PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

THE STUDY OF PEOPLE AT WORK

YEAR 2011 | VOLUME 64 | NUMBER 4

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEW EDITORS:

L EE J. KONCZAK , Washington University
DAVID E. S MITH , EASI Consult, LLC

BOOK REVIEW ADVISORY PANEL:

Gary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FL
Victoria Buenger, Texas A&M University
S. Bartholomew Craig, North Carolina State University
Alexis Fink, Microsoft Corporation
John W. Fleenor, Center for Creative Leadership
Robert G. Jones, Missouri State University
Claude Levy-Leboyer, Institut de Recherches et D’Applications en
Psychologie du Travail
Therese Macan, University of Missouri–St. Louis
Malcolm James Ree, Our Lady of the Lake University
Paul W. Thayer, North Carolina State University
 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
THE STUDY OF PEOPLE AT WORK

YEAR 2011 | VOLUME 64 | NUMBER 4

Book Review Contents

Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin, and Patrick G. Cullen.
Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads.
Reviewed by Gerard Beenen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1051

Peter Cappelli and Bill Novelli.

Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare
for the New Organizational Order.
Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053

Gary Yukl.
Leadership in Organizations (7th edition).
Reviewed by S. Bartholomew Craig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1056

Christine Thornton.
Group and Team Coaching: The Essential Guide.
Reviewed by Shirley Ashauer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059

Rex B. Kline.
Becoming a Behavioral Researcher: A Guide
to Producing Research That Matters.
Reviewed by James A. Penny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063

Ron Drew Stone.

Aligning Training for Results: A Process and Tools
That Link Training and Business.
Reviewed by Paul W. Thayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1068
 BOOK REVIEWS 1051

Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin, and Patrick G. Cullen. Rethinking the

MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads. Boston, MA: Harvard Busi-
ness School Press, 2010, 339 pages, $19.95 hardcover, $19.95 electronic
copy.

Reviewed by Gerard Beenen, Assistant Professor of Management, Mi-

haylo College of Business and Economics, California State University-
Fullerton.

Every 5 to 10 years, MBA program committees intensively evaluate

the alignment of their curriculum with accreditation requirements and
student and employer needs. This book, written by members of Harvard
Business School’s (HBS) MBA program review committee, translates
their curriculum review into a critique of MBA education more generally.
For this reviewer, the results are mixed.
The book is organized into two sections focused on “the state of
MBA education” (Chapters 1–6) and “institutional responses” (Chapters
7–13). Section I contextualizes and develops their critiques and offers
ideas on how to address them. Carnegie and Ford Foundation reports in the
1950s contended management education lacked academic rigor. Schools
responded by emphasizing research. This evolved into the current chasm
between disciplinary scholarship and the applied needs of students and
employers. Dwindling relevance of MBA is compounded by issues such
as substitute degrees (e.g., financial engineering programs), rising tuition,
recruiter perceptions, and shrinkage of the financial sector.
Three core challenges for MBA education emerge from their critiques:
the needs for a global perspective, leadership or soft skills training, and
greater integration. The global economy and internationalization of MBA
students requires a more global perspective. Soft skills training (e.g.,
communicating, influencing, managing conflict) is needed to fix a lopsided
emphasis on analytical skills. Integration is needed to improve decision-
making skills.
These accurate critiques follow a well-worn path. Similar critiques
are ubiquitous in the management education literature (e.g., Academy of
Management Learning & Education) and sponsored reports (e.g., by the
Graduate Management Admissions Council and AACSB). And many of
their solutions are self-evident. For instance, they address the globaliza-
tion challenge by suggesting higher proportions of international faculty
and students, more global content in curricula, and overseas internships,
trips, and campuses (pp. 107–118). Though readers unfamiliar with man-
agement education may find these critiques and solutions novel, there
are no surprises for the rest of us. Course designers and evaluators may
find the “knowing, doing, and being” framework (pp.103; respectively
1052 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

corresponding to declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and self-

awareness) borrowed from WestPoint is a helpful way to organize MBA
program competencies.
The second section of the book responds to the three challenges of
globalization, leadership, and integration. One chapter each focuses on
a few top-tier institutions, presumably relevant for HBS’s own review
process: INSEAD, Chicago (Booth), Yale, Stanford, the Center for Cre-
ative Leadership (CCL), and of course, HBS. Each institution embodies a
unique response to one or more of the challenges.
INSEAD focused on globalization with a second campus in Singa-
pore to train leaders with a “global mindset.” Stanford and Yale focused
on integration through interdisciplinary courses, with Stanford further
emphasizing customization tailored to students’ backgrounds and goals.
CCL focused on leadership development through intensive programs to
enhance self-awareness. HBS focused on leadership development by em-
phasizing a general management perspective using case studies. Use of
prematriculation online courses to ensure students enter with a common
knowledge base is an interesting idea in this chapter (p. 248). Ironically,
Chicago’s disciplinary focus, faculty autonomy (e.g., the same course can
differ substantively across faculty), and extracurricular leadership train-
ing (because faculty were uninterested in providing this) reflects the very
problems with MBA education noted in Section I.
This second section of the book reads like a detailed brochure without
pictures. Again, management educators with some familiarity of these
schools will find sparse new information. On the other hand, MBA appli-
cants interested in each school may find something useful in each chapter.
The HBS chapter (10) in particular is a polemic for their pedagogical
approach. It seems HBS’s response to rethinking the MBA degree is to
continue doing what they do best.
As a new member of my own institution’s MBA steering committee,
this reviewer read Rethinking the MBA eager for insights, ideas, and
innovations to improve our MBA program. Unfortunately, the book only
offered familiar critiques with descriptive solutions grounded in the past
and marginally in the present. For example, many of the proposed solutions
already were a part of this reviewer’s experience as an MBA student at
Northwestern (Kellogg) 2 decades ago. Many other solutions, such as
Stanford’s decision to spend more of its largess on teachers and facilities,
are outside the grasp of mainstream institutions that are struggling during
lean economic times.
Imagining the future of the MBA with more prescriptive solutions
would have made this book more interesting. Example solutions advanced
elsewhere include applications of design science and evidence-based prin-
ciples (Rousseau, forthcoming; Rousseau & McCarthy, 2007), creating
a more explicit shared understanding of learning processes and goals
 BOOK REVIEWS 1053

(Goodman, 2011; Goodman & Beenen, 2008), and sequential approaches

to integration rooted more deeply in learning theory (Rubin & Dierdorff,
2011). Where is the MBA headed? What impacts will competency-based
models have? What will future indicators of program quality look like?
These and other important questions will have to be addressed by another
book.

