Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Instructor’s Manual:

ch. 9: Personality
and Cultural
Values

9-1
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

This chapter introduces students to the concept of the “Big Five”

dimensions of personality – conscientiousness, agreeableness,
neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion. The evidence
linking these traits to performance and commitment is explored. The
chapter also describes cultural values, such as individualism-collectivism,
power distance, and uncertainty avoidance, which combine to give nations
a sort of cultural personality.

LEARNING GOALS

After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following
questions:

9.1 What is personality? What are cultural values?

9.2 What are the “Big Five?”
9.3 Is personality driven by nature or by nurture?
9.4 What taxonomies can used to describe personality, other than the
Big Five?
9.5 What taxonomies can be used to describe cultural values?
9.6 How does personality affect job performance and organizational
commitment?
9.7 Are personality tests a useful tool for organizational hiring?

CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. Personality and Cultural Values

Try This! Open the class by asking students to describe someone (for
example, their first college roommate). Ask them to give you adjectives
that describe the person while you write the adjectives on the board.
As adjectives are listed, try to put them into five separate columns
representing the conscientiousness-agreeableness-neuroticism-
extraversion-openness (CANOE) dimensions of the Big Five. If a trait
represents a low levels of a given dimension (e.g., “lazy” for
conscientiousness) put it in parentheses. Decline to include any
adjectives that actually get at ability rather than personality (e.g.,
“smart”). You may need to prod students a bit to come up with
openness adjectives. This process should eventually result in a table
like Table 9-1. Once the discussion slows down, see if students
recognize the categories you’ve created on the board, thereby
illustrating how good of a job the Big Five does at describing what
people are like.

9-2
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

A. Personality

1. The structures and propensities inside a person that explain his

or her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior

2. Captures what people are like, as opposed to ability, which

captures what people can do

B. Traits

1. Recurring regularities or trends in people’s responses to their

environment

2. A function of genes and environment

C. Cultural Values

1. Shared beliefs about desirable end states or modes of conduct

in a given culture

2. Influence the expression of traits

II. How Can We Describe What Employees are Like?

A. Big Five Taxonomy

1. All traits can be classified into five broad factors that summarize
personality. These factors include:

a. Conscientiousness
b. Agreeableness
c. Neuroticism
d. Openness to Experience
e. Extraversion

OB Assessments: Big Five. This brief survey provides

students with an idea of where they stand on each of the “Big
Five” measures of personality. As you get to each of the Big
Five during lecture, use a show of hands to see how many
students fell above or below the average level (note, you may
want to skip this step for neuroticism). You will typically find that
most students are high on conscientiousness. This makes
sense given that the students (a) made it into their current
program of study, (b) successfully passed multiple semesters in
their program of study, and (c) showed up for class on this
particular day. Students may find it interesting to compare their

9-3
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

results on this test with their results on the complete version of

the same test (300 item), which can be accessed without charge
at http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo300.htm. The
longer version gives students feedback on specific facets of
each of the Big Five, facets that are not discussed within the
chapter. For example, the longer version gives students
feedback on six facets of Extraversion: friendliness,
gregariousness, assertiveness, activity level, excitement
seeking, cheerfulness.

2. Nature vs. Nurture Debate

a. Asks is personality a function of our genes or is it something

that we develop as a function of our experiences and
surroundings?

b. Twin studies

i. Extraversion scores are significantly correlated across

pairs of identical twins. 49% of variation in extraversion
is accounted for by genetic differences.

ii. Similar research shows 45% for openness, 41% for

neuroticism, 38% for conscientiousness, and 35% for
agreeableness

c. Longitudinal studies

i. If personality has a large genetic component, it shouldn’t

change over time

ii. Extraversion remains stable over lifespan, as does

openness to experience (after a sharp increase from
teenage years to college age). These two traits are most
dependent on one’s genes.

iii. People get more conscientious, more agreeable, and

less neurotic from their teenage years to their 40’s, 50’s,
and 60’s, but changes are very gradual

3. Conscientiousness

a. Conscientious individuals are dependable, organized,

reliable, ambitious, hardworking, and persevering

9-4
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

b. Conscientiousness has the biggest influence on job

performance of any of the Big Five

i. Conscientious individuals prioritize accomplishment

striving, which reflects a strong desire to accomplish
task-related goals as a means of expressing one’s
personality

a.) One study shows that conscientious salespeople set

higher sales goals for themselves.
b.) Another study shows salespeople’s organizational
skills were valuable during their first year of
employment, with their ambitious nature becoming
more critical as they gained tenure and experience.
c.) Third research study shows that childhood
conscientiousness ratings are correlated with career
success five decades later.
d.) Conscientiousness also shown to be negatively
related to mortality, including death from injuries,
death from cardiovascular disease, and death from
cancer, probably because conscientiousness was
negatively related to alcohol consumption and
smoking during adulthood.

