Live from SIOP 2026: Part Three

Introduction

0:00Hello, everybody. This is Blake with the Science of Personality podcast, and the following episode is a collection of live, in-person interviews that Ryan and I conducted on April 30th and May 1st at the 2026 Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Annual Conference in New Orleans. We hope you enjoy this special episode of the podcast. And as always, cheers, everybody. People are the most consequential and dangerous forces on Earth. Well, personality psychology is about the nature of human nature. It's about people. And wouldn't that be useful to know? I can't think of a more important problem.

Podcast Overview

0:39You're listening to the Science of Personality podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments, the global leader in personality and leadership. Guided by your hosts, Hogan Chief Science Officer and world-renowned personality psychologist, Dr. Ryan Sherman, alongside Hogan's PR manager and resident storyteller, Blake Lepp, this podcast explores the impact of personality on life, leadership, and the nature of human nature.

Dr Kevin Impleman Interview

1:09Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Science of Personality podcast, live from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Our guest for this special mini episode of the podcast is Dr. Kevin Impleman, principal consultant at Summit Leadership Partners. We're going to talk about the PSYOP session he's doing with my co-host, Ryan Sherman, as well as Rob Kaiser of Kaiser Leadership Solutions and Hogan's Matt Lemming on leadership and the human capital advantage in private equity. So, Kevin, welcome to the podcast. Excited to be here. Yeah, well, thanks for joining us, Kevin. I'm really looking forward to the session later today. It's going to be a lot of fun.

1:42I know we're going to shed a lot of light on this topic of private equity, which is big business these days. So, yeah, thanks for joining us here. Yeah, excited to talk about it.

Private Equity Discussion

1:52All right, well, let's get into it. Tell us about the session you're doing. So, Rob and Ryan and I got together, and there's such an opportunity for IOs to work within the private equity space. It's so prevalent. There's a lot of stats that we'll share in our session about just how many companies are backed by private equity. And there's a huge opportunity to work with leaders in private equity into the challenges they face. It's unique in the sense that they have an abbreviated timeline to get results within their organization,

2:22and they need to both flex how they operate as a leader as far as how they engage the team and then drive results while also being strategic and thinking around the corner. And so that's the basis for some of our presentation. So Ryan will present some around some of the Hogan differences, which are really interesting, between the PE firms that are working with the portfolios, the portfolio executives. And then I'm presenting some research on the versatility of leadership within portfolio companies of the executives.

2:54Awesome, awesome. Brian? Yeah, well, can you tell us a little bit about how many leaders are we talking about? Just a little bit of detail, where these leaders come from. When you talk about versatility, we know that's a 360 measure, but what are we measuring them on? What kind of things did we find with this group?

Leadership Versatility

3:13Yeah, definitely. So specifically for us at Summit, we work primarily with PE-backed executives and executive teams. We also do some work outside of private equity. And so what we wanted to do is look to see if there's any differences with leadership versatility between private equity-backed executives and executives maybe operating other middle market companies. And what we did is the 360 measure that we looked at was the Leadership Versatility Index. And in that index, you're looking at, is this leader exhibiting the right amount of a specific behavior?

3:48Are they adjusting and displaying complementary behaviors as they're leading their teams? Specifically, they're looking at two broad areas of versatility. Forceful and engaging. So how are they forceful when they need to be and then engaging within their teams? And then strategic and operational. So when do they need to drive results versus look ahead? And what we looked at and the results essentially showed that versatility was very important for all executives. So we had a sample of about 500 executives, 250 that were PE-backed and 250 that were not PE-backed.

4:22So it was equally important for those executives to be versatile from that standpoint, high correlations with leadership effectiveness. There were a few behaviors that were slightly more important for PE-backed executives. Specifically around being strategic, looking ahead, and then some of the operational behaviors as far as driving results, following up, and being persistent. So I think that's just interesting because in addition for them to drive results within their company and be operationally focused, they also need to look around the corner to see what's coming and be nimble enough to address that.

Coaching Engagements

4:55Gotcha. So the key outcome measure in this study is overall ratings of effectiveness. Correct. Which, I mean, obviously that's a great way. We've done studies like that at Hogan too where, you know, sometimes it can be difficult to identify a criterion. What's the, you know, what is the way that we're able to determine if this leader is effective is building a high-performing team. Sometimes that's the best way to go. Just ask the people who work with them, is this person effective? I wonder about, you know, potential extensions of this research like into, say, things like growth of the company or any of those sort of financial metrics.

5:30I know that would get some people super excited, but I also know the challenges of picking the right metric. So can you tell us, have you thought of any of those kinds of potential outcomes? Definitely. So I would love to follow up on this beyond just the leadership effectiveness metric as perceived by their team or their direct boss.

5:50Would love to look at financial outcomes, specifically within private equity-backed companies. What they mainly look at is are you on-plan or off-plan? So when a private equity company invests in a port co, they put together a value creation plan for, say, let's say five to seven years, saying, hey, these are the goals that we want to meet, specifically within revenue, EBITDA, you know, some other financial goals. And so it would be great to pull in a metric of, and we've done this at Summit Leadership, are these companies on track or off track? And then ultimately what matters most to private equity is was there a successful exit?