REFERENCES

Goodman PG. (2011). Organizational learning contracts. New York, NY: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Goodman PS, Beenen G. (2008). Organizational learning contracts and management edu-
cation. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7, 521–534.
Rousseau DM. (forthcoming). Designing a better business school: Channeling Herb Simon,
addressing the critics, and developing actionable knowledge for professionalizing
managers. Journal of Managerial Issues.
Rousseau DM, McCarthy S. (2007). Evidence-based management: Educating managers
from an evidence-based perspective. Academy of Management Learning and Edu-
cation, 6, 94–101.
Rubin RS, Dierdorff EC. (2011). On the road to Abilene: Time to manage agreement about
MBA curricular relevance. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 10,
148–161.

Peter Cappelli and Bill Novelli. Managing the Older Worker: How
to Prepare for the New Organizational Order. Boston, MA: Harvard
Business Press, 2010, 208 pages, $29.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow, Associate Professor of Management, Lubin
School of Business, Pace University, New York, NY.
In this work, the authors provide an in-depth discussion of an important
and timely societal issue, specifically the challenges and opportunities
associated with the employment of older workers. Cappelli and Novelli
review the demographic trends in the United States pointing to a greater
number of older workers now with the projection that this trend will
become even more pronounced in the future. They discuss three reasons
why there are and will be “one heck of a lot more older workers than ever
before” (p. 4). These include the fact that as the baby boomer cohort of
people born between 1946 and 1964 grows older, both the absolute number
and the relative proportion of the population in the United States who are
old will rise, representing “a significant expansion of the population of
older individuals” (p. 5).
Second, people are living longer, and this trend is becoming stronger
so that “extended life expectancy should be a permanent feature for each
new generation. . .and therefore the population of older workers will for-
ever be bigger because of increasing life expectancy” (p. 6). Therefore,
1054 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

people who are in old age, or what is presently thought of as old age,
will be old for even longer than before, consequently further shifting the
population distribution toward the elderly. Further, along with increased
longevity we have improved health and vitality for older individuals due
to improvements in health care and lifestyle, so we may in fact have to
rethink what it means to be old and appreciate that “older individuals
in terms of age will be a lot younger in terms of their health and life
expectancy than ever before” (p. 8).
The third factor yielding a greater number of older workers is the
recent trend toward higher labor force participation rates of older men
and women. This reversal of the earlier trend to stop working at an ear-
lier age is not surprising when we consider that people are living longer,
remain healthier longer, and are frequently financially unprepared for re-
tirement, especially in light of the gradual disappearance in the United
States of traditional defined benefit pensions. On the day this review is
being written, the New York Times reports in an op-ed piece that, “A recent
Harris poll found that 34 percent of Americans have nothing saved for
retirement—not even a hundred bucks” and that, “At retirement the lucky
few with a 401(k) typically have $98,000. As an annuity, that’s about
$600 a month—not exactly an upper-middle-class life style” (Geoghegan,
2011). This certainly seems to lend further credence to the book’s con-
tention that more older people will be working either because they want
to, are able to, or must do so to survive.
Given these trends, the authors convincingly argue as the central theme
of this work that employers should be doing much more, and indeed that
it would be to their great benefit from a business perspective, to overcome
the barriers that may be keeping them from employing older employees.
The authors indicate that the current model of retirement whereby one
day a person is fully employed and then upon retirement ceases to work
altogether is a recent, and upon reflection, a strange development. In the
past, older workers were much more inclined to gradually phase out work,
and it was not until 1934 that “sixty-five became the official retirement
age in the United States when the Social Security program was created”
(p. 13). The abrupt and sudden cessation of work has become much more
common since then. The authors persuasively suggest that it makes much
more sense for older workers to gradually make the transition from full-
time work to retirement by gradually reducing their work hours. This
would allow workers to gradually adjust to lower income levels as well
as to reduce social interaction with friends and colleagues at work. The
authors report survey results indicating that many older workers would like
to make this sort of gradual adjustment to full retirement but that relatively
few of the workers who wish to can. This failure is generally due to their
employer’s practices rather than to their own personal choices, and this
 BOOK REVIEWS 1055

