Have you ever watched or read business news and thought to yourself, “This advice does not align with what we actually know from our industrial-organizational (I-O) science?” or, worse, “This is a total misrepresentation of our science!” Have you ever listened to National Public Radio (NPR) and asked yourself why they do not have more I-O psychologists commenting on and discussing work-related issues? Have you ever been to an event or conference outside our discipline and thought there was a missed opportunity to share and connect with what we I-O psychologists know—in fact, they did not even realize we existed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are among a growing number of I-O psychologists seeking to connect I-O psychology with the broader world of data consumers. Although this group is growing, it is clear many conditions are necessary to enable consistent appeal on a broader level. In this paper, we strive to identify the core conditions needed for broad appeal and what I-O psychologists can do to enhance their prospects.
It is our contention that our science can do many great things for the world of work if we could get it out there more readily and fully into the hands of decision makers, policy makers, and the public. Namely, our science can be used to improve individual, organizational, and societal health, well-being, and effectiveness. For example, it is not a stretch to say that insights from our I-O science can improve team effectiveness, selection, socialization, leadership development, work safety, and performance assessment to name just a few practice areas. At the same time, doing so benefits I-O psychology through increased visibility, greater demand for our services, and more partners for our research. Conversely, if we fail to get our evidence-based messages out there, the void will likely be filled by nongrounded sources that have potentially negative or nonoptimal effects on employees and organizations.
In this focal article, we address the following topics:
Why is I-O science not reaching the public?
What are good mechanisms to bring I-O science to the public?
What are some keys to translation and public consumption?
To aid us in our efforts and expand our thinking, we sent an anonymous open-ended exploratory survey to the 30 members of the editorial board of Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice (IOP; 13 responses received). The questions asked about bringing I-O psychology to external audiences—benefits, barriers, what the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) can do to help, and personal motivation. Quotes identified throughout the manuscript were highly illustrative of the respondent pool’s shared and unique perspectives on any given topic.
Why is I-O science not reaching the public?
We postulate that there are a variety of barriers, both structural and individual, to I-O science reaching the public. With respect to the former, the natural mechanism for connection is our scientific journals. In the ideal world, practitioners and the general public would read our journals, learn new insights, and apply them to their working worlds. But this is not happening for a host of reasons.
Assuming that our tables of contents are even seen by potential users of the science (which we fear is not a reasonable assumption), firewalls exist around journals preventing nonsubscribers from accessing the science. Also, subscription costs for academic journals are generally prohibitive, towering over costs of other mainstream periodicals. For example, the annual subscription cost for the Journal of Applied Psychology for non-APA-members is a whopping $590 at last look. For context, this is over four times the annual cost of the very popular Harvard Business Review.
Although it can certainly be argued that readership of most periodicals will be on the low side given changes to how managers receive information (e.g., podcasts), the firewall and lack of accessibility of our published reports may account, in part, for the readership findings presented by Rynes et al. (Reference Rynes, Colbert and Brown2002). Rynes et al. asked human resource managers how often they read various publications using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Academy of Management Journal (1.11), Journal of Applied Psychology (1.19), and Personnel Psychology (1.22) all received ratings near the floor of the scale. For context, Human Resource Magazine received a rating of 4.28 and the Wall Street Journal received a rating of 2.72. This is consistent with the results of a survey of SIOP members reported by Highhouse et al. (Reference Highhouse, Zickar and Melick2020); the journals that I-O practitioners rated as highest in terms of relevance were also those that were accessible via SIOP membership—IOP and The Industrial Psychologist (TIP).
Even if we had open access to our science and the public indeed found our work, the question becomes whether managers would effectively consume our research and translate it into practice. We would argue that our published articles do not make much attempt to truly connect and translate. Take, for example, our efforts to enumerate the implications of our research. Bartunek (Reference Bartunek2007) analyzed all Academy of Management Journal articles published in 2006. More than one third—36%—of articles did not even have a section on practical implications. For the articles that did have such a section, the content shared was extremely banal. Namely, the two most common recommendations by far were (a) managers need to be aware of X and (b) managers should receive training on X. Overall, implications sections are becoming increasingly similar in form and function. Increasing emphasis on “theory,” using dense academic language, and so forth all play a role in diminishing utility to our own practitioners let alone other audiences. It is not just that we put our words in the wrong places, it is also that we perhaps do not even use the right words.
Bottom line, the expectation that stakeholders will seek us out and come find us is flawed. Furthermore, the assumption that the stakeholders who find our work will derive value is equally as flawed. Given the above obstacles, the onus on reaching the public starts to fall on individual I-O psychologists taking matters into their own hands. However, this path is also fraught with challenges.