6:25And so a successful exit is the holy grail of what they're looking for. The challenge, I would say, with some of those is the criterion space gets really messy, as you know, doing this research. There's a lot of just macroeconomic factors that can influence some of those. And so you just have to disentangle some of those because some industries private equity works in are going to be more affected by certain things. But ultimately, being able to strip down and understand what was the executive's impact on their team and the success of the business, and what is the outcome that they drove would be important to look at.

Portfolio Companies

6:56Gotcha.

Portfolio Companies

6:57So most of the work you're doing is actually with those portfolio companies themselves. Correct. Not necessarily the private equity company that's backing those companies, but trying to help those portfolio companies get to their target, get to their goal. Exactly. Now, who contracts you to do that work? Is that contracted by the private equity company themselves, or is that the portfolio company bringing you in, or is it a little of both? It's a great question, and I'll have a Hogan plug for you here in a second. But most of the time, we essentially have to sell to two different groups.

7:30We have to sell to the private equity company to tell them that what we do is important from a leadership advisory, and then we have to sell to the port co. And if it's post-close, meaning they've already invested in the company, typically that portfolio company is footing the bill. Whether we're doing coaching work, assessment work, team coaching, organizational development, design, the port co is footing the bill for that. Now, sometimes we get pulled in pre-close, where the PE firm is actually putting that as part of the investment that they're going to work in.

8:07So we'll look at either a few key executives or look at the entire team pre-close to give them a read on what are some strengths and gaps that you need to look out for for this leadership team you're bringing in. The thing that I will say is, while we do typically mostly work with the portfolio companies, we do some work with the PE firms. One thing that's really interesting sometimes that we'll do is we'll have the investment lead take a Hogan assessment and look at their results and see how it matches up to the CEO that they're going to be working with to see where there may be some disconnect or alignment.

8:40And so sometimes we'll even do that pre-close so they know how to communicate and work together.

Development Work

8:45Gotcha. So would you say most of your work is on the development side then? You're working with leaders that are already in place or do you do some work sometimes to help organizations find the right next leader for them? We do both and it's a bit of a mix. So the way I think about it is we work at three levels. We work with individual leaders to assess them or coach them. Then we work with the management teams, assessing them or working with them on a, let's say, six or 12 month team coaching journey.

9:15And then we do work at the organization level and do organizational survey, organizational design and development. But I would say it's a mix of assessing executives coming into the portfolio company to see if they're going to be a good fit. And then also doing follow-up coaching and working with existing leaders, still assessing them. That's the start of it, but they're giving them feedback of where they need to develop. And what we look at in both instances is scalability. So for a lot of these portfolio companies, it's not, if you're working with a Fortune 500, it's, hey, who can move into this SVP role in five years or something?

9:54For portfolio companies, Ryan is the CFO for a company that is $200 million. Can Ryan be the CFO for a company that's $2 billion?

Executive Placement

10:04I see. And what are the types of things that they need to think through around that? Gotcha. Okay. Do you ever, had there ever been any instances where, okay, you're working with this executive. This executive is a mosh. He's like, it's just really good. He or she, whatever. And then you're like, maybe this person, as part of our, another company within our portfolio, maybe we try to get this person into this role because we think, I mean, are you ever, are you ever picking these people up and putting them elsewhere or trying to? It's interesting.

10:35So typically a lot of our recommendations for, because any PE firm is going to have anywhere between, outside of the big cap ones, but typically mid-market we're working with, they're going to have anywhere between, I don't know, 10 to 50 portfolio companies under their portfolio. And one of the things we do recommend is if you find someone that has some gaps, for instance, that needs to close those gaps and understand what it needs to be like a chief product officer, chief financial officer, we will recommend some peer-to-peer mentoring for other people

11:07in the portfolio. So not necessarily moving them, but bringing them together and bringing resources. And a lot of private equity firms will have operating partners who have been there and done that as well, and then can help on some of the functional areas too. Right. Okay. Okay. So essentially, because essentially you have one big team under you, even though they're different entities. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty cool dynamic. Last thing for me is, can you dig in a little bit more, tell us a little bit more about what some of these coaching engagements look like? You know, are there ever times where, you know, not everybody's going to be receptive

11:40to that maybe, you know, or maybe that's just not the way, maybe they think they don't have any blind spots. You know, what does that look like? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's really important to position coaching and talk about ultimately what we're trying to do is expand self-awareness and not coming in to say, hey, you're getting a coach because you need to get fixed. You need to get corrected. A lot of times with these portfolio companies, they're founder-led. They have folks that have been there from the beginning and are just having a really hard time adjusting to the next evolution of scale. And so when we go in, our coaching engagements are typically six-month or 12-month engagements

12:18where we're working with the executive, providing feedback, following up, ensuring that they're meeting their goals. It's very leadership-focused and performance-focused. We will do some assimilation coaching as well. So sometimes what we've seen is just based on demographic shifts, there's a lot more first-time CFO CEOs. And so how can you assimilate them into a team? And especially going back to the dynamics of the portfolio companies, they may have three people that have worked together for 20 years, and then you're introducing a new

12:50person. There's some funky dynamics there that helps to coach them. And then also what we do is coach the team. Very cool. Very cool. Well, Ryan, anything before we close? No, I just want to say thanks for joining us today, Kevin. This is a fascinating little brief tour over the things you all are doing in private equity with some great insights. So thanks for joining us. Yeah, happy to. Thank you. And that does it for this special episode from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Cheers, everybody.