may well explain why so many older workers become self-employed upon
retirement.
The authors examine the needs of older workers. They report that
despite concerns about deteriorating financial security or inadequate re-
tirement income, money is not the primary motivator for older workers.
Instead, based on reported survey results, most older workers want to
keep working simply because employment enables them to remain men-
tally and physically engaged and active. In addition, the majority of older
workers believe that their work makes a contribution to society and that
work enables them to remain connected to society, their employers, and
to their colleagues. They particularly value “feeling appreciated, needed,
and respected” (p. 25) at work.
The authors consider the business case for employing older workers
based on their net value to an employer, or in other words, the advantages of
employing older workers minus the costs of doing so. To address this issue,
the authors review the research that addresses the comparative strengths
and weaknesses of older as compared to younger workers. One obvious
conclusion is that because older workers are more experienced, they also
have more knowledge and skills than younger workers. They note however,
that working memory, or in other words, “the capacity to store and then use
information,” (p. 31) does seem to decline with age. Nevertheless, “Older
workers typically have the knowledge and experience of the work they are
doing that helps them perform their tasks well and that can more than offset
deficits associated with age-related declines in working memory” (p. 32).
The tasks that are most affected by declines in age-related ability are novel
reasoning problems under time pressure, the sort of tasks that have been
used in laboratory studies to assess working memory but that hardly ever
occur in the real world of work. The authors’ conclusion regarding the
relationship between age and performance in actual jobs is “that age has
little, if any, effect” (p. 33) on performance, that older workers “perform
better on virtually every relevant measure of performance” (p.79), and that
any additional cost differences associated with having older employees are
trivial. The authors go on to argue that older workers in fact offer the skill
set that is especially important in today’s service-oriented economy. Older
workers moreover enable organizations to retain valuable knowledge and
organizational history, and to mentor and advise younger workers. Hiring
older workers also enables an organization to take advantage of “the just-
in-time workforce that employers say they need.” In light of the numerous
and obvious benefits associated with employing older workers, the authors
place the blame for organizational resistance to doing so squarely on the
shoulders of age discrimination, a topic that they examine in depth as
well.
1056 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

The authors have done a masterful job in this book. It is clearly writ-
ten, consistently interesting, logical, insightful, very persuasive and com-
pelling, and a pleasure to read. They effectively manage the difficult bal-
ancing act of offering a work that should be both accessible and appealing
to a scholarly audience, without being overly academic, abstract, or rar-
efied in tone, and to a general audience, without being overly simplified.
An especially suitable audience for the work would be anyone working in
human resources and anyone who is concerned about employment issues
or about issues concerning the growing population of the elderly. Frankly,
the book should be of interest to anyone who is planning to get older.

REFERENCE

Geoghegan T. (2011). Get radical: Raise social security. The New York Times, p. A27.

Gary Yukl. Leadership in Organizations (7th edition). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010, 648 pages, $152.67 hardcover.
Reviewed by S. Bartholomew Craig, Associate Professor of Psychology,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
Early 2009 saw the release, as a 2010 publication, of the seventh
edition of Gary Yukl’s venerable Leadership in Organizations textbook.
When I began searching for a text for a new undergraduate version of my
PhD seminar in Leadership Research, adopting Yukl’s book seemed like
a no-brainer. Having now used the book in two runs of my undergraduate
course, I’ve formed some opinions that I hope will inform this review.
In his preface, Yukl aims the book at two audiences: academics, who
prefer “a detailed explanation and critical evaluation of major theories,
and. . .empirical research” (p. xvii), and practitioners, who “want some
immediate answers about what to do and how to do it in order to be more
effective as leaders” (p. xvii). In general I think Yukl succeeds in serving
both audiences well. But his success in this regard means that any given
users of the book will find themselves skipping over the material that isn’t
directly relevant to their particular purpose. This is by no means a problem,
but it does require the reader to treat the book more like an encyclopedic
reference than like one of the “airplane books” that executives expect to
be able to consume linearly on long flights. On the academic side, I would
further subdivide the audience into management scholars and industrial-
organizational (I-O) psychologists, and add that the text serves courses
from both domains well (albeit with the aforementioned skipping around
to dodge the other guys’ material).
Instructors who adopt the text are given access to an “instructor re-
source center” on Pearson’s Web site (Pearson is Prentice Hall’s parent
 BOOK REVIEWS 1057

company), where they can download an instructor’s manual, test item

bank, student exercises, notes for the cases included in the book, and Mi-
R
crosoft PowerPoint templates. Except for the PowerPoint files, all of the

R
instructor materials are contained in Microsoft Word files and are rela-
tively simple in format. For example, the test item bank is simply a Word
file with multiple choice item text followed by response options—there is
no item database or test management software. When it comes to making
multiple-choice tests, I am as lazy as any instructor out there and will
happily use publishers’ item banks if I can get away with it. Unfortunately
the items supplied here by Pearson are of surprisingly poor quality, rife
with ambiguous language, and of dubious relevance to the most important
points from the text. So, with visions dancing before me of undergraduates
lined up outside my office door, waiting to argue about their test scores,
I reluctantly opted to write all my own test items (if you adopt this book
for your course, I’ll be glad to share my items—just send me an e-mail).
Students who buy the book are given access to Pearson’s “companion Web
site,” where they can access online quizzes for each chapter. Presumably
the items on the online quizzes come from the same item bank supplied
to instructors, but I have not done an item-by-item comparison to confirm
this. Several of my students reported that they found the online quizzes to
be useful study aids, even though my tests did not draw upon the supplied
item bank.
The main content of the book is organized into 16 chapters, as follows:

(1) Introduction: The Nature of (9) Charismatic and Transformational

Leadership Leadership
(2) The Nature of Managerial Work (10) Leading Change in Organizations
(3) Perspectives on Effective Leadership (11) Leadership in Teams and Decision
Behavior Groups
(4) Participative Leadership, Delegation, (12) Strategic Leadership by Executives
and Empowerment (13) Ethical, Servant, Spiritual, and
(5) Dyadic Relations, Attributions, and Authentic Leadership
Followership (14) Gender, Diversity, and
(6) Power and Influence Cross-Cultural Leadership
(7) Managerial Traits and Skills (15) Developing Leadership Skills
(8) Early Contingency Theories of (16) Overview and Integration
Effective Leadership

