Alright, buckle up, because I’m about to spill the beans on my deep dive into Rice University’s Industrial-Organizational Psychology stuff. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but hey, that’s the fun part, right?
So, it all started when I was trying to figure out how to make my team at work, you know, actually work together. Constant bickering, missed deadlines, and enough passive-aggressive emails to fill a novel. I figured there had to be a better way, and somehow I stumbled upon this whole Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology field.
Rice kept popping up in my searches – ranked pretty high, good rep, the whole shebang. Figured I’d see what the hype was about. I started digging into what they actually do over there, what courses they offer, the research their profs are involved in. It was a rabbit hole, I tell you.
First, I went straight to their website, naturally. I spent hours reading through the faculty profiles. Who’s researching what? What are their areas of expertise? I was trying to find someone whose work aligned with the problems I was seeing at my workplace. I found a few names that looked promising and then went down another rabbit hole trying to find their published papers. Google Scholar became my best friend during this time.
Next, I checked out their curriculum. What courses are the students actually taking? What kind of skills are they learning? I wanted to see if I could pick up some of the same knowledge, even without formally enrolling. I found a couple of introductory I-O Psych textbooks online and started reading. Honestly, some of it was dry as toast, but other parts were like “Aha! That’s exactly what’s happening with my team!”
Then, I tried to apply some of what I was learning. One big issue we were having was with performance reviews. People felt like they were unfair, subjective, and just generally a waste of time. So, based on some of the research I was reading from, like, actual I-O Psychologists, I started experimenting with different approaches.
- First, I started focusing on giving more specific feedback. Instead of saying “You need to improve your communication skills,” I’d say “During the presentation on Tuesday, you spoke very fast and it was hard for the audience to follow. Try slowing down and pausing between points.”
- Second, I tried to make the reviews more data-driven. I created a simple scoring system based on key performance indicators. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot less subjective than the old system.
- Third, I made sure to solicit feedback from the team members themselves. I asked them what they thought was working well and what could be improved. Turns out, they had a lot of great ideas!
The results? Definitely not a silver bullet. But things did start to improve. People felt like they were getting more useful feedback, and the reviews felt less like a personal attack. We still had our disagreements, but at least now we were arguing about data instead of just feelings.
Now, I’m not saying I’m suddenly an expert in I-O Psychology just because I read a few textbooks and tweaked our performance review process. But dipping my toes into that world, inspired by Rice’s program, helped me understand the underlying dynamics of my team and gave me some concrete tools to address the problems we were facing.
Would I go back and get a formal degree in I-O Psychology? Maybe someday. But for now, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made. Plus, I’ve got a whole new appreciation for the people who actually do this stuff for a living. It’s not just about making people happy at work – it’s about creating systems and processes that allow them to thrive and be their best selves. And that’s something I think we can all get behind.