Laura Heaton and Ron Festa Interview

13:19Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Science of Personality podcast live from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. We have not one, but two guests for this special mini episode of the podcast. Joining us are Laura Heaton, Vice President of Talent Development at Penske Transportation Solutions, and Ron Festa, President of New Heights Consulting, to talk about their PSYOP session on binge-worthy leadership development and enhancing our learning through popular TV series. This is going to be a good one. So, Laura, Ron, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Blake.

13:49Yeah, well, look, Ron, Laura, super excited to hear about this. I know this is like a post-game interview here. You just came out of the session. Tell us a little bit more about where did this session start from? What was the idea behind it? And then we can dig into some details later on. Oh, interesting. So one of the challenges for leaders these days is they're busy. They're saturated with information.

14:20They're behind deadlines. And so trying to teach leadership skills or concepts to them, it's difficult. And so one of the things we thought we would do is to leverage something called narrative transportation and how do we reach them with less cognitive load? So it doesn't require much thinking. Thinking is metabolically expensive. So how do we reduce that?

14:51And so what better way than to do that through stories? And the stories that we used in the session were highlighting specific leadership points. And they brought people very quickly into the story. There was an emotional content to it. And so we could make those points by carefully curating the actual episode and the teaching points in a way that was kind of like watching TV.

15:23And I think one of the other factors that played out really well is we all learn by what we watch and what we see around us. Sometimes it may be unconscious. We're learning things. So yesterday when we asked the audience and we had between 350, 400 people in the room and we asked them by show of hands for each of the series, how many of you watch this? And I think it was probably about 75 to 80 percent of the room put their hands up. So we're really getting a lot of insights and information about leadership and leaders and

15:53how they operate through the things that we see on TV. So we were thinking it's great to capture that and talk a little bit about that and what we learn in a positive way as well as sometimes in a negative way. Yeah. Well, one of the things that I've talked before with folks about is one problem with leadership is there's no place that it's really taught, right? So, OK, there's you can get leadership development programs. Those exist, but not like in school. It's not like, OK, there are some schools that may say we have a course on leadership,

16:24but often those courses are like theories of leadership. They're not really hands on practical experience doing leadership like there is with like accounting or marketing or where you're really learning something that you can go put into practice. And so we've often hypothesized that people sometimes learn leadership from things like this. And in my mind, that's always a concern, like that maybe we're not really learning, right? We're learning some imagined styles of leadership that are based on some Hollywood director or

16:58some screenwriter's idea of what leadership is like. So to what extent did you find that and problematic for the better, for the worse in what you looked at? It's interesting because of the series that we included, we had a full range. One of them was the bear, which I'm not familiar with. I didn't watch it. But I know from the clip that we saw and what was discussed, it's a really toxic environment in a restaurant setting and the language and the pressure and everything else. And I think in many ways that provides examples of what not to do, you know, what we want to

17:32avoid from a leadership perspective. And to your point, Ryan, a lot of it is we may not be taught this. So that's what we look at and say, is that leadership? Is that what we should be doing? Is that how I should show up? And it was great to sort of dissect this and talk a little bit about what did we see here? How do we tie it back to psychological principles? And I was saying a little bit earlier to someone that when I prepped for this, one of the things that I did was go back and look at the characters and even try to classify them based on Hogan scales.

18:03What do I think I'm seeing here? How does that tie back to psychology? How do we use that to help people understand leadership? Well, when you frame it that way, though, I mean, by being able to do this through a TV show, people can actually be learning and, in a sense, working without working just by binging a TV show like The Bear or something like that. You don't realize maybe at the time, but you can apply the information you're consuming from that show to leadership in what you might do in your daily life.

18:35So I think it's great. What are some of the other shows? Let's hear that. So one of the ones that we use was Taylor Swift's six-episode series on her record-breaking heiress tour, and she's an extraordinary example of leadership. And the point of that session was to really deconstruct the human being's experience with the role that they play. So if you take leadership and you break it apart, what are we really measuring?

19:06It's why there's no universal definition of leadership right now. You've got a human being with their personality, their level of ego maturity, their biology, like all their humanness. And then that takes up a role. And a role has accountabilities and authority and power and expectations. And then you've got others with their role, their expectations of the role, their expectations

19:37of the human. And the leadership performance is what is created in the space between. And so that particular clip was really showing what it was like when she was starting with a lot of state-based capacity loss and how her ability to have the perspective-taking capacity to understand what's going on within her and what is her responsibility as a leader and her meeting expectations and the way she could navigate all of that.