As you can see from the chapter titles, the book’s coverage is quite
comprehensive; all the fundamentals of leadership studies are well rep-
resented, along with a healthy smattering of what I call “special topics,”
such as diversity, organizational change, and ethics. One topic I would like
to have seen covered more explicitly is destructive leadership. Chapter 13
covers the “bright side” of ethics reasonably well but overlooks “dark
1058 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

side” topics like abusive supervision. I also found it a little surprising

that topics are not covered in historical order. As any student of leadership
knows, the various conceptions of leadership have followed a very definite
evolutionary path over the last hundred years or so, beginning with trait
approaches, moving to behavioral and contingency approaches, and cul-
minating in the currently popular dyadic and charismatic/transformational
approaches. In my courses, I’ve found it works well to introduce students
to leadership concepts in historical order so they can see how each new
paradigm arose from earlier ones. Doing that with this text means cover-
ing the chapters out of order, which is not a big problem but which does
generate minor confusion for the occasional undergraduate.
Most of the chapters adhere to a fairly standard internal structure,
with a bulleted list of learning objectives at the beginning of each chap-
ter, followed by a conceptual overview of the chapter’s topic, a series of
headed subsections addressing the topic at hand—with separate sections
for theory and research in some chapters—followed by some suggested
guidelines for practicing managers, a brief narrative summary of the chap-
ter, 10 or so review and discussion questions, a list of key terms from the
chapter, and one to three vignette “cases” illustrating concepts from the
chapter, with a few questions for students to ponder about each case. It is
this mixture of components in each chapter that permits the book to serve
academics in both management and psychology and also practicing man-
agers. My course places a heavy emphasis on research methods and their
evaluation, and Yukl has included plenty of detail regarding the methods
used in the literature he reviews, so I had lots of good fodder for class
discussions of research design and methods. In fact, the detailed research
descriptions are probably the thing I like most about this text. Manage-
ment students and practitioners who are less interested in the research side
of things will also find plenty to like, however, in the form of the concrete
guidelines for managers and the business cases. Of the three audience
groups, practicing managers will probably have to work the hardest to
skip around the material that doesn’t seem to address their purposes. But,
as mentioned above, a tolerance for a nonlinear hopscotch-type journey
through the book is a likely requirement for all users.
If I could change one thing about the book, it would be for it to have
more clearly defined structures within each chapter. As many subheadings
as there are, there should be even more, in order to help the reader quickly
navigate to (or back to) a section of interest. I regularly found myself
having to painstakingly parse large blocks of narrative text to extract
collections of terms or ideas that could have been much more clearly
presented in bulleted lists or in tables. And did I mention the price? In
this time of sensitivity to soaring education costs, the $150 suggested
 BOOK REVIEWS 1059

price for a new copy may present a hurdle to adoption in some settings
(several students lamented to me on this issue). A quick search of online
book sellers did find it for substantially less than the suggested price, so I
would recommend making this suggestion to your students if you adopt
the book.
Despite these issues, I do not hesitate to recommend Leadership in
Organizations to instructors of undergraduate courses in management and
leadership research. Practicing managers will also find a treasure trove of
practically useful information, but that group may find a more desirable
signal-to-noise ratio in other texts that are more narrowly targeted to
their needs. Overall, I commend Yukl for producing an extremely useful
volume, and I look forward to the eighth edition (more bulleted lists next
time please, Gary, if you’re listening!).

Christine Thornton. Group and Team Coaching: The Essential Guide.

New York, NY: Routledge, 2010, 273 pages, $23.41 softcover.
Reviewed by Shirley Ashauer, Assistant Professor of Organizational Lead-
ership and Psychology, Maryville University, St. Louis, MO.
Group processes have been considered a point of leverage in effecting
organizational development and change, dating back to Lewin’s work with
changing attitudes and behaviors through group learning (Burnes, 2007;
Lewin, 1943). As such, the topic of Thornton’s book on group and team
coaching processes is a highly relevant and important one for coaching
professionals who wish to effect positive change in contemporary team-
based organizations. The author’s stated aims of the book are twofold: (a)
to offer a unique perspective on group analytic theory that may enhance
coaching professionals’ practice and (b) to provide practical advice to
professionals on core areas of group coaching.
On the first count, the book succeeds in its unique contribution to group
coaching based on analytic theory. On the second, the book’s promise
of delivering practical advice to coaching professionals on how to do
group coaching misses the target. Unfortunately, empirical support for the
generalizability of this approach in business organizations is not provided,
leaving the practitioner unclear as to the validity of the methods. As an
educator in an organizational leadership graduate program, I find that
my students are often interested in practical applications of group and
organizational theory that are grounded in empirical research supporting
the practices. Professionals looking for such support won’t find it and
therefore may not have the confidence that the group-coaching strategies
described in the book will lead to increased team and organizational
effectiveness—as intriguing as those strategies might be.
1060 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Part I: What Is Group Coaching?

The book is organized in six parts with an emphasis on group theory

in the first half and on practical coaching strategies in the latter half.
Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of understanding nonconscious
group processes that can underpin or undermine learning and change.
Indeed, group analytic theory and nonconscious group dynamics add a
unique perspective to extant literature on group processes in business
organizations. The author notes that, “In a challenging business envi-
ronment, coming together to reflect on pressing problems can generate
ideas tested and refined to a robust degree of usability, provided the
group coach enables the team to engage honestly with the real chal-
lenges. The need to develop skillful group discussion has rarely been more
pressing” (p. 6).
I could not agree more. Research in organizational psychology on
team psychological safety and team learning supports this premise
and the importance of such processes in team innovation and per-
formance (Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2003; Edmondson, 1999; Edmond-
son, Dillon, & Roloff, 2007). Unfortunately, links between the author’s
premises in Chapter 1 and group coaching strategies in the latter part
of the book are not explicitly articulated or expounded upon, leav-
ing the reader to wonder exactly how the coaching strategies might be
specifically applied to enable groups to “engage honestly with the real
challenges.”
The chapter also describes the author’s experience with conducting
analytic therapy groups alongside work with groups in business organiza-
tions in which she “became convinced through my experiences in groups
of the fundamental similarities in the processes through which individuals
in groups learn and change, irrespective of the nature or the focus of the
group,” (p. 15).
Although the ideas of group analytic theory are interesting and may
enrich group coaching practices, the chapter might be enhanced by pro-
viding support from empirical research that analytic theory from therapy
groups will generalize to business organizations.