Individual skills and confidence deficit
To our knowledge, the preparation or training of I-O psychologists for this kind of work does not really exist. I-O graduate programs are explicitly designed to teach students how to write for academic audiences, and little to no attention is paid to nonacademic audiences. It is unsurprising, then, that our survey respondents indicated that I-O psychology does not reach the public because of “lack of knowledge, motivation, and skill in this area.” Indeed, another survey respondent noted the challenge of, “turning the I-O psychology language into a communicative one to the ordinary folks.” Our unpreparedness may be exemplified by another respondent’s statement that, “we sound like eggheads.”
Relatedly, this unpreparedness extends beyond the style of communication to knowledge of the processes by which we might bring our science forward. Without formal or informal exposure to communication with nonacademic audiences, graduates from I-O psychology programs do not know “how to access appropriate media or venues.” I-O psychology lacks formal tools through which to achieve such goals: “I-O [psychologists] don’t have a structured vehicle for bringing science to the masses in places like SXSW, SHRM, or TedX.”
Reward structures are insufficient
I-O psychologists are not really rewarded in tangible ways for engaging in this kind of outreach. There is rarely a section on the annual performance report or performance management plan to indicate the number of op-eds or podcasts in which we participated. Indeed, one respondent to our survey suggested that reward structures were a barrier to broader communication for both academics and practitioners: “Academics: don’t get rewarded for it, or we don’t know how to do it; practitioners: have to get legal’s approval or someone else and they don’t do it fast enough or are worried about sharing proprietary knowledge.” Another respondent extended this line of thinking by articulating that, “I-O’s sense of energy and motivation is directed to better payoffs (like getting tenure, more pay, drinking beer),” and that there is, “little incentive to go to external audiences.”
It is also worth noting that, in most cases, incentivization for this kind of outreach usually only comes from sources external to our immediate chain of command. Academics who achieve this sort of outreach might be appreciated by the president’s office, administrators, or perhaps alums who favor visibility for the institution. Rarely is it the case that the department chair is interested in fostering this type of outreach. For practitioners, the same is also true. Rarely is your direct supervisor enamored with the notion of extrarole behavior bringing light to your expertise unless it benefits the organization more broadly.
Lack of time
Another barrier that goes hand in hand with reward structures that a number of survey respondents noted is that their jobs do not provide sufficient time to engage in communication with external audiences. There is simply not a formal accounting of or budget for time spent working to connect with the public. Consistent with this, respondents listed barriers such as “too busy with work,” “time and energy—hard to just do the jobs we have,” and “lack of time.”
Even with these barriers, so many of us still want to reach the public, and for good reason. In the next section, we provide insights into reaching the public.
How do we bring I-O science and evidence to the public?
The bigger and more vexing question is this: What can we as I-O psychologists do to reach an extended audience? Although public attention spans are stretched and overwhelmed with information and media opportunities, what are the right vehicles for doing so? Addressing these questions will provide greater insight into making the leap beyond our own community and, with some concerted efforts, yield greater visibility for our discipline as the science of work.
Trends for content consumption should come as no surprise. It is safe to say that digital media consumption had overtaken traditional media consumption with every increasing minutes spent on video, radio, social media, and podcasts. With this in mind, it is critical for I-O psychologists seeking to reach beyond the I-O community to explore a range of outlets. The following represent a smattering of effective mechanisms for bringing science to the masses:
Writing a trade book
Writing for trade magazines (Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review) and online blogs (Fortune)
Leveraging social media (more LinkedIn than twitter)
Submitting op-eds
Podcasts as a producer and/or guest
Joining a speakers bureau
Next, we provide practical guidance for I-O psychologists seeking to use one or more of these outlets in the next section. The hope is not only to educate but also to help I-O psychologists find the approaches that they are most comfortable with trying.
Writing a trade book
Writing some type of book can be found on the CV or goals list of many I-O psychologists. This often takes the form of a scientific tome, replete with chapters written by subject matter experts and edited for consumption by the next generation of I-O psychologists. Although this is a common path, others seek a path more designed to reach the masses. More often than not, this means finding a topic with broad appeal and developing everyday, relatable prose built upon good science. Although absolutely far from exhaustive, here are some examples of popular press books from I-O psychologists:
Alex Alonso, a coauthor for this manuscript and author of The Price of Pettiness, explored the depths of petty behavior in the workplace using more than 1,500 anecdotes from human resources (HR) professionals.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, researcher in the world of personality and leadership, wrote Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt.