20:12And we could sit and introduce a four-part leadership framework to people that are busy and it's very neutral. Or we can take them inside the story and show them what it feels like so emotionally they can understand, oh, I've been there before, I've been on the back foot, and now I've had to perform. And people have these expectations. And one of the things we try to emphasize is something we talk about with Hogan all the time is context.

20:44So although we may be wired a certain way, we show up a certain way, it doesn't mean that we can't alter our approach. And we talked a little bit about how to recognize situations, read the room, and you don't always show up the same way, and just recognizing that this may be my preferred style, but I can certainly step out and be someone else. And the particular show that I had was Ted Lasso. So we talked a lot about how Ted is more of that understated, humble type leader, but there

21:16were times where he had to step up and be tough and challenge people, and that was the clip that we used was around the very powerful scene of the dark game, where he played Rupert in the dark game and really shifted the whole power dynamics in the room. Yeah. So, I mean, that is one of those shows that if you've even seen just a few episodes or just a few clips from it, it really strikes you as this is a show about leadership.

21:48I mean, that's to some extent what the show is supposed to be about, but for me, it has always been sort of interesting to know, is that really an effective leadership style or not? It looks like it works on the show, but I think people kind of wonder, is this just, you know, what works on a show or does this work in reality? Would this kind of leadership style actually work in today's modern workplaces? Yeah. Maybe you all have an answer. But that's where the whole concept of context is so important, is we need, and in my practice

22:22working with executives all the time, they have to understand that you can't just be the same thing everywhere, but you have to be able to alter your style based on the approach that's taken. In fact, one of the questions we received yesterday was related to the bear, and someone said, but isn't that a good style in that setting, the high pressure restaurant, you know, type setting? Shouldn't you be somebody who's highly demanding and in your face and challenging and all of that? And the important thing to recognize that different styles could work in different settings,

22:54but we also have to recognize where we have to be someone that maybe we're not naturally in order to be effective.

23:02Well, back to the Taylor Swift thing. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that just a few minutes ago before y'all showed up, Ryan was comparing himself to Taylor Swift. I see the resemblance. Wow.

23:20Before we wrap this up, were there any other questions from the group, from the session that that stood out as well or anything that you're thinking of? Yeah, one that stuck out to me was there was a challenge around authenticity. We often talk that leaders need to be authentic. And I'll tell you from being within organizations, oftentimes that's used as a cudgel. People will have bad behavior, leaders will have bad behavior, but, oh, well, I'm just being authentic. And they kind of launder whatever behavior they have under that.

23:54And so I think that needs to be swept up a bit and getting to know who you are at your core. I know personality is our comfort zone and we don't always get to play in that. But are we able to take perspective of who we are and not use authenticity and try to make the world bend a knee to our needs the way we want to show up, but really understand our responsibility to others and have enough, do the work on our own self-awareness to know

24:27what do we need to bend ourselves, to have the intent and the impact that we intend. Well, Lori, you're right in line, I think, with Ryan's philosophy and kind of the Hogan POV on authenticity. Ryan, you want to just quickly... Yeah, well, I mean, you know, our research suggests that that's a bit of an overrated, overused topic, mostly to your point. Sometimes when people are being really authentic, they're not actually being their best self, right? They're being a self that is problematic and has negative consequences for themselves,

24:59for their own organizations, for their team members. And so we think authenticity itself is sort of a misleading construct. We did a bunch of research years ago showing that when people reported feeling most authentic, they were actually being the best version of themselves, not necessarily their true self. And so we think that that concept is pretty misleading. And to your point, Laura, people can use that as an excuse for bad behavior. So we're right in line there. Yeah, one of the examples I gave yesterday to that question was how sometimes people will

25:37show up in a way where they're saying, my authenticity is that I'm just a very direct person. I call things as they are. I say them as they are. And this individual I knew well, and I know the group that this individual is working with. And sometimes what this person will do is come across in a very rude way and just hit people between the eyes. So what we ended up talking about and what this individual learned is that you can still be authentic, but not in that way. There's another way to be a truth teller and to be out there, but you don't have to be that.

26:09And we all learn what we learned for our life experiences along the way. And that's what this individual had learned is that to this person, authenticity was hit them right between the eyes. And the individual, this executive, is doing so much better now after being able to understand that's not necessarily what authenticity is, but there's another form of it that I can be equally successful with. Well, Ron, Laura, it was fantastic having you here. So glad to see you and meet you all both in person. And yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you again.

26:41Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. And that does it for this special episode from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Cheers, everybody.

26:50Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Science of Personality podcast live from PSYOP 2026

Irina Kozma Interview

26:55in New Orleans. Our guest for this special mini episode of the podcast is organizational psychologist and executive coach for the Hogan Coaching Network, Irina Kozma. And we're going to talk with her about her PSYOP session on designing work for humans with a specific focus on inclusion, fulfillment, and fun. So, Irina, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for joining us, Irina. It's super exciting to hear about this symposia that you're presenting at tomorrow. Maybe you can just jump right in and tell us a little bit more about it.

