President's Message: "It was the best of times...It was the worst of times...It was the age of wisdom...It was the age of foolishness."

Kris Smith

I just love Dickens. One of the great things about such classic literature is its timelessness and poignancy. Because of this, I decided to apply the concept of duality that is expressed in this opening line from "A Tale of Two Cities" to some issues in our profession. I thought this would be interesting, not because I believe that we are experiencing the absolute best or worst of times, but instead, because some of the things that are generally seen as reflecting the best or worst often have other facets that are worth examining. When things seem like they are the best, we sometimes miss seeing critical flaws, in the fashion of excitedly shouting "Look ma, no hands!" right before we crash the bicycle. When things seem like they are the worst, we can be prompted to examine new approaches and to grow and change in ways that are often for the better.

Though I hope my nature tends more towards "looking for the rainbow after the rain" or "turning lemons into lemonade" I decided to ponder some of those things that are good, but can also result in the proverbial "blind siding" or "bite in the butt". I suppose my inclination to go in this direction is, in part, influenced by the trend to establish lists of best practices. Don't get me wrong. I think collecting and sharing our best ideas is great, but sometimes I get frustrated by the tendency to reduce things to lists and bullet points. Usually, such lists have a wealth of terrific ideas, but just as the "one size fits all" shirt rarely fits, even the best ideas have situationally specific parameters or risks that we should take into consideration. To demonstrate the point, I've come up with a few things that I think are undeniably good, but that also, in my opinion, have some unintended potential side effects.

Technology

Remember when we had to do computations with hand held calculators and draw bar charts (or any chart for that matter) by hand? Now, we can get data more quickly than we can cope with it and complain when it takes us more than ten minutes to create a multi-color, three dimensional graph. We can obtain and process such a wealth of information with such speed that the possibilities seem endless. The power of technology has greatly enhanced our ability to do our jobs. However, we still need to think and make decisions. The crush of highly available information can lead to confusion, analysis paralysis, and sometimes just plain poorer decisions when we become too focused on information and not focused enough on what we value or what meaning underlies all of the data. The key is that technology is supposed to enhance our jobs, not do them for us. We cannot expect a computer to design a more precise assessment instrument and we certainly cannot expect to predict performance more effectively using employment application data rather than actual performance measures. When we do expect such things, the essence of what we do can be undermined.

Becoming a Player on the Management Team

The work of David Ulrich and others relating to the strategic role of Human Resources has helped to promote the value of what we do and demonstrate the large contributions we can make. It has helped us to rethink our role and redefine it in a way that reflects the best we have to offer to meet the needs of our organizations. Becoming a more active management partner is in the best interest of our profession and the organizations we serve and we are making headway. This is such an important development that I was even a little reluctant to include it here. However, it seems that we must be careful to not let our enthusiasm in finally being considered part of the team distort what our role on the team really is. When does that partnership change and simply become an erosion of sound principle and practice to appease management or to appear to be part of a team? Are there instances when a poorer job is done in the name of customer service or, worse yet, in the name of efficiency? Though less severe, it reminds me of those who commit murder in the name of religion. Disregarding professional ethics or principles in the name of the same ethics and principles is a confusing and no-win situation that we must be careful to avoid. Being a true part of the management team requires our honesty even when that is not always what top level management wants to hear. The accounting department doesn't (I hope) provide misinformation about the financial status of the organization just because the truth wouldn't be received well. Again, I am more excited than cautious about this area, but have been aware of instances when it appeared to me that the line had been crossed, which makes it worth noting.

Professional Affiliations

We now have more ways to connect with one another and share information than ever before - the IPMAAC discussion list alone has been a wonderful development. We also have experienced more blending of the work of practitioners and academicians, which is a major strength of our profession. However, we also have less real time interaction. Professional organizations of all kinds, all over the Country, have been experiencing a decline in membership or conference attendance. It seems that because information and training is so readily available via the computer, people have difficulty justifying the dedication of time and resources for organization memberships and conference attendance. As someone who has developed immensely valuable professional contacts and wonderful friendships through professional networking, I can't imagine such a loss and am saddened to think that other professionals may miss out on something that has been so enriching for me.

Broader Range of Assessment Tools

Lastly, we are making truly exciting developments in the area of expanding the range of what we can confidently and accurately assess. The research in the areas of personality and the affective domain hold much promise. My caution here is that we not forget the things that we already know work well. We do not need to abandon some of our more traditional types of tests, but rather supplement them with these new tools that tap different aspects of performance.

Identifying potential pitfalls should not diminish our excitement about developments in each of the above areas since we really have made some great strides. As we continue to forge ahead, I hope that we will continuously evaluate our own practices and situations, both what we think is good and bad, to determine if there is an element or opportunity that we might be missing. This is one of the challenging and, in my eyes, one of the most enjoyable parts of what we do - analyzing things and then doing them a little better each time we try.