More than 30 senior delegates from various industries attended the first of our Strategic Leadership Conversations sessions at The Venue at Melrose Arch on 23rd August 2010. JvR brought these delegates together with international guest speakers from the Center for Creative Leadership and the Association of Internal Management Consultants as well as local leaders. The programme, outlined below, was very well received by the delegates and we will seek to create similar opportunities for leadership conversations in the future.

Conversations about leadership
We were fortunate to have Simon Rweyongoza and Michaël van Impe from the Europe, Middle East and Africa offices of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) start off the day with an interactive session on the gap that participants perceive between the current state of leadership in South Africa and an ideal future state. The findings from this session will be made available in future and we will be hosting sessions to work on how these leadership gaps may be bridged.

In their worldwide research on the leadership gap, CCL identified seven leadership skills that are consistently viewed as most important now and in the future. They are:
• leading employees
• strategic planning
• inspiring commitment
• managing change,
• resourcefulness
• being a quick learner
• doing whatever it takes

CCL’s research found that leaders are not adequately prepared for the future. The four most important future skills — leading people, strategic planning, inspiring commitment, and managing change — are among the weakest competencies for today’s leaders. Watch this space for more on this topic.

Leading an organizational turnaround
Dr Brian Chicksen, Vice-President of Safety at AngloGold Ashanti presented his experience of having led a healthcare company through a dramatic turnaround under difficult circumstances. Brian presented “The Anatomy and Physiology of an Organisational Turnaround”. As the then Managing Director of the company, Brian (a Physician and business Executive) took up the helm after the company had been subject to a forensic audit and he was under significant pressure from the shareholders to turn the company around. Brian shared his intimate knowledge of the process in a unique way, blending theory and practice to highlight his views on the relative contribution of different approaches, methods and tools to the success of the turnaround process.

The following points summarise the essence of the learning extracted from Brian’s case study presentation:
• The make-up of an organization (individual, team, collection of teams) is analogous to the living organism (cell, organ system, collection of organ systems)
• The “what” of organizational transformation (or anatomical factors) is specific to a particular context and includes factors such as strategic positioning, strategy mapping, building core competencies, organizational structuring and building flexibility
• The “how” (the physiological factors) is generic to any turnaround program – this includes factors such as Kotter’s 8-step model of change – creating a sense of urgency, a guiding coalition, creating a vision, communicating the vision, empowering others to act on the vision, create short-term wins, consolidate improvements and institutionalize the new state.

Brian researched the extent to which various stakeholder groupings regarded each of the anatomical and physiological factors as having contributed to the successful turnaround of the organization. He concluded that both anatomical and physiological factors are critical to transformation, similar to the concepts of:

o structure without function is lifeless
o without form there can be no function

International knowledge base
Dave Hoff and Robert Kath from the US-based Association of Internal Management Consultants (AIMC) provided an overview of their organization. The AIMC is a network of managers in organisations and external consultants representing leading organizations in the public and private sectors with representation in the US, Europe and Asia. Practice areas include:
• organisational effectiveness and development
• project and change management
• process and operational improvement
• management training and development
• strategic planning
• performance management

The AIMC allows for international networking through the regular exchange of practice allowing for professional reflection, learning and mutual support. Some of the organizations represented on the AIMC are Chevron, SAP, SMC, Bayer, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, ORC, Guttman Development Strategies, the United Nations, Gaian, Carghill Inc, Model Performance, Mayo Clinic, Easi Consult, ExxonMobil, Eli Lilly, Mutual of Omaha, Alticor and Becton Dickinson.

JvR Consulting Psychologists hosted the first meeting of the AIMC in Africa and, given the interest expressed by delegates, have decided to move forward with the South Africa Chapter. The next meeting of the SA Chapter will be on Friday, 5 November 2010 at the JvR offices in Randburg. We are in the process of compiling an agenda based on the recommendations of participants.

If you would like to know more about the AIMC and / or would like to attend the next meeting / suggest a topic to be presented / make a presentation at this event, please feel free to contact Leigh Wallace or Grant Freedman at JvR.

We would like to congratulate Edna Freinkel on her Rebecca Ostrowiak Reading Programme (READUCATE) being approved by the Gauteng Provincial Government for the Gauteng Primary Literacy Strategy (GPLS).

