A psychologist by any other name
I belong to an odd profession. I am a psychologist, I specialize in work & organizations and in some jurisdictions I am called an occupational psychologist or an industrial psychologist or an industrial/organizational psychologist. Sometimes I am called a business psychologist.
I usually work for myself but we do our work at our clients. So my office is my car, my laptop and my smartphone. When we get to our clients we are likely to “check in” at the general managers’ suite. As we are concerned with people, much of our work interweaves with HR management.
So what do psychologists do?
I like to phrase that differently. What do we contribute to an organization which is flourishing?
We have three tasks
- To reduce the cost of management
- To raise productivity and initiative
- To pass on the benefits to the workforce
Whether we deal with a big business or a neighborhood store, whether we work with government or an investment bank, our job is to reduce management cost, raise productivity and initiative and pass on the benefits to the workforce.
It’s also our job to tell the story. It is our job to say out loud what is happening, to hold up a mirror so that people can see themselves reducing the waste of management, enjoying their work more, and making more money.
That’s what we do.
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