Part II: Group Analytic

Chapters 2 through 4 in Part II are presented as the conceptual core of

the book. Chapter 2 describes concepts from group analytic theory such
as implicit knowing, projection, transference, holding, and exchange. The
author provides an overview of each of these concepts and their impor-
tance to communication processes in nonconscious group dynamics. The
author argues that the core skill in-group coaching is holding, derived
 BOOK REVIEWS 1061

from Winnicott’s work on the mother–baby relationship in which young

children explore the world from a secure base and know that they can
“beat a retreat to a safe pair of arms for comfort if the new experiences
become overwhelming” (p. 29). Although similar to Ron Heifetz’s notion
of “holding environments” in organizations and Edmondson’s (1999) con-
cept of team psychological safety, the idea of holding in group analytic
theory as providing a safe pair of arms for comfort may be less relevant in
business environments than providing an environment in which members
feel comfortable speaking up and confronting conflict openly in order to
learn—the essence of psychological safety.
Chapter 3 provides an overview of group processes from S. H. Foulkes’
group analytic theory including mirroring, resonance, the condenser phe-
nomenon, and the reflection processes. An understanding of these pro-
cesses may enable group coaches to work with group members on better
interpersonal relating. Chapter 4 is entitled “Eight Group Factors That
Lead to Learning and Change,” and is based on the author’s research on
factors that contribute to confidence and competence in group members.
The author maintains that factors such as connectedness and belonging,
interpersonal learning, competition, and idealization are all important
factors that influence learning and change. This chapter would have ben-
efited from the extensive base of empirical research in organizational
psychology on the antecedents of team learning (Argote, Gruenfeld, &
Naquin, 1999; Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson et al., 2007; Wilson, Good-
man, & Cronin, 2007) to supplement the author’s sole theorizing on such
factors.

Part III: Systems Theory

Chapter 5 provides an interesting overview of the importance of sys-

tems thinking as a framework for understanding interrelationships within
an organization and for seeing patterns of change as opposed to static
snapshots. The section on the necessity of paradox is particularly insight-
ful and explicates the importance of the group coach’s role in helping
group members recognize paradoxical positions they hold and leveraging
the tensions between the two polarities so that the benefits of both can be
gained. In my own 20 years of professional and consulting experience, I
have found that organizational dilemmas and paradoxes are an inherent
part of organizational life, and research has found that practitioners who
are able to skillfully leverage them in complex organizations today are
more likely to facilitate improved organizational effectiveness (Argyris &
Schön, 1974; Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007).
1062 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Parts IV, V, and VI: Practical Application and Resources

In Chapters 6 through 8, the author reviews and provides advice for

three different types of coaching: team coaching, learning group coaching,
and supervision groups. Overall, the advice provided throughout these
chapters is general rather than specific “how to” advice. For example, in
Chapter 6, examples of coaching tools such as Myers-Briggs, Tuckman’s
model, Senge’s dialogue model, and situational leadership are listed, but
no practical explanation is provided on how to implement these tools.
In Chapter 7, a description of action learning is provided along with an
agenda for team members’ turns in an action learning set that is helpful.
However, the reader is given general advice on how to coach these types
of groups such as “listen carefully for content and meaning, put up with
uncertainty, don’t ask too many questions—make a couple of good ones
that really count” (p. 154), and is left on their own to figure out what
specifically to say and do.
Likewise, in Chapter 8, some practical guidance is given on how to
implement the model for supervision groups from the counseling field
with the use of a few vignettes to illustrate this type of coaching. Much of
the advice throughout the chapter, however, is general rather than specific,
such as describing common supervisor errors in general terms—“being
too silent or too talkative, allowing the focus of the group to be skewed,
suppressing the group’s involvement in supervision” (p. 180).
Chapters 9 through 11 provide advice on coaching groups such as
strategies for tacking problem behavior, tackling dysfunctional patterns
in groups, and managing beginnings, middles, and endings. Some of the
advice such as “develop skillful discussion, the ability to stay with uncer-
tainty, and each person bringing their unique perspective to bear” (p. 197)
could be enhanced with specific illustrations on how to implement these
strategies. The book concludes with a resource section that lists five agen-
cies in the UK and the author’s own consulting practice as agencies that
provide training on group coaching and unconscious group dynamics.
The author notes that the tacit knowledge involved in-group coaching
on unconscious processes may be better understood through experiential
learning than by simply reading a book.
In summary, Group and Team Coaching may not necessarily be the
essential guide to add to your bookshelf, but it certainly introduces a
unique perspective on group and team coaching for further exploration.

REFERENCES

Argote L, Gruenfeld D, Naquin C. (1999). Group learning in organizations. In Turner ME

(Ed.), Groups at work: Advances in theory and research (pp. 369–411). Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
 BOOK REVIEWS 1063

Agryris C, Schön D. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Bunderson JS, Sutcliffe KM. (2003). Management team learning orientation and business
unit performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 552–560.
Burnes B. (2007). Kurt Lewin and the Harwood studies: The foundations of OD. The
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43(2), 213–231.
Edmondson AC. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Ad-
ministrative Science Quarterly, 44, 350–383.
Edmondson AC, Dillon JR, Roloff KS. (2007). Chapter 6: Three perspectives on team
learning. The Academy of Management Annals, 1(1), 269–314.
Lewin K. (1943). Forces behind food habits and methods of change. Bulletin of the National
Research Council, 108, 35–65.
Uhl-Bien M, Marion R, McKelvey B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting
leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly,
18(4), 298–318.
Wilson JM, Goodman PS, Cronin MA. (2007). Group learning. Academy of Management
Review, 32, 1041–1059.