27:26Yeah, so every year I'm telling to myself I'm not coming to PSYOP anymore. And this year in the fall, Mavis from Ontology reached out and she came up with this topic. And I was like, Mavis, what are you doing to me? This is such a beautiful topic. I cannot not come this year at PSYOP. So, I had to jump on this opportunity because I really believe that we are kind of not treating people well in the workplaces. And I think it's very, it's in our reach to do better, but I don't know why we are stuck

27:58in 19th century practices. And I am very passionate about this idea of bringing workplaces in the 21st century. So, in the session tomorrow, each of us will talk about different ways of how can we do that. And it's actually going to be a very interactive session. We are going to ask the participants to also offer suggestions and see how all of us can do better. And I'm sure many organizations are doing pieces. But, so yeah, we want to learn from each other and also share. And hopefully we can create a little more ideas and momentum for everybody to pick up some

28:32ideas and implement them in their organizations. Yeah, so I would love it if you could give us an example of the ways you think organizations are still stuck in the previous century and how do we get them into this century? Yes, I mean, the biggest one, I'm not going to, we are not going to go there today, but the biggest one is performance management. But let's not talk about that because it's too much.

28:54But I can tell you a little of what am I going to talk tomorrow in the session. I'm going to talk about this idea of how can we retire the word feedback.

29:06And this is not a new idea, but it's like, let's keep at it. So the replacement of feedback is feed forward. And there is research that talks about the fact that when somebody is being told, I have some feedback for you, their brain completely shuts down. It's the brain understand that as a threat signal. So it's kind of similar when you put a gun to somebody's head, like the amygdala is going all activated. I've thought about this too. It's like whenever you tell someone they're, maybe it's a diagnosis, like a health diagnosis

29:42that's negative, you know, and you think of yourself like, yeah, it's probably not much is getting through from the doctor telling you that at that time, it probably takes more time for it to sink in and resonate later. But yeah, exactly. I don't know if you can think about times when you are told, hey, come a little, I have some feedback from you. I received some feedback from some stakeholders for you. Like, it's like, ooh, you feel like, you feel something. And I know I was there and my brain already started going in all directions and you sit there and listen to it, but your brain is somewhere else.

30:13And I don't know how good is that. So I'm proposing for us to stop using this word. I know it's so, I mean, such an easy word. How can we not use it? But like any new thing needs practice. So if we go a little more into this feed forward direction, which is basically, instead of talking about the past, instead of saying, hey, in that presentation, you did not did very well, you didn't have enough data, you're not very engaged, like feedback, like what's the point of talking about the past? You cannot change it anyway.

30:45So let's talk about feed forward and the brain of somebody listening to this would be much more open to hear, hey, Sam, next time when you have a presentation, let's see how can you add more data and let's see how can you be more engaged like on that and let me see how can I help you? You know, that's a different way to say the same message, basically. Yeah, so I'm sort of curious, I mean, I don't know if there's any data or anything on this yet, but I'm really curious about, let's say we did that, let's say we change the term

31:18from feedback to feed forward. Do we, I mean, perhaps that just that reframing into a sort of future oriented context alone does something to, you know, make that feedback be more received. But I wonder what kind of evidence do we have in terms of changing these terms or changing this frame of mind and thinking about it that actually creates, I mean, I don't know if you have, maybe if you have examples from clients that you've worked with. I have examples like, yeah, like I don't know if I have a research to cite, but more like

31:49a case studies example. So I actually wrote an article for HBR about giving feedback, giving, giving, giving hard, having a hard conversation like this. Editors put the word feedback in it, even if I like it, let's not put the word feedback, but I think it's in the title. I'm like, oh, this is, this, this is not the point of all of this. But one section of my HBR article is about this feed forward piece. And I give an example how to do it. And a couple of months later, somebody wrote me on LinkedIn and said, hey, I read your article

32:20and I was going into a difficult conversation and I use this feed forward stuff. And the person that I gave it to thank me because she could actually hear me. And oh, I was so touched and impressed that my small article made an impact to somebody somewhere. But I see it all the time in my own clients' work. So they struggle with, okay, I have this difficult direct report. What do I do? I cannot reach to them. So we practice different things. Again, this is one of the tools that I try to teach people to like, do not talk about the past. Like it's irrelevant.

32:51Even if the people go to the past, because people feel also the need to justify. They say, oh, but I did not do it because I didn't have time because the other people didn't give me the data on time. And I'm like, irrelevant.

