{"id":602,"date":"2014-02-27T10:21:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T10:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carolinegourlay.wordpress.com\/?p=236"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:40:13","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T15:40:13","slug":"did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Did psychologists bring down a bank?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve read the business pages of the papers recently, you might begin to believe that people like me, with our dangerous voodoo magic, at least indirectly caused the demise of the Co-op Bank. It follows revelations at a Treasury select committee hearing that \u2013 shockingly, it would seem \u2013 some (unspecified) form of psychometric testing was used in the appointment of the now-disgraced Co-op chairman, Paul Flowers.<\/p>\n<p>The press have had a field day with this, giving the impression that the selection panel were so taken with the test results that they forgot to check whether he could run a bank. Much of what was written was so ill-informed that I felt compelled to respond. Rather than reproduce the entire argument here, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrzone.com\/feature\/people\/were-psychometric-tests-really-blame-appointment-disgraced-co-op-chairman-paul\">this<\/a> is a link to an article I wrote for an HR website.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/can-psychology-predict-who-will-go-off-the-rails\/\">I\u2019d previously speculated<\/a> that the Flowers appointment had not involved a psychologist and that it might have helped if it had. There may or may not have been a psychologist involved; some HR professionals are trained to use psychometrics, though perhaps not always in the same depth. But, whoever was using them, like any tools, they can be used well or badly. Let\u2019s not blame the tools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve read the business pages of the papers recently, you might begin to believe that people like me, with our dangerous voodoo magic, at least indirectly caused the demise of the Co-op Bank. It follows revelations at a Treasury [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,371],"tags":[53,54,55,56,57],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve read the business pages of the papers recently, you might begin to believe that people like me, with our dangerous voodoo magic, at least indirectly caused the demise of the Co-op Bank. It follows revelations at a Treasury [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Caroline Gourlay Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nick\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/5669ea95e9bef337571237143263c5e2\"},\"headline\":\"Did psychologists bring down a bank?\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\"},\"wordCount\":210,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"assessment\",\"Co-op\",\"Paul Flowers\",\"psychometric testing\",\"psychometrics\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Assessment\",\"Opinion Pieces\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\",\"name\":\"Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg\",\"width\":500,\"height\":333},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Did psychologists bring down a bank?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"Caroline Gourlay Consulting\",\"description\":\"Psychology for Business\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Caroline Gourlay Consulting\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/caroline-gourlay-logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/caroline-gourlay-logo.svg\",\"width\":312,\"height\":86,\"caption\":\"Caroline Gourlay Consulting\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/5669ea95e9bef337571237143263c5e2\",\"name\":\"Nick\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52bcbce9d2ad057e87a6140e76c10c6f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52bcbce9d2ad057e87a6140e76c10c6f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nick\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/author\/nick\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting","og_description":"If you\u2019ve read the business pages of the papers recently, you might begin to believe that people like me, with our dangerous voodoo magic, at least indirectly caused the demise of the Co-op Bank. It follows revelations at a Treasury [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/","og_site_name":"Caroline Gourlay Consulting","article_published_time":"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":333,"url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nick","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/"},"author":{"name":"Nick","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/5669ea95e9bef337571237143263c5e2"},"headline":"Did psychologists bring down a bank?","datePublished":"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/"},"wordCount":210,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg","keywords":["assessment","Co-op","Paul Flowers","psychometric testing","psychometrics"],"articleSection":["Assessment","Opinion Pieces"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/","url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/","name":"Did psychologists bring down a bank? &#8211; Caroline Gourlay Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg","datePublished":"2014-02-27T10:21:18+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-25T15:40:13+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/fuzzy.jpg","width":500,"height":333},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/did-psychologists-bring-down-a-bank\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Did psychologists bring down a bank?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/","name":"Caroline Gourlay Consulting","description":"Psychology for Business","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#organization","name":"Caroline Gourlay Consulting","url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/caroline-gourlay-logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/caroline-gourlay-logo.svg","width":312,"height":86,"caption":"Caroline Gourlay Consulting"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/5669ea95e9bef337571237143263c5e2","name":"Nick","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52bcbce9d2ad057e87a6140e76c10c6f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52bcbce9d2ad057e87a6140e76c10c6f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nick"},"url":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/author\/nick\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolinegourlay.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}