Rex B. Kline. Becoming a Behavioral Researcher: A Guide to Produc-

ing Research That Matters. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2009,
367 pages, $60.00 hardcover.
Reviewed by James A. Penny, PhD, Senior Psychometrician, Castle World-
wide, Inc., 900 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite G, Morrisville, NC.
Reading this book reminded me of a conversation I had with Richard
Jaeger many years ago, back when we dodged dinosaurs. In this conversa-
tion, I bemoaned that educational research couldn’t be more like physics,
especially for the graduate students, in that a physics graduate student is
frequently exposed to and engaged in some form of research, sponsored
or otherwise, within a year or so of matriculation, and the subsequent
dissertation topic was often a matter of business as usual in the lab. Dick
put down his glass of Chardonnay, smiled, and told me it wasn’t going to
be like that in Education any time soon. A pity, that is.
To this end, the mentoring of students in the conduct of research in the
behavioral sciences is substantially different than it was, and likely still
is, in physics, leaving a gaping hole in the preparation of many students
that this book seeks to fill, doing so quite well if it is employed correctly. I
think I would have benefited from having such a book as this back when I
graduated. As it was, I called on a lot of good will of other professionals,
partial inference from physical science, and a whole lot of trial and error.
The judgment regarding my success remains with the jury.
At 367 pages, this book is not pocket guide, and the 10 chapters
generally appear to need one to four semesters of previous course work
in statistics, measurement, sampling, or research methods as adequate
preparation. Although the author suggests that the book is appropriate
for use with senior undergraduates, I suspect it’s the better prepared
1064 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

graduate students who will benefit from this writing, and even the ad-
vanced students with otherwise adequate preparation from formal course-
work who are often unlikely to have much depth of practical experience to
provide a cognitive framework for what they’ve learned will benefit from
a framework-building text such as this. In fact, I would be quick to use
this text as a basis for a seminar in which we started to pull together the
otherwise disparate training of students headed into research.
The first chapter is a quick review of why we are here, and I suspect
most students and teachers will skip it or perhaps give it a quick scan.
Chapter 2 sets the stage for what we’re getting into, why we might be
doing it, and some of the problems that exist. “The good, the bad, and the
(really) ugly” is the paraphrased chapter title. I was particularly enamored
with the list of the really ugly, probably because I like a little drama
now and again. The first ugly thing is the lack of formulaic theory in our
understanding of human behavior and why we’ll likely never have such
just like we’ll likely never have formulae that predict where a leaf will
fall, though we will always have Poisson distributions to describe where
the leaf might fall. Nonetheless, I’ve always found it alarming either way
I think. Is my behavior defined by a complex set of equations that link
processes that we do not (yet) understand, or is my behavior statistically
modeled not because we don’t understand the underlying processes (yet)
but because those processes are stochastic in nature? I have as much
trouble with predestination as I do with chaos.
Fortunately, we don’t have to solve this one just yet. Besides, it’s
beyond the scope of the current publication.
The other two really ugly points are two that I’ve held for decades: (a)
overreliance on statistical testing, and (b) publish or perish. I do not believe
that statistical testing has done more than postpone real understanding of
human (or rodent) behaviors for at least a century, perhaps more, and I
am glad to stand affirmed by the likes of Marsh and Hattie (2002) who
demonstrated a corrected correlation between teaching effectiveness and
research productivity to be zero, more or less.
Chapter 3, “The Research Trinity (design, measurement, and analy-
sis),” initiates the second section of the book. There’s even an explanatory
figure on page 40. A few pages are spent in elaboration on experimental
and nonexperimental design, which are then followed by two-thirds of a
page regarding measurement, but before you get all up in arms, measure-
ment has an entire chapter to itself later on. From here, we move into
analysis with a few paragraphs regarding point and interval estimates,
which quickly give way to a discussion of ANOVA and multiple regres-
sion (with ANCOVA), both framed in the context of the general linear
model.
 BOOK REVIEWS 1065

At this point, the discussion of analysis morphs into an extended (15

pages) discussion of many forms of validity and the associated threats
to those forms of validity. One threat to conclusion validity was given
as “fishing,” in reference to the common practice of torturing data until
something yields statistical significance. This section is where the author
places a discussion of the experiment-wise rate of Type I error. Although
the test-wise error rate is mentioned, it is not named as such, and I’ve
often found name useful in the contrast of the two related error rates. In
addition, the usual formula for relating the level of alpha used in a test
to the accumulated error rate of the experiment is presented. However, a
graph here would have been useful for many students, I suspect, but more
important would have been the inverted expression with which a student
could compute the test-wise alpha needed to maintain a given experiment-
wise Type I error rate (say .05) when the number of tests is known. If I
were teaching the course, I would also include a brief discussion of the
quick-and-dirty practice of dividing, say, .05 by the number of tests to
estimate the test-wise alpha needed to maintain the .05 as the experiment-
wise Type I error rate.
The fourth chapter, “Design and Analysis,” extends for about 45 pages
presenting the major designs for comparative studies and the analyses that
can accompany these designs. (Do you suppose Measurement will see as
many pages?) This is a substantially nontrivial chapter, and the successful
student will likely have been exposed to this discussion in a previous class.
This discussion is also presented from a very high level with experimental
designs receiving much of the attention. Interestingly, qualitative research
receives a nondismissive, though quite brief, nod early in this chapter.
Chapter 5 receives the best title of the book: “The Truth about Statis-
tics.” What follows is a well-done discourse regarding the many myths
and fallacies carried by students and teachers alike, along with a dozen
truths, some of which are self-evident, some of which might be surpris-
ing. The discussion of myths includes the common misinterpretations of
statistical significance, and those of us who have taught have heard every
one from students. In particular, the 8th misstatement given on page 118
is a classic. “The probability of the data given the null hypothesis is <
.05.” Truth be told, I might have written that one myself back in the day.
In the lists of truths included in this chapter, one involves the difficulty
of statistical instruction to keep up with practice whereas another involves
the overdependency on computers in statistical thinking. Having taught
those classes that so few students look forward to while concurrently
managing the computer labs in which some of those students did their
homework, I can report that these two are often inextricable linked by
the dean’s budget. Keeping up with practice often means packing more
into a course than can be accomplished in a semester, and the dean wants
1066 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