Jennifer Deal has written several guides to understanding generational perspectives using an interdisciplinary approach.
Michele Gelfand wrote Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, discussing the science around human cultures and how tightly or loosely social norms are adhered to.
Adam Grant wrote Give and Take that brings evidence forward to understand why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom.
Stefanie Johnson wrote Inclusify that examines team success leveraging an inclusion lens.
Steven Rogelberg, a coauthor for this manuscript and author of The Surprising Science of Meetings, boiled down key scientific findings from his research and practice to provide guidance on a topic every person encounters daily: the meeting.
David L. Van Rooy wrote Trajectory, a guide for managing career missteps and how to recover from them.
Mike “Woody” Woodward wrote a practical guide for career change success, The YOU Plan.
Producing a popular press book with a trade publisher is a very different process than most of us have ever been experienced. Although there is certainly variability in paths to success, what is listed below is perhaps the most typical model when considering the major trade publishing houses like Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.
Develop your prospectus
A prospectus has at minimum the following components: your concept/vision, your table of contents, a sample chapter, and how it fits into the marketplace/competition. What is important to recognize, however, is that just because you may have identified a gap, it does not mean anyone will be interested. The gap has to be fundamentally intriguing to people. Test whether your concept is compelling. For example, it is very easy to glean perspectives on a book topic from the general public by chatting with friends and family outside the profession. The key is sharing the concept idea with the actual people you want to be reading the book, not just other I-O psychologists.
Get an agent
We checked with editors from most of the top trade publishers. The majority indicated they will not accept unsolicited proposals. For those that will entertain it, they indicate it is just a very small percentage of the time. One editor wrote, “the only unagented submissions I really see are people I meet at conferences. I don’t accept unagented people who just email me, the industry just does not work like that.” The smaller trade houses might, and academic publishers will, but the major trade houses—which tend to be critical to the book’s success and penetration into the public—generally do require agents.
There are many agents available, but finding a highly respected one is critical. In terms of finding a good agent, writers could research online and check out the agent’s website to look for successful books they represented, go to writer’s conferences to meet agents, and, perhaps most useful, talk to people they know who have published trade books to get recommendations. The prominent agents likely will only take on a small percent of the proposals they receive. But, the agent taking it on is pretty much the biggest predictor of the book ultimately being picked up by a house. The agent is extremely discerning as they will only invest time if they see a big future for your concept. The right agent knows how to develop the prospectus. Their reputation and credibility get you access to top publishers for the auction. Agents typically receive a 15% commission on your share of the sales.
Preparing for the auction
A good agent will work with your prospectus, giving lots of feedback to get it ready for a trade publisher auction of sorts. Basically, they will send it out simultaneously to a large number of trade publishers that publish work related to your topic. Interested houses will make a bid. They may even revise the bid based on others’ bids. You will then review all offers and pick a publisher. This entire process can take just 2 or 3 weeks.
Picking a publisher
This is extremely important. Big trade publishers have the reach and access to stores and the media. Academic publishers typically do not. Getting the right publisher is essential to a book having legs. If your goal truly is visibility, it cannot be emphasized enough how important the publisher is. Therefore, examine their track record with trade books.
Writing the book
After ideation has been completed, it is time for refinement and writing. For some, this process is lengthy lasting over a year, whereas for others it can happen in less time. Regardless of your writing tempo, it is important to engage in consistent development and review. Constantly get feedback to be sure your writing is accessible and to be sure your stories are engaging and compelling. This feedback should come from the audience you are trying to connect with and not necessarily from I-O colleagues.
As you finish writing the book, you have to decide on whether you want to hire a publicist. A publicist is responsible for publicizing your book and pitching your content to a variety of different media. Their contacts are large, and they know how to position the book in a way that can appeal readily to journalists. Trade publishers will, and some academic publishers may provide some broad-based publicist services if built into the contract. Some authors hire their own publicist to supercharge the promotion process. It is not cheap, but it can yield great returns if the publicist is strong. It is important to note that many academic publishers do not have these publicist services. As a result, your book will get little exposure. This could be the difference between a book that collects dust in a warehouse for eternity and a book everyone is dying to read.
Although trade or airport-read books are a powerful dissemination mechanism, they do suffer from being older “technology” and very few will catch on. As a result, their reach is limited by design.
