing for more or politeness can cross the border into obsequiousness. Precisely such an exaggeration of strengths can be identified as contributing to the miseries of the credit crunch. Fred Goodwin at Royal Bank of Scotland is said to have run his morning meetings with top executives in such a results-orientated way that they became known as 'morning beatings'. It sounds hardly the atmosphere for people to express doubts about the risks that eventually brought the bank down.

 

However, although overdone strengths is an established idea, as a recent article in the Harvard Business Review by Robert Kaplan and Robert Kaiser points out, it is not an idea that is always incorporated into 360-degree feedback reports or other human resource processes. They typically use a weak-to-strong rating scale that does not cater for the idea of more being less.

 

Of course, such a problem is not too difficult to fix. Raters can be asked to comment on their ratings and could be primed to consider whether a strength is actually being overdone. Alternatively, a section of the 360 can ask raters what the person should do more and less of. What is perhaps more tricky is for the person being rated to accept that something they do a lot of and probably value is actually a source of potential derailment rather than of glory. Kaplan and Kaiser report from their research that leaders tend to be blind to their overdone attributes. Even if they are aware that their strength is overdone and accept this as a genuine problem, they must also find a way of behaving differently. It seems most unlikely that a person can confront these difficult truths without skilful facilitation. But even the best facilitator will have an uphill struggle if the overdone strength is confidence that has turned to arrogance. Almost by definition, such a person will be immune from the self-doubt that might lead to change. Organisations might be better avoiding recruiting such people, at least into positions of real power, lest the supposed strength causes lasting damage.

 

One inventory in the psychologist's toolkit that obviously fits into this discussion is the Hogan Development Schedule (HDS). It is aimed precisely at identifying apparent strengths that are potential weaknesses. Information from the HDS can usefully provide pointers for an interview to check whether the self-confident candidate is actually rather arrogant.