In February 2010 Gabi Khumalo reported in the BauTimes (Tshwane) that according to the Education MEC, Barbara Creecy, government research has shown that the majority of learners in the province are unable to read or write at the levels required by the national curriculum. The aim of the GPLA is for sixty percent of Grade six learners in Gauteng to be at or above the national literacy achievement standard by 2014. To reach the set target of 60 percent, Creecy said the GPLS would focus on four pillars – including annual external assessments of all Grade 3 and 6 learners and the provision of high quality literacy textbooks, workbooks, reader and teacher guides for all learners in 790 underperforming primary schools amongst other things.

Rebecca Ostrowiak’s series “Teach Any Child or Adult to Read” can be used by any literate parent, teacher or psychologist who wishes to teach reading, writing, spelling, comprehension and memory training initially or remedially to primary and high school learners or for adults with little or no schooling. The simple instructions teach the alphabetic, phonic, look-learn-say and whole language approaches. The series has been particularly successful in remediating dyslexic children and adults and was endorsed by Marion Welchman OBE, a Co-Founder of the British Dyslexia Association.

Edna is available for educational talks. Her “The Relationship between Reading and Television” is a popular, interactive lecture for teachers, learners and parents.

JvR is proud to be a distributor of the Rebecca Ostrowiak Reading Programme. For more information on the Programme please contact our Psychometric Advisory Services department on 011 781-3705.

View the product abstract here

Workplace stress is estimated to cost companies millions in poor performance, absenteeism and health costs. Job stress impedes on the ability of employees to actively demonstrate work engagement behaviour. Therefore, whilst it is important to promote work engagement in organisations it is also of equal importance to simultaneously curb job stress in order to maximise the success of employee engagement efforts, i.e. ensure a healthy return by investing in and promoting engagement interventions

The Organisational Human Factor Benchmark Instrument (OHFB©) has been developed following twelve years of cutting-edge research by the WorkWell Research Unit, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus). This organisational diagnostic instrument benchmarks human factor related risk on individual and group level.

JvRC is proud to be associated with this cutting edge South African product. It’s unique ability to balance both positive and negative aspects of work-related well being, combined with highly effective application, will ensure future growth and development not only within our organisations and communities, but will potentially have a far reaching impact globally.

JVRC is an accredited user of the OHFB and well positioned to integrate primary, secondary and tertiary interventions for your organisation. For further information, please contact Leigh Wallace on 082 295 1250 or leigh@jvrafrica.co.za

JvR recently hosted Dr Jarrett Shalhoop, of Hogan Assessment Systems. During his first visit to South Africa, he met with a number of current Hogan clients to discuss the use of Hogan Assessments in development programs or advanced assessment systems.

Dr Shalhoop’s presentations to the business sector was well attended, both in Johannesburg and Cape Town. These sessions were aimed at introducing the concept of derailment to business, and highlight the potential impact that managers who derail, can have on interpersonal relationships, customers and companies themselves. He highlighted that failed careers, abandoned projects, strained relationships and organisational failure alike can result from derailment, depending on a person’s discretion, or scope of decision-making and influence.

As part of JvR’s International Lecture Series, Dr. Shalhoop also facilitated an advanced interpretation workshop in Johannesburg as well as Cape Town. Hogan users were trained in competency-based interpretation as well as dealing with conflicting profiles.

Here are a couple of interesting articles written by Dr. Shalhoop on Hogan’s Blog: The Science of Personality.

• The Value of Values
• Derailment in Prime Time
• Working-Class Hero or Spectacular Case of Derailment?

The concept of traffic psychology is not new to South Africa, but it is not often something that practitioners discuss in professional forums. This is somewhat strange, as traffic is probably one of the most ubiquitous topics of discussion for any person who finds themselves in it on a regular basis. More specifically, you will often find that South Africans lament the lack of driving skills or basic courtesy of drivers on the roads today. This, combined with added stressors such as construction on the roads, ill-maintained roads and traffic jams, probably makes the mention of traffic in a conversion a daily occurrence for any driver or passenger.

There is very little published research on driving behaviours in South Africa, but internationally, traffic psychology is a thriving field of research and practice. There are some reports on the incidence of road rage, and many transport companies make use of special assessments to select their drivers, but very few of these studies are published, so very little is publicly known about this field in South Africa.