Writing for trade magazines
This is a host of reputable trade-type magazines that would be good homes for our I-O science- and evidence-based practices. Harvard Business Review is perhaps the highest profile outlet, but there are other meaningful sources such as Sloan Management Review, HR Magazine, Fast Company, Inc., and Forbes. The most appealing component of magazine articles or columns is their mass appeal. For example, the Data Watch column in HR Magazine is read by more than 400,000 individuals every quarter. The advantages extend beyond reach, however, with ease of format and consistent expedient reviews playing an important role. The disadvantages include difficulty gauging what is viable in terms of reader interests, which can often feel like fishing without bait, and the remarkably quick pace of editorial requests. In some cases, columnists have been asked to completely rework their columns in a matter of days. This appeals to some but deviates widely from our typical editorial review in peer-reviewed journals.
Writing a column in magazines and trade publications certainly has overlap with what we talked about above with respect to trade books. However, there are several considerations when pulling together a column that one may not consider when publishing in traditional venues:
It is typically an editor-driven process. Namely, you would create some type of one-to-two-paragraph pitch that you can send to one of the editors of the outlet in question. They will then indicate interest and potential next steps. Some editors may want to see a complete piece prior to indicating interest or lack thereof.
Most editors will work to enhance the novelty and relevance of their content to readers. In many cases, this means being attuned to the needs of readers and their preferences. This calls for us as I-O psychologists to think like a reader and focus on audiences broader than our own.
Most of the periodicals have an online version and a print version. Standards and processes can differ for each with paper publications typically receiving a more rigorous review.
Be sure you are aware of any related pieces the magazine in question has published on the topic. They will implicitly or explicitly want to be convinced this is an important addition to what they have already done and is often more important than what other outlets have done on the topic.
Editors engage in an iterative process. Editors will be heavy handed in their feedback and will not hesitate to rewrite sections of your paper (you will be asked to bless all suggestions of course). Iterations can be as few as a couple to double digits. It is also typical to be asked for URLs for any research you cite, which more often than not, are checked for accuracy.
In many instances, the final paper will go through one last review by the senior editor of the publication prior to acceptance.
You will create a working title of your paper. If there is a novel way of presenting your research or practical learnings in 10 words, this is the avenue for you. Placing yourself in the shoes of the reader or reporter is not an art most I-O psychologists have mastered, but that is not to say we cannot do it with ease. With that being said, interestingly, the senior editor makes the final call on the title they think is best.
Leveraging social media and online blogs
There are many tools for generating reach and influence in social media including (but not limited to) Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter represent the majority of social media influence traffic—each with at least 330 million users worldwide (HootSuite, 2019). The key to building reach is focusing on the importance of packaging relevant content to your network. To that end, there are two main sets of behaviors potential influencers must develop: (a) generating pithy, relevant content AND (b) building a big network. For example, Paul Thoresen, I-O practitioner and @SurveyGuy2, is a thought-provoking influencer, often cataloguing other influencers in the world of workplace sciences social media. Yet another large influencer in the world of I-O psychology is Sy Islam, @IOSyIslam, who specializes in disseminating provocative content around workplace trends and talent analytics. The following are some important steps for ensuring success as an I-O social media influencer:
Start with a few practice tweets or posts. Building social media influence is a lot like testing your material as a stand-up comic. You need to try your hand at posting or tweeting and see what generates interest.
Focus on building a regular cycle of posting or tweeting. Using a set schedule allows you to generate time in your calendar while creating expectations from your audience.
Use humor where you can and if comfortable. There is no greater thought-provoking tool than irreverence and humor. It may be counter to our tendencies as scientists, but it is an invaluable tool for examining tough topics while building an audience.
Friend everyone in sight. The low bar for admission into the influencer space is returning a follow. People will follow you if you follow them. This is how you go from 40 connections to 4,000 in no time.
Crash other people’s parties! When possible make sure to comment and engage others. For example, don’t be afraid to join TweetUps or LinkedIn Groups. One such example is to join @SIOPChat or @NextChat from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). These monthly topical meetings of user groups provide an opportunity to join a community and build your audience all while also testing your quick reactions and content.
Detach yourself from reactions. The Internet (and social media) is the universe of trolls. People will find ways to evaluate you and seek to destroy your perspectives. This is a fact of life as a social media influencer (just ask Alex about the follower who called him and dropped 63 F bombs in the span of a 2-minute voicemail over his take on overcoming bias in the workplace). In the end, we as potential influencers need to ignore these types of reactions and remember that interest (positive or negative) still generates more interest.