33:04What can we do better in the future? That's all I am here to talk about. I'm not here to talk about what happened with this presentation. I'm here to talk, how can we make you better in the future? Well, okay, I want to take it back a little bit more. I mean, this is going to be similar to what we do in our normal, like our regular full linked episodes. But I'm curious because we just met just a few minutes ago. What got you interested in executive coaching in the first place? Where did this start? Yes, maybe very quickly, I'll tell you like why psychology, why organizational psychology,

33:35because it's kind of the same thread in a way. So I'm originally from Romania. This is where the accent is coming from. Back in Romania, we don't have to work until later in life because we don't have to pay for school. This is important to your question and my answer because I pretty late in life, I mean, halfway through the college, I realized that we are going to work for the rest of our lives because I was like living in this fantasy of reading books and enjoying my life. So it shocked me that we are going to wake up every morning of our lives and go and do

34:09a job. Like I couldn't understand who invented this. How is this possible? And what broke my heart is that I understand there are people who do this and they don't enjoy what they are doing. And I felt like this is unacceptable. If I can help one person wake up in the morning and feel more equipped to handle better their workday, that's very interesting to me. Yeah, they will benefit from it, but that's interesting to me to see if I can do that. So that's why psychology, that's organization of psychology and from all the things in org psychology that I did in the last 20 years, both on the selection side and development side, I realized

34:45that coaching is my happy place because it helps me, it's the most direct way to help that person wake up in the morning more equipped to embark their professional life. So that's how I ended up at coaching. I love that. Okay. So I'm thinking for my next question, being from Romania, I'm curious, is there anything about your background and being from Romania that you have found is a strength working here in the U.S., maybe with American executives who need your services?

35:21How has that helped you? That's an interesting thing that you're asking that. I also lived in Spain for a while before coming here, and my husband is from, yes, another part of the world. So my brain is pretty like, I don't feel like I'm a Romanian or I'm actually also an American, but I'm like, I'm a human. So that's how I think about things. And I think I apply more relativity when I talk with people from different countries, which by the way, they are more attracted to me being in this country.

35:52So any first or second generation, I have a lot of clients that come to me from that angle. And I can, we can understand each other, I think, in a way that might be harder for somebody who was born here and lived here. So I think it got me a little more relative about all these cultural stereotypes. I'm like, yes, stereotypes are good. They're coming from somewhere. But I'm more relaxed about it. And I'm more focused on the human, the personality, talking on this podcast.

36:24So yeah, I'm more like, hmm, I don't know if it's a cultural trait or it's a personality trait, or maybe a little of both. But I see myself asking myself more questions, where is this coming from? And yeah, like, I'm trying to match multiple variables before making an opinion about somebody because they are from Latin America. And yeah, like, there are stereotypes about Latin Americans or Eastern European, like, oh, I know that I've been told since I came in this country, like, Eastern European are very direct. And that's a feedback I have to work on.

36:57I worked on that for 20 years, still work in progress. Um, so like, yeah, but maybe it's my personality. Maybe I'm, uh, I am low interpersonal sensitivity, so it's coming from there. So yeah, it's more, I think it's more nuanced and more, yeah, like, uh, I feel like I can relate more with people from all over the world. Okay, last question, uh, that I have is in the title of the session that you're working on tomorrow, if you could dive in a little bit more to the last word in that title, the

37:30fun part. How does that, where's, tell us about that. Why, why is that in there? Because I like seeing it in there and I want to hear more about it. Yeah. And there are different ways of, I think, how people relate to that word. I mean, it might be a pizza party or sharing cookies. Uh, and it means what it means for everybody. But fundamentally, I think it, for me, it means that life, it's a bigger pocket bucket and work. It's a piece of it. And the question is, how do we maybe bring a little more life at work?

38:01Or like, how do we don't take ourselves so serious? I think this is one of the things about this designing works for the future and organizations for the future. We take ourselves so serious. So we are like, uh, how can we kind of, uh, go with the flow a little more? And, uh, yeah, no meeting is really as consequential as we think, but so much hard deck and so much stress. People experience every day going to a meeting and if you're like the end of the world, like, no, you're not the end of the world. I don't see you in the breaking news. And what you said in the meeting was not so consequential.

38:32So, um, how do we take out more light? I think for me, fun is more equivalent to light, but I think for different people, I mean, different things. Well, that's great because, I mean, like you mentioned earlier, we finish school and then we work the rest of our lives doing the same thing. So if there's no fun in there, what's the fun in that? You know, so, well, Irina, really appreciate you joining us for this. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. It was nice to meet you and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here in New Orleans and good luck tomorrow on your session. Thank you so much. See you around.

39:04And that does it for the special episode from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Cheers, everybody.

39:11Hello, everybody.

Adrian Furnham Interview

39:12And welcome to the Science of Personality podcast live from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Our guest for this special mini episode of the podcast needs no introduction, but I'm going to go ahead and introduce him anyway. Joining us is world-renowned psychologist, author, and good friend of the podcast, Dr. Adrian Furnham, to talk with us about his PSYOP session that focuses on looking beyond engagement and really tackling the organizational disconnect in modern work psychology. So, Adrian, thank you for joining us and welcome to the podcast. It's my pleasure.