JvR recently conducted some preliminary research into the link between driving behaviours and aspects of personality. A brief (and very broad) questionnaire on different types of driving behaviours was created, and this was administered to a sample of South Africans along with two personality questionnaires in order to investigate whether there were any links. The personality questionnaires used were the Basic Traits Inventory and the Hogan Personality Inventory.

The preliminary research conducted during the study revealed some patterns in driving behaviour and its relationship with aspects of personality. The results indicated that drivers who engage in more risky driving behaviours such as aggressive driving, answering their cell phone while driving, and who get caught breaking the driving laws are also likely to be involved in more road accidents than those who do not engage in such risky behaviours. There were also correlations between aspects of personality such as level of personal energy, self-discipline, and willingness to admit mistakes and the number of accidents incurred.

There were notable differences in personality style between professional drivers and ordinary drivers. Professional drivers reported being more conscientious, agreeable, having higher personal energy, being more sociable and being more adventurous than ordinary drivers. They also reported being somewhat less likely to remain calm under pressure, and less likely to seek out the limelight.

The findings related to personality and risky driving behaviours were also illuminating. However, in many of these cases the size of the groups was small, so there is limited generalisability of the results. Various trends and patterns in personality traits were found for different admissions of risky driving behaviours. Further research into these areas may provide useful insights into the characteristics and behaviours that can lead to accidents, and perhaps aid the selection of safe drivers and promotion of safe driving behaviour. In addition, research into the aspects of personality that predict safer driving behaviour is needed.

You can download the summary of the findings or the full technical report below. If you have any questions about the results, please contact Nicola at research@jvrafrica.co.za.

Personality and Driver Behaviour summary
Personality and Driver Behaviour, Full Report

Have you ever found yourself feeling angry after attending a pointless meeting, being caught in a traffic jam or because the power went out just as you were about to watch a World Cup Football match? We all experience anger, caused by different triggers and experienced at different levels of intensity, but underlying each event triggering anger is a theme. Research by Paul Ekman suggests that there is a very simple reason for experiencing anger: it is because something got in the way of what you wanted. Experiencing emotion tells ‘us’ as well as ‘others’ something about our experience in a particular moment. So if someone cuts in front of you in a queue at a store, or skips the queue at a 4-way stop (I am sure you can list many examples which have a specific meaning to you), you are likely to experience anger because someone or something got in the way of what you want. This sounds primal, but through years of human existence this emotion has helped us to mobilise or gear ourselves up to meet the challenges of life influencing the way we think and the way we behave. There is also research that suggests there are universal emotions (across cultures) which are expressed through facial expressions. So no matter where you are in the world, narrowed eyes, flared nose, clenched teeth and compressed lips usually indicate that someone is angry (Ekman, 2003).

What does this mean for you? Well emotion communicates valuable information to both ourselves and others which if you understand can help you to create self- as well as interpersonal awareness regarding your interactions with others. The next time you feel angry ask yourself: what is it that you wanted and what/who got in your way? This will help to contextualise why you are experiencing anger. Also, look out for the signals, specifically your facial expressions. This will quickly remind you what you are communicating especially if you are trying to hide your anger from others. To effectively manage your interpersonal interactions it may be worthwhile to ask yourself other questions such as: is it worthwhile based on what I know to remain angry? Could I do without it (whatever it is that you wanted)? If I really need it, is anger going to aid me in getting what I want?

Other emotions such as being happy, sad, scared, surprised, disgusted provide us with other valuable information which if we know and understand can help to make significant difference in how we manage ourselves in our interactions with other.

Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions revealed: recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life. New York. Henry Holt & Company.

Gareth Hallett
JvR Consulting Psychologists

The HPCSA excitedly announced new professional boards via a media release on the 10th August 2010.