Another form of quick content for social media consumption is the now well-known blog. Blogs are typically a medium for sharing insights in a less formal venue. They first took the world by storm when they developed followerships for salacious gossip content like those on PerezHilton.com or TMZ. However, blogs soon evolved to include more practical guidance and opinion-based educational content. Today, blogs run the gamut from do-it-yourself content to entertainment tracking to advice on parenthood and beyond. In the context of I-O psychology and its appeal to the masses, several blogs are currently under development, including the Workplace Futures Blog and the Advocacy@Work blog. Very visible is the HR blog hosted by SHRM, where contributors like Steven Rogelberg, Woody Woodward, and Alex Alonso have provided quick hits on organizational topics. Some pointers for making the most of blogs include
Be pithy. Blogs are not intended to be a work of art. They are intended to be five paragraphs at most. The most effective bloggers hit you hard with information and share their personal accounts. Leveraging humor can be helpful at times.
Even when talking about science, personalization matters. When writing a blog, many strive to share how their experience shaped their learning and, in turn, their practice. Blogs are often intended to be a look into the blogger’s psyche.
You can post your blogs in a number of places including several media platforms like a LinkedIn article, a Tumblr topic thread, or on several magazine open comment sections for major publications like Time or Newsweek. In addition, you could opt to submit guest blogs on sites like TheMuse.com or HubSpot.com.
Broadcast far and wide. Blogs only work if you broadcast them across every medium you can think of. This means blogs have to be ready for transmission across content aggregator sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The ultimate achievement in the blogger’s life is being featured by LinkedIn’s editorial team. This means you have hit the big time with a potential large exposure to countless LinkedIn users. For example, a blog post on the science behind meeting agendas yielded over 800,000 views.
Submitting op-eds
An “op-ed” is an opinion or perspective piece written by authors who are not associated with a particular newspaper but that appear on the pages of newspapers opposite the editorial board commentaries. Anyone can write an op-ed, and most publications have an online portal or publicly available email address for op-ed submissions. So, from a practical perspective, submitting an op-ed can be as simple as writing an email.
Of course, not every submission is published (far from it). Three elements seem to be particularly important when it comes to op-eds: timeliness, a unique perspective, and expertise. This means that I-O psychologists have somewhere around 750 words (plus a brief “pitch” in a cover letter/email) to articulate a unique and timely idea or issue about which they have clear expertise. Here is an example of a cover email that met with success:
Dear Editor,
Fathers’ Day is an opportunity to recognize dads who transcend stereotypes. In this piece, I argue that public policies and social norms make it difficult for dads to be equal partners in parenting. Yet, it is precisely these equal partnerships at home that will give rise to gender equality at work.
[Insert brief bio to convey your legitimate expertise.]
Thank you in advance for considering these ideas.
Best,
Eden King, PhD
A good pitch message should include the following components (numbers added for clarity). Note, these are quite similar to what you see at other outlets:
(1) Briefly summarize your story idea.
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(2) Briefly explain why you’re the right person to write the piece. What’s your relevant expertise or experience?
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(3) Briefly explain why this argument or story matters. What are the stakes here?
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(4) Briefly outline how the piece will start and end. If you have a draft, include it in the body of the email.
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(5) Use a clear, informative headline as the subject line. Specify in the subject line if your pitch is timely.
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(6) Include a short description of your previous writing experience and links to published clips, if relevant.
In addition to these components, it is standard procedure to submit pitches sequentially (not concurrently). That is, like journal submissions, it is poor form to flood a dozen news outlets with the same idea. Unlike journal submissions, however, it is also standard practice that you can move on to another outlet after 48 hours (unless otherwise specified). This is important if you are making a pitch that is timely (e.g., about a particular date or event); you need to budget time for multiple pitches, so planning ahead is important. For a pitch about paternity leave, one of the current authors (Eden King) constructed the idea well in advance of Fathers’ Day.
There are pros and cons to this particular strategy for engaging with the public. On the plus side, the written format of op-eds allows authors to write precisely what they want in precisely the way they want. This means you do not have to think on your feet (as you would in other forms of media) or answer another person’s questions. An op-ed is supposed to represent the writer’s perspective, so this is explicitly an opportunity to share your point of view. Of course, some outlets will suggest (or will require) changes before a piece is published, but your voice should nonetheless be true.
Another big benefit of op-eds is the audience. The New York Times reported that it had a subscribership of 4.7 million in 2019. The Huffington Post reports more than 115 million readers. That is simply a lot of people. There are contradictory accounts of evidence regarding the average number of readers for a scientific journal article, but any estimate is much, much lower (like by a factor of a million).