39:42Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, Adrian, so I'm really interested in this symposium that you were a part of where you were talking about, or as we talked about just before we came on air here, connection or the psychology of connection or psychological connection, as you might say. So, tell us a little bit more about this symposium you were a part of. I mean, we were talking about the measurement of connection and why it's important. And I think if you look into the psychology in general, you'll see the theme goes through

40:12a whole range of people. So, McClellan talked about need for affiliation. Bowlby talked about attachment. If you're a fan of FIRO-B, it's about inclusion. So, the idea is that people have a very fundamental need to be included, attached, connected with other people. And the modern workplace is such, with its high technology, that you and I feel connected because we can email each other. But, you know, I've sent emails to five, you probably have as well.

40:45I've emailed five countries today. I've emailed a lot of people. But do I feel, quote, connected to them? And the issue is, in the workplace, I think people are feeling less connected rather than more connected. Maybe our technology has led to this feeling of detachment, of less connection. And that, I think, has serious consequences. Okay. Well, let's talk about, let's stay on that cause aside because I do want to get into some

41:18of these consequences of disconnection as well. But let's talk about some of the things on the cause side. You mentioned technology. So, are we talking remote work? Are we talking Zoom? What are the kinds of technology things that we think are creating this disconnection, even though maybe it's master's connection? Yeah, exactly. It's master's connection. I mean, you and I correspond a lot of the time. Other people correspond. But are we connecting one to another? I mean, in my session today, I was very conscious of people not paying attention. They're on their phones.

41:48They're on their iPads and God knows whatever. So, to what extent are they connected? And people, you know, we like this. It's part of our DNA, sense of attachment or being part of a group and being genuinely connected. And I think, paradoxically, we're more connected than ever electronically, but as a consequence, less connected psychologically. Now, I've seen some restaurants popping up in big cities that have this no cell phones policy.

42:24Yeah. And it's actually quite popular among maybe a group that most people wouldn't think it is, but it's actually quite popular among young people. Oh. And you would say, well, you know, to some extent, they've all grown up with these phones or they've had these phones since their teenage years. And they're used to it. And so, I think what I'm hearing about from this is that it's quite rewarding to go into an environment where suddenly you have to connect with each other. Yes. Because you're not used to it and you realize how important it is.

42:54I think, you know, particularly remote working and the option of emailing lots of people. I tell two stories today. One is case studies about connection. And the one is we did a study years ago on, it was supermarkets up and down England. So we had, I can't remember, you know, make it up, 200 supermarkets of the same chain. And the question was, what determined people's happiness, satisfaction, engagement?

43:26And you measured everything. You measured the size of the store, the profitability of the store. You had the data on the information on the personality of the owner. So what factor was the best predictors? You do these fancy regressions. And the answer was the canteen. The stores have canteens. So when people are off duty or between, they go to a place where they can have something to it and chat. And that was interesting. So the best predictor wasn't, you know, the profitability and so forth.

43:59It was that. And the second story was a little bit like this. And one of my favorite stories from an organization which was doing teamwork. And it was a very, it's a very distinguished organization and they spent a lot of money on encouraging teamwork. And they found the best strategy was something invented by one of their bosses. And the game went like this. Every Friday, the last Friday of the month, you and your staff left the office at 12 o'clock.

44:30But you had to stay together until five o'clock. That's the only rule. So once a month, your staff went out of work to do something. And of course, for some people, this is horrific. Spending time with your colleagues, you know, who you don't like and don't respect. So you've got to find out what to do. What should we do? We've got to spend four hours together. We've got to spend four hours together every Friday for a year.

45:02And of course, what they did is they discovered they took part in some activities. What would you like to do? What should we do, gang? You know, what's your interest and so forth? And me and most of them ended up in some sort of charitable work. But what they discovered was how much they understood about each other and the connections. And it was very powerful. And you think, you know, in the workplace, we are so connected electronically with regarding

45:33how easy it is to contact people, but none of the other aspects of connection. Yeah. So you're sort of connected, not really physically, but there's some like electronic, I guess electronically, but psychologically not really connected. No, we don't talk. We don't interact. We, you know, we, in my talk today, you know, I was watching how many people in the, there were about 200 people in the room, how many were looking at their iPads while I was talking

46:05and they weren't, they weren't concentrating on me. Right. Now, I wasn't upset by this, but you thought this is one of the problems of connection, that it's easy to connect with too many hours, but you think you're connected when you're not. Well, I will even say that in the modern workplace, if you're on a Zoom call or a Teams call or whatever it is, you're on your computer, you might feel like, oh, now we're face to face and there's some kind of connection. My experience is that there's an awful lot of distractions. There's emails coming in, there's messages coming in from people, which provides even

46:36more opportunity, even though it might look like you're even looking at the person. Yes. You're really disconnected from what's going on there as well. Yes. So that's the paradox. The paradox is the more electronically we're connected, the less psychologically we're connected. So let's talk about those consequences, though. What are some of the consequences we're seeing in the workplace? Well, people are, this is a technical term, pissed off. They're disengaged. They are unhappy. You know, what's called the great, what's the word, where people, oh, I can't remember.