a lot of justification before releasing funds for a second semester of a

3-hour course, especially when the other departments are disinclined to
accommodate adding more hours to an already packed set of requirements
for graduation.
Chapter 6 visits effect size estimation for both parametric and non-
parametric instances, and then reasonably posits them as alternatives to,
and sometimes replacements of, statistical significance testing. This is the
first chapter I engaged when I received the book and randomly opened it
to page 158 whereupon I glanced over the section regarding capitalization
on chance and my eyes locked onto “it takes advantage of variability that
may be idiosyncratic in the sample.” Now, I haven’t reviewed the APA
Publication Manual in some time and my current work uses AP (style)
more often than not, but the distinctions among can, may, and might to
express ability, permission, and potential are deeply ingrained in me, and
the shade of Mrs. Lambert from my 11th grade still precludes my con-
fusion of these verbs as does the APA Publication Manual that I studied
some 25 years ago. Nonetheless, I suppose some things can change.
The refreshing part of this chapter is the discourse regarding the mis-
taken interpretations and uses of effect size when used to augment, if not
replace, statistical significance testing. Effect size estimation is a nontriv-
ial part of statistical analyses, and even a cursory review of this chapter
makes that clear. However, just as mythologies have arisen in the interpre-
tations of statistical significance testing, similar mythologies have arisen
to obfuscate the use of effect sizes.
Chapter 7, at about 30 pages, is the measurement chapter. I wres-
tle with fallacious notions regarding measurement on a daily basis, the
sources arising from astounding places at times, and often concomitant
with the fallacies regarding statistical significance testing. There are days
when I wonder just what out-of-body experience it might take for some
otherwise seasoned practitioners to get the distinction between test-wise
and experiment-wise Type I error rates. The conveniently argued distinc-
tions between ordinal and interval data are equally maddening. To this
end, I’d make this chapter some 10,000 pages long and required yearly
reading for students, faculty, and practitioners. Not to worry, I am not
accustomed to getting my way here.
I am, generally, satisfied with this chapter, but being a “measurement
professional,” I need to make two points, albeit minor. First, the Likert
scale is presented on page 198. However, the item presented is a three-
point, 0 to 2, Likert-type polytomous item where the 0, 1, and 2 represent
disagree, uncertain, and agree, respectively. Likert’s original work (Likert,
1932) from which the so-called Likert item arose used a five-point rating,
1 to 5, where the midpoint was neutral.
 BOOK REVIEWS 1067

Second, the chapter closes with generalizability theory described in

about a page. However, it’s not the brevity with which G-theory is pre-
sented that gets my attention. Rather, it’s the absence of intraclass corre-
lation (ICC) that surprises me. Although I wouldn’t expect a few dozen
pages dedicated to ICCs, I did expect some mention, especially given that
G-theory is a special case of ICC, as are several other reliability indices
described in the previous pages.
The third and final section of the book is called Skills, and it begins with
the eighth chapter called “Practical Data Analysis.” Herein, the author
describes what most of us have learned the hard way. First, data never
arrive as advertised, and they certainly bear little resemblance to those
data presented in textbooks. Second, all those graphical user interfaces that
make the modern statistical packages so easy to use also make it nearly
impossible to replicate an analysis some few months later, and batch, or
script, files can be intimidating, especially if a little editing is necessary to
point the analysis to a different data set. Finally, just because someone sent
the survey back does not mean that person provided complete data. Often,
some questions are skipped, and how those missing data are treated in the
analysis can have unexpected consequences during the interpretation of
the results.
Chapter 9 presents the principles of “good” writing. Just as many
principles of measurement are neglected in professional programs, how
to write the results for a journal is often left to the student to learn later. It
certainly was for me, and it took a multitude of failed attempts that likely
cost a few journals several good reviewers before I started to find my way,
if, indeed, I’ve really found it. I’ve long felt that writing for research is
a worthy topic of study for a seminar, but it’s rare that I find such in a
catalog or course listing. To this end, I’m glad to see a chapter set aside
to present students with an organizing framework. However, this chapter,
like all the previous, only provides the framework; it does not provide the
opportunity, and it certainly does not provide the mentor.
The final chapter is about presentations. After all the coursework,
tests, reviews, defenses, and everything else, standing before a group of
people to present one’s work might be about the scariest thing a student
ever does. At some point, we get over the stage fright and get on with
the process. This chapter presents the multitude of pitfalls that most of
us must experience, and it’s the good program that permits students to
learn from these mistakes in the classroom where the harder questions
are not likely to arise. However, the one thing this chapter neglects is the
one thing that I’ve found the most useful as I work to improve my own
presentations. What is that? Watching the recording of my presentation.
The voice. The delivery. The everything else. You can talk about these
things until the cows come home, and you can listen to feedback from
1068 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

peers, advisors, and mentors for hours, but very little is as enlightening as
watching yourself. The screen does not lie.
With all this said, I like this book. It makes a good organizing text
for a capstone experience in a research program. I would have students
study it closely in a seminar. I’d have those students I mentor refer to it
periodically. Kline has done a good job with a very complex subject.