It is important to acknowledge that sending an op-ed pitch feels a bit like throwing a penny into a well. It is impossible to know after sending a pitch, particularly as a novice, whether someone is (a) reading, (b) appreciating, and/or (c) likely to publish your work. It may feel frustrating to get a negative response or to never receive a response or feedback of any kind. Of course, throwing a penny in a well might also result in your wishes coming true. The good news is that a large number of possible outlets exist and targeting more local or regional outlets increases your success probability. Persistence, just like in academic publishing, will likely yield the positive outcome you desire.
Podcasts: Producer and/or guest
A podcast is a broadcast designed to provide audiences with a critical look at topics through a recorded (sometimes live) discussion available on mobile and listening devices. The most successful podcasts like Serial or Stu-podity boast multimillion downloads per episode with a large contingent of subscribers. Whereas these podcasts are built for entertainment purposes, I-O psychologists could model their efforts around other popular podcasts like Changemakers or Honest HR, both sponsored by nonprofit organizations seeking to promulgate organizational sciences to the masses. I-O psychologists who are leading the way on podcasts include Ben Baran and Katina Sawyer who provide insights on The Indigo Podcast and Workr Beeing Podcast, respectively.
The essential components of developing a podcast are much less onerous than one might expect. Specifically, a podcast requires some production activities but is less formal than standard broadcast options. True success in the world of podcasts is a function of a few factors: provocative perspectives on relevant topics, good guests, and proper marketing to broad audiences. It takes time to build a listener base, but it can be achieved. A quick Google search on “how to start a podcast” will help you identify key steps and the logistics of the process to create your own podcast. For example, this resource from NPR is particularly handy: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/662070097/starting-your-podcast-a-guide-for-students.
Perhaps an easier path is being a guest on a podcast. Some pointers for achieving success as a podcast guest are
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Start by sharing your perspectives with podcast producers. Reaching out to podcasters is daunting, but the truth is they will only access the information they hear about from solicitors. Rarely is there an example of unsolicited guests in the world of podcasting.
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Podcasts are seeking influencers. Getting a spot as a podcast guest is typically a function of your influence. They are seeking new potential listeners as much as you are seeking greater reach. Build your social media chops first and then bring your audience to a podcast.
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Do not be afraid to create your own recording sample. In many cases, it helps to provide other podcasters with a sample of your ability to engage an audience. This may even entail recording yourself in an interaction with others. If engaging, it can often serve as your calling card.
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Testing your views and information with others is paramount. Finding the right content requires informal market research. Without audience testing, it is hard to assess what will be effective and appealing to podcasts.
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Come with ready-made headlines. Podcasters and producers of podcasts like easy-to-use content; bringing your own provocative headlines and interesting evidence-based ideas to any pitch is critical. Anything that makes their job easier will make your odds of success much greater.
Joining a speakers bureau
One often-forgotten tool for generating reach and influence is public speaking. Public speaking is something that requires a special proclivity for engaging audiences directly and in person. For example, Alex Alonso, a coauthor for this publication, has spoken publicly now more than 300 times across 40 nations throughout his career. Adam Grant likely represents the high bar of public speaking in our profession and beyond.
I-O psychologists who are seeking to build their profile through public speaking are suitable candidates for speakers bureau services. Speakers bureaus are agencies that serve as scheduling solicitors for public speakers who are interested in making it a career. For example, the famous Washington Speakers Bureau boasts a lineup of nearly 500 speakers on topics ranging from politics to modernizing society. Other organizations, such as ASAE (American Society for Association Executives) and SHRM, have speakers bureaus capable of bringing new talent to the masses in the association space. In short, speakers bureaus represent an ideal option for those who are natural speakers with experience wowing conference audiences. Some fundamental pointers for achieving success with speakers bureaus include
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Start with small conferences/events. Speakers bureaus want seasoned speakers who generate interest and revenue. To test yourself, we recommend speaking at other professional conferences and testing the appeal of your content. Nonprofit and community organizations would readily welcome you as well when there is no cost.
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Refine your content to various time frames. Speaking engagements are often variable in terms of allotted time and audience characteristics. To be truly marketable, you want to build options based upon length of presentation and context-specific styles for different audiences.
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Record yourself and shop it around. Speakers bureaus only hire speakers they know to be engaging via sample presentations or audience evaluations. Sending a taped session is the easiest way to demonstrate your potential appeal and gather some useful feedback.
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Bring your metrics to any conversation. Data stories told in approachable fashion are the most compelling options for many speakers bureaus. Working with any bureau will call for you to leverage your role as a researcher and scientist while also demonstrating an uncanny ability to translate it broadly.
What are some of the keys to translation and public consumption?