We are as excited about this new development as they are. The boards have been inaugurated which effectively means new management for the HPCSA, as the chairpersons of these Boards will serve for the next five years as members of the Council at the HPCSA. Our Professional Board of Psychology Executive Committee is as follows:
· Prof T Sodi (Chairperson)
· Prof H G Pretorius (Vice Chairperson)
· Prof T Mashego (Chairperson of the Education Committee)
· Ms T Moloi (Chairperson of the Psychometric Committee)
· Prof B J Pillay (Chairperson of the Examination Committee)
· Prof H S B Ngcobo (Chairperson of the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Committee)
· Prof L J Van Vuuren (Chairperson of the Preliminary Inquiry Committee)
· Mr R Phala (Community Representative)
· Mr S Phakathi (Ministerial Representative)

Our congratulations to the new board (both old and new members) and especially to Prof Sodi in his appointment as Chairperson. We look forward to collaborating on issues such as the test classification procedure, online assessment, continuous professional development, and more. We wish the new board a very successful term. For more information please Click Here

This year’s SIOPSA conference sported a new look, new venue, and exciting new additions to the programme. The JvR Group made sure that our team was present in full force, sharing knowledge and ideas, and making new acquaintances. With a record-breaking number of delegates attending, this year’s conference was vibrant and exciting, and certainly well worth attending.

We were honoured to be invited to the first ever Gala dinner, where sponsors and special guests were recognised for their contribution to the success of the conference. On the evening of Dr Jopie van Rooyen’s 80th birthday, the three generations of Van Rooyen/De Beer women were present to accept the certificate acknowledging the JvR Group’s continued support of the SIOPSA conference. This was truly a special occasion, complemented by an exciting guest speaker, Michael Jackson (no, the other one), delicious eats, and a caricature artist who managed to capture the essence of each of the guests. We look forward to this becoming a new tradition at the conference.

With a change in venue, the Annual SIOPSA conference promised a fresh outlook, which demanded a fresh approach from the JvR Group. This year, our stand sported a name-tree where delegates pinned their details on leaves to stand a chance to win a Hogan training. The lucky winners were Michelle Moss who won the training and Anne Buckett and Jeanette Joubert who both won books. Congratulations!

The JvR Group made its presence felt at the conference, delivering 2 workshops, 10 paper presentations and 1 poster in collaboration with a number of our partners and colleagues. We experienced a tremendously positive response from the conference delegates, and would like to thank everyone for their support. We were also privileged to be able to show Dr Jarrett Shalhoop from Hogan Assessment Systems how we do things in South Africa, and to hear his latest research on personality in South African managers compared to other countries. All the presentations will be available from SIOPSA’s website, but if you missed one, or would like more information, please contact info@jvrafrica.co.za

The 16th South African Psychological Congress was held at the Durban ICC in the first week of August. The warm weather fooled us into thinking that Winter was over! The theme for the 2010 congress was “Probing the Boundaries of South African Psychology” and PsySSA enjoyed record attendance with a jam-packed programme. We were very impressed by the dedication of delegates who managed, after long days at the conference, to still attend the evening presentations until 6:30pm! People’s commitment, both those presenting or attending, and the variety of topics being presented, made it a very worthwhile experience.

Our congratulations and well wishes go to Dr Emmanuel Tlou, the new president of PsySSA as well as the current and new members of the Executive being Mr Umesh Bawa and Prof Anthony Pillay. We hope the year ahead is prosperous and productive and that PsySSA continues to reach new heights. We were relieved to hear that a mediatory approach will be taken with the issues between PsySSA and SIOPSA and we hope that this will be the year that these issues are finally resolved. We are very excited about the pending 2012 International Congress of Psychology in Cape Town and wish you all the best in the preparations.

During the conference we were overwhelmed with interest from our Durban colleagues, requesting that we visit Durban more often. We would like to build a communication database with our Durbanites, so we can coordinate our visits to meet the needs of as many people as possible. There were discussions about JvR hosting a ‘DVD Day’ or running our Ethics Workshop for people in need of CPD points. We will run these events if we have at least 10 people attending. If you would like to keep informed of any upcoming Durban events, please click here and enter your name on our Durban Database. If you have any suggestions as to what you would like JvR to present in Durban please email Jenna@jvrafrica.co.za. This invitation is extended to all regions. Please give us a call to set up a communication database for your area.

Thank you to Durban and the PsySSA team for the warm welcome. The 2011 Congress date has been set for 26-29 July 2011 at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg – we will be there and hope you will be too!

P.S. Congratulations to Mr Shane Wolson, Miss Neo Pule, and Mr Raymond Nettmann who were the winners of our bookdraw!

Check out this interesting article By Carol Morello a Washington Post Staff Writer: More college-educated jump tracks to become skilled manual laborers.