47:12It doesn't matter. Where lots of young people are leaving jobs. Ah, uh-huh. And, you know, I think if you look at surveys, what you've noticed is people are less happy, less engaged, less wanting to be part of the company. In every measure of this sort of engagement, it's gone down. And, you know, people are very interested in engagement surveys. Well, the question is, what causes the engagement? Or what are the major drivers of engagement?

47:44And I think they're about connections. They're about how well people are connected with each other in the workplace. Yeah, I know some even engagement surveys will have an item that centers around having a best friend at work. And it seems like, well, if I'm not connecting with people, I don't. And people will tell you, when you ask people who really love their jobs, what's the thing you love most about their job? They tend to not list things like, oh, I love my salary. They don't list it. They say, I love the people that I work with. Yes. And so if you're feeling disconnected from those people, you can see why I must not love my work

48:21because there's no one here that I really want to be with. And some bosses understand this. They understand this intuitively. And they do things to make the group, the team, connected. But, of course, I think the pressures are on businesses now. The assumption is if you've got an iPad, if you can phone people, you can connect in that way. And that's sufficient. And it isn't. And I think that's why so many young people are so dissatisfied in the workplace. Well, yeah, I think you're right. But the problem is, what are we going to do about it?

48:53Because, I mean, this is a problem. We're talking specifically about the workplace. But go sit in an airport. Go sit anywhere. I mean, I make it a point whenever I fly to it from the time I get on the plane to the time I get off. The only time I'm touching my phone is to put it in airplane mode. And I take a physical copy of a book to read. Yes. You're unusual in that sense. But I'm, how do we get, not saying I'm perfect, because I'm prone to use my phone as much as, not as much, but quite a bit.

49:29I can also just leave it on the shelf for a day. But what are we going to do about it? Like, this is a problem. It does seem like that this new generation, this younger one. Yes. We're seeing some differences there, because they're also not too sold on AI either, because I'd be scared if I was that age with AI, and what some jerk over here might do with AI to make it look like I'm doing something foolish or not within what I would typically call good behavior. So, that's a loaded question.

50:01I'm just curious on your thought. Well, it's the joy of the activity in the workplace. So, when I was a professor in London, on Friday afternoons, we used to have drinks at five. And I know Hogan's always done these drinks. And the idea is you get together, and you shoot the week. I don't remember if this is a phrase. You look back, and you say, what have we guys learned? What have we done? And you interact with each other, and you interact with each other with a bit of disclosure, self-disclosure, which is now getting more and more difficult. It's very difficult on electronic media for all sorts of reasons.

50:32So, you find a few friends, you tell them a few stories, you feel safe, and you get an emotional connection. I don't think it's that difficult. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. But I do wonder about, right, so many people see remote as a benefit. Exactly. And they see these technologies, these great improvements. And so, I think there's this tension or this struggle for a trade-off on what is the right rhythm, what's the right cadence, how much do people need.

51:06There is electronic connection, and you can send a message and get it back. But is there an emotional connection? And that's, I think, that was the issue we were talking about. Yeah. One thing that we do on the Hogan marketing team, just so if anybody's curious what that looks like, and it's on Friday. Okay. Friday morning, usually around, you know, after everybody's had a chance to catch up on emails, get a little coffee. Yeah. 9, 9.30, 8. Yeah. Well, somebody will propose, like, the Friday question of the day. Okay. It could be, like, you know, what's something you bought in the past six months that has really changed your life in a productive, like, in a positive way?

51:43Or something. That's the type of question we ask. And the response, I mean, we, there's a communication going back and forth among the whole team. Yeah, it's written, but it's good. It feels, like, it's meaningful. And it goes on until noon, you know? Yes. I went to a leadership conference some years ago, and the people was, how do you introduce yourself to one another? And you had to bring an object, which was meaningful to you, that told other people about you.

52:14So I brought a radio. I grew up in Africa. My mother was a missionary. And the radio was the source of the outside world, world service, the BBC World Service. And my mother's major control over me was to take away the radio. And so in the story, people learn a lot about you. You disclose about what's important and so forth. And, of course, you know, self-disclosure happens. It's actually an old psychological concept.

52:46We haven't discussed it for a very long time. But, you know, you don't disclose so much on email because you know how, to what extent it's being monitored and stuff. And one can be quite frightened. But you sit next to somebody with a cup of tea in the afternoon and you tell them a few things. And I think that is an important aspect of the whole connection, that they know about you and you know about them and you learn to trust them. Well, Adrian, this has been great. We're so glad you were able to make it over stateside for the PSYOP conference.

53:18I have to say, it's been wonderful. New Orleans is a beautiful town. I had no idea how wonderful it was. And the conference has been excellent. So thank you for the invitation. Well, we appreciate you joining us.

53:32And that does it for this special episode from PSYOP 2026 in New Orleans. Cheers, everybody. This has been the Science of Personality podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments. You can access all episodes on our website, thescienceofpersonality.com, or on the streaming service of your choice. See you next time.

54:07Bye.

54:16Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.