Now that we have shared some potential outlets and strategies for leveraging them, we turn our attention to some overarching keys to success that are relevant to whatever path you decide to pursue.
Get comfortable speaking and writing differently than was required during our PhD training. Write so non-I-O folks can truly understand your content. However, understanding is not enough. You have to write in a manner that keeps readers engaged—bring adverbs back, use examples, include metaphors, and so on. This type of writing style takes practice, but, over time, you will learn the skill. The exciting part of learning this skill is that you can get feedback from a much larger pool than what we do with our more scientific writing: friends, family, and other professionals are ideal in this respect.
Think carefully about what topics you will invest your time in. The ideal topics are those that are relevant to stakeholders but also those with strong and consistent scientific messages and ideally consensus. This is not a requirement per se, but this would be the gold standard. At the very least, pick a topic where the evidence appears to be lining up in a compelling and clear way. Counterintuitive and novel conclusions will likely resonate more strongly than content that is incredibly straight forward. Consequential content is important as well. Does the topic truly matter? There are trade-offs among these dimensions. For example, highly consequential topics that are fairly intuitive can get traction (Rynes et al., Reference Rynes, Giluk and Brown2007). We cannot stress enough that SIOP’s uniqueness of having academics and practitioners under one roof makes us ideally suited to take on this challenge. We are poised to have science inform practice—and practice inform science. To do this, practitioners need to commit to and keep engaging with the scientific literature in some fashion. Academics should also actively commit to engaging with practice.
We want to comment a bit more on this latter piece for academics who are interested in this pursuit. Linking with practitioners starts with meeting I-O practitioners in SIOP; your program’s alums may also be ideal. Furthermore, target meeting practitioners in allied fields. Visit or attend an SHRM, Association for Talent Development (ATD), or International Practice Management Association (IPMA) conference. These conferences often have affinity group meetings with a great focus on topics tailored for research. Build your network by joining interest groups across Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn. Each of these platforms offer specialty groups looking for more information on given topics. They are unique in that they are affinity around a topic rather than a profession or organization. Still, they are an extremely viable source for access.
Become comfortable with reasonable extrapolations of scientific findings. This is perhaps the hardest element to get our arms around given our training. For any given study there are very direct implications of that research; let’s call that point A. Point A by definition is likely not very far-reaching. We would argue that two more distant points exist; let’s call them point B and point C. Point B is a natural extension of the research. It is a logical extrapolation from the evidence. Yes, you are stretching a bit, but it is reasonable and can be justified especially if this particular study was not just a first of its kind. For instance, Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau have mastered this skill when defining the utility of specific HR interventions based on years of human capital management literature. Then, there is a point C. Point C is such an extrapolation from point A that it is basically just a loosely informed opinion rather than an evidence-based insight. Although point C is certainly fine and there are times where this has great value, it is important to acknowledge the lack of evidence. We are not arguing that I-O practice should go to point C as a goal but instead that to enter into a societal discourse while still staying true to our brand as I-O psychologists, we have to feel comfortable going to point B. We would argue that moving to point B is justified when there is connective evidence and potential harm is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent.
Another key is being comfortable doing work that in many respects is not usually rewarded. Currently, we (I-O psychologists) typically define influence by thinking about the effects our activities have on our careers or subsets of an audience consisting of applied scientists and/or other I-O psychologists. Although these are important metrics, there is significant evidence supporting the notion of science-to-practice translation beyond the corpus of I-O psychologists (Alonso et al., Reference Alonso, Kurtessis and Waters2017). Reaching an external audience requires work that is atypical in the day-to-day operations of most I-O careers. Although it is atypical, it is not impossible to succeed, and the influence of such work can often exceed that of a book chapter or journal publication. For instance, consider the work done by several I-O psychologists today in the communications space where SIOPers like Dr. Woody Woodward have been sharing I-O research and insights as part of a New York area Fox Business Channel segment for nearly 5 years. We have to take a broader look at what influence means and look to support this broader perspective when making administrative/salary/promotion/tenure decisions. With this all said, we recognize that activities such as those discussed in the article are probably not ideal for early career professionals who likely will benefit the most from succeeding wildly on traditional metrics of success, prior to expanding to more public mainstream metrics.
Related to the above, besides public outreach work not being rewarded, there may even be some colleagues who look down on this type of work. We cannot really address where this animosity may stem from, but it seems to be a very minority opinion, especially when we stick to our brand of evidence-based positions. As a discipline, I-O psychology benefits most from people learning what it is. Sometimes this takes the form of compromising with an editor or book publisher, appearing in television programs where the entirety of our research cannot be laid out, or advocating for policy shifts with unpopular political agents. Although many can critique these activities, their influence on the general awareness of I-O psychology is undeniable. Leveraging these forms of work may not be the norm, but this should not discourage I-O psychologists from embracing them given their reach.