REFERENCES

Likert R. (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives of Psychology,

140, 1–55.
Marsh HW, Hattie J. (2002). The relation between research productivity and teaching
effectiveness: Complementary, antagonistic, or independent construct? Journal of
Higher Education, 73, 603–641.

Ron Drew Stone. Aligning Training for Results: A Process and Tools
That Link Training and Business. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2009,
212 pages, $55.00 hardcover.
Reviewed by Paul W. Thayer, Professor Emeritus, North Carolina State
University, P.O. Box 27651, Raleigh, NC.
Stone is fairly well known in training circles but not well known
by I-O psychologists, a point I’ll return to. This book is designed for
anyone involved in providing training, from training directors, to project
managers, to training designers, or even to someone new to the field. It
emphasizes the steps one should take from the request for training to the
end of the process, including some sort of verification of the results of
the process. The emphasis is on client involvement in all phases and even
includes a chapter on maintaining client relationships over the long haul.
Stone describes his copyrighted process, Performance Alignment Linkage
(PAL), first in an overview and then provides details of each step in the
process in later chapters. Throughout, he emphasizes the importance of
always talking in terms of performance and results, not learning. The
process itself consists of 11 steps:
1. Determine the assessment strategy
2. Conduct detailed assessment and identify alternative solutions
3. Administer situational risk assessment and analysis
4. Propose a solution and negotiate a performance contract
5. Get a Go–No Go solution decision
6. Finalize delivery design and strategy
7. Develop/acquire performance components
8. Implement preengagement activity
9. Deliver performance solution and assess learning and initial re-
action
 BOOK REVIEWS 1069

10. Trigger transfer strategy

11. Rapid verification of results and follow-up steps

The reader will note that all bases are covered from initial assess-
ment at all levels, through agreement on objectives, developing alternate
solutions, preparing and delivering a solution, ensuring transfer, and as-
sessing results. The strength of the process is the continuing emphasis
on sponsor involvement, ensuring participation of supervisors and man-
agers to ensure transfer, emphasis on overcoming old habits with new,
trainee involvement, and keeping performance objectives as the focus at
all times. Hence, the concern is not what takes place in the training setting
(although that is not ignored) but making sure that the goals of the sponsor
are achieved through the training. For each of the steps listed, there are
checklists and templates to ensure that nothing is overlooked. Using the
process, and the many tools and tables provided would keep many trainers
who focus on learning rather than transfer out of trouble. To ensure that
the process is clear, several training delivery examples are provided.
There is also a reference to Stone’s Web site for additional tools and
templates. As most of these are included in the book, one need not go there
unless one is interested in Stone’s consulting services and other books.
Therefore, I think this book would be of great value to the new training
director or developer. The stress on and description of ways to align
training with corporate and/or sponsor goals is right on target. In the
same manner, the repeated emphasis on involving management to ensure
transfer—and suggesting ways to get them involved—is a substantial
contribution.
In my view, however, the book could have been better if it were
about 50 pages shorter. The beginning chapters keep telling reader what
is coming, to the point that I was saying, “OK, let’s get to it NOW!”
Further, in the chapters describing PAL, there are repeated warnings as
to the importance of stressing performance and aligning everything with
goals, more warnings than are needed, it seems to me. Further, his use of
written contracts between the project manager and management to ensure
that the latter will support the effort might clash with the organizational
culture. I know many managers who would be offended by such a request.
Finally, the writing could be clearer if the author didn’t insist on using his
own nomenclature. That got tedious at times.
My next point is not a criticism of the book, as the objectives of
the author were to present his process. It should be pointed out, though,
that the reader/adopter should already be fully competent in developing
training interventions utilizing what is known about learning and transfer.
Such information is not covered in this book.
1070 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Finally, a comment on the schism that exists in the training world. Stone
mentions many contributors to training, including Skinner, Mager, Gagne,
Gilbert, and others. There is no mention of the work of psychologists of
more recent vintage, such as Goldstein, Ford, Salas, Kozlowski, Noe,
Kraiger, Mayer, Cannon-Bowers, Kanfer, Mathieu, Bjork, Roediger, or
others. Both the nonpsychologist trainers and psychologists might benefit
by becoming more familiar with each other’s literature. The former have
gained a number of valuable insights through practice and experience,
and the latter have used scientific methods as their basis. For example, the
latter have learned much about mechanisms that can be included during
and after training that enhance transfer that would be valuable to the
former. And this book illustrates that the reverse is also true.
If your responsibility is to provide training solutions, I recommend
you read this book, skimming the lengthy introductory chapters and con-
centrating on the later ones. There is a lot of practical advice incorporated
in the PAL process.
 BOOK REVIEWS 1071

BOOKS AND MATERIALS RECEIVED∗

Frese, Michael, and Hofmann, David A. Errors in Organizations. New York,

NY: Routledge, 2011, 365 pages, $70.00 soft cover.
Grote, Dick. How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Review Press, 2011, 218 pages, $19.95 hard cover.
Horsager, David. The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results,
Deeper Relationships, and Stronger Bottom Line. Minneapolis, MN:
Summerside Press, 2011, 349 pages, $24.99 hard cover.
Kramer, Roderick M., Leonardelli, Geoffrey J., and Livingston, Robert W.
Social Cognition, Social Identity, and Intergroup Relations. New York,
NY: Psychology Press, 2011, 423 pages, $75.00 hard cover.

∗
The publications listed are either already scheduled for review and/or are included as a
new listing. Readers interested in reviewing for Personnel Psychology are invited to write
our book review editors Dr. Lee Konczak at [email protected] or Dr. David E. Smith
at [email protected]—providing information about background and areas of
interest.