As this is a SIOP journal, we want to conclude this article with things SIOP might be able to do to help SIOP members with our efforts to get science out there. The SIOP Executive Board, Administrative Office, committee chairs, and volunteers have all been working for many years to identify and communicate our value to the world and to enhance the influence of our work. Indeed, explicit strategic goals include “Become the premier and trusted authority on work-related human behavior” and “Increase the awareness and use of I-O psychology.” These goals have been pursued in a variety of forms such as the creation of a branding task force in 2000, efforts by the Visibility committee (such as the “top 10 trends”), in the presidential themes of Adrienne Colella and Doug Reynolds among others, and in our decision to hire a government relations firm to help us advocate at the federal level. These are exciting and important steps toward SIOP’s goals, but we can do more. (And yes, this is coming from both recent and soon-to-be presidents; who better to offer constructive criticism?)
The governance of SIOP is organized in portfolio structure, which means that volunteers are elected to serve in particular areas of emphasis (such as “Professional Practice” and “Diversity and Inclusion”). We have at least three separate portfolios that deal directly with issues relevant to getting I-O science to the public: a communications portfolio, a publications portfolio, and an external relations portfolio. The only committees that are coordinated through the communications portfolio are the electronic communications committee and TIP. Our visibility committee is housed under the external relations portfolio. The publications portfolio has historically focused largely on edited books but also oversees IOP. This disintegrated structure is symptomatic of a lack of coherence in our communications strategy. We have a lot of fantastic staff and volunteers communicating about I-O psychology, but we do not always do so in a clear and coordinated manner. What might that coherent strategy look like?
It may be time to consider a central structure for all communications. This might allow us to create and cultivate a coordinated social media presence promoting content via multiple modes (e.g., blog, podcast, video). A thoughtful approach to promoting I-O science might also involve a variety of strategic investments like the following initiatives:
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Generate member media expertise through workshops or invited sessions from which a list of media experts can be updated.
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Develop a relationship with existing speakers bureaus.
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Establish a relationship with a public relations firm.
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Consider creating online periodicals akin to HBR, People & Strategy (publication for CHROs), or HR Magazine specially targeting outside the community.
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Forge partnerships with leading online periodicals (such as the above or TED.com, LinkedIn) that facilitate ongoing columns or podcasts.
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Expand access to research databases and science–practice translations to a broader community.
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Foster science–practice partnerships to ensure relevant science and evidence-based practice.
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Create an I-O psychology podcast to demonstrate long-term public relations value.
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Offer support to SIOP members by making professional writers available; build this content into our conferences.
These ideas vary in terms of the effort and costs required, but the success of any one of them might depend on the extent to which we are able to coordinate effectively within the current (or potentially updated) governance structure. Articulating a new vision for SIOP communications might be a good place to start.
Conclusion
Nearly 3 decades ago, Academy of Management President Donald C. Hambrick wrote that “If we believe in the significance of advanced thinking and research on management, then it is time we showed it” (Reference Hambrick1994, p. 13). A decade later, Gary Latham lamented that “we, as applied scientists, exist largely for the purpose of communicating knowledge to one another” (Reference Latham2007, p. 1031). Rynes et al. (Reference Rynes, Giluk and Brown2007, p. 999) also noted that “our failure to “matter more” is approaching a crisis stage.” Today, we confirm the persistence of this failure and offer specific strategies for succeeding.
We believe that what we do as a field can truly help people. We can make a difference. But doing so depends entirely on communicating our messages effectively. Every I-O psychologist can play a role. Branch out and give it a try. It truly does not matter which path you try first. Pick what feels most doable/reasonable for you and give it a go. Be part of the solution while staying true to our science and evidence. Try one or more of these strategies. You might hate it, fine. You might like it, fine. It might lead to new opportunities, new challenges, new enjoyment, new ideas, and most importantly, more positive effects. The words of editorial board members of this journal who were surveyed for this paper make these points perfectly:
“I-O has great and important content. With a limited reach, the information gleaned is lost.”
“The public benefits from our knowledge which is pretty useful considering how much time we all spend at work”
“We can make an impact and help real people in organizations. I believe that what we offer is valuable and the more people know about it the better.”
“The more people know about the profession and the work we do, the more we can improve the world of work.”
Open access