4. Agreeableness

a. Agreeable individuals are warm, kind, cooperative,

sympathetic, helpful, and courteous

b. Agreeable individuals prioritize communion striving, which

reflects a strong desire to obtain acceptance in personal
relationships as a means of expressing one’s personality

c. Communion striving is beneficial for some jobs, but

detrimental to others

i. Agreeable individuals tend to have strong customer

service skills, because they tend to react to conflict by
walking away, adopting a “wait and see” attitude, or
giving in to the other person

d. A “lived day” study shows that agreeable individuals tend to

spend more time in public places, are less likely to use
swear words and more likely to use words that convey
personal rapport during conversations

9-5
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

5. Extraversion

a. Extraverted individuals are talkative, sociable, passionate,

assertive, bold, and dominant (in contrast to introverts, who
are quiet, shy, and reserved)

b. Of the Big Five, extraversion is the easiest to judge in zero

acquaintance situations—situations in which two people
have only just met

c. Extraverted people prioritize status striving, which reflects a

strong desire to obtain power and influence within a social
structure as a means of expressing one’s personality

d. Extraverts are more likely to emerge as leaders in social and

task-related groups

e. Extraverts are rated as more effective in leadership roles by

their followers

f. Extraverts are more satisfied with their jobs – they tend to by

high in positive affectivity—a dispositional tendency to
experience pleasant, engaging moods such as enthusiasm,
excitement, and elation

i. Genetics account for about 30% of the variation in job

satisfaction, primarily due to extraversion and neuroticism

g. Extraversion is also associated with positive life events such

as getting a raise at work and getting married or engaged.
However, extraverts have less frequent interactions with
their families.

6. Neuroticism

a. Neurotic individuals are nervous, moody, emotional,

insecure, and jealous

b. Neuroticism is negatively related to job performance for most

jobs

c. Neuroticism is synonymous with negative affectivity—a

dispositional tendency to experience unpleasant moods such
as hostility, nervousness, and annoyance

9-6
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

i. Negative affectivity explains why neurotic individuals

have lower job satisfaction than less neurotic people

d. Neuroticism is also responsible for the Type A Behavior

Pattern. It is associated with a differential exposure to
stressors (where individuals perceive more stressors in daily
life) and with a differential reactivity to stressors (where
individuals are less able to successfully cope with stressors.

e. Neuroticism is also strongly related to an external locus of

control, where individuals attribute the causes of events to
the external environment, rather than themselves.

OB on Screen: The Adjustment Bureau. The clip

referenced in the book begins around the 14:17 mark of
the film, continuing until about the 28:34 mark. If you
obtain the DVD of the film from either Netflix, Best Buy,
or Amazon, it is Chapters 3-4 of that DVD (note that the
film can typically be obtained through iTunes as well).
The clip depicts David Norris as he accidentally
encounters the agents of the Adjustment Bureau, who
are attempting to adjust his path through life (by making
him late to his office as they alter a key investment
decision by his boss). Focus discussion on what the
students would do if they found themselves in David’s
place. Would they go along with the agent’s orders, or
would they take their lives into their own hands? Do
students really feel that there is some sense of “fate”
that influences what happens in their lives? How many
of the students agree with the external option in the top
row of Table 9-2, and how many agree with the internal
option? What are the benefits associated with an
external locus of control, and what are the benefits
associated with an internal one? Please email Jason
Colquitt (colq@uga.edu) if you have any questions
about using OB on Screen in your teaching.

Try This! Use the Adjustment Bureau clip for a different

chapter. A number of the power dynamics from Chapter
13 on Leadership: Power and Negotiation are at play in
the clip. The agents possess both expert power and
coercive power, even if their legitimate power is open to
debate. There are also structural elements at play from
Ch. 15 on Organizational Structure, as the Bureau’s
work specialization, chain of command, span of control,
and mechanistic nature can be observed. Some

9-7
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

observable cultural artifacts can also be seen from Ch.

16 on Organizational Culture. For example, what might
the agents’ hats symbolize? What about their books (the
ones that include the plan)? Is their language that they
use that conveys certain cultural values?

Bonus OB on Screen (from 1st and 2nd ed): The

Break-Up. The clip referenced in the book begins
around the 6:17 mark of the film, continuing until about
the 12:36 mark. If you obtain the DVD of the film from
either Netflix, Best Buy, or Amazon, it is Chapter 2 of
that DVD (note that the film can typically be obtained
through iTunes as well). The clip depicts Gary and
Brooke at work in their respective jobs. Once Gary joins
Brooke at home to prepare for a dinner party, the
contrasts in their personalities become more obvious.
Brooke is very conscientious whereas Gary is not. Gary
failed to do what Brooke asked when he was on his way
home, and now chooses to lounge around instead of
help Brooke get ready for the party. Class discussion
could focus on whether conscientiousness is more
important in a significant other or in a coworker. What
can be done when two people have to work or live
together but have different conscientiousness levels?
Discussion could also focus on positive aspects of
Gary’s personality. For example, Gary seems
particularly extraverted, which helps in jobs with direct
customer contact.

7. Openness to Experience

a. Open individuals are curious, imaginative, creative, complex,

refined, and sophisticated

b. Openness is not significantly related to job performance

across jobs, but becomes more important in jobs that are
fluid and dynamic, or that require high levels of creative
performance

i. Together with cognitive ability, openness helps

individuals excel at creative though, which has a
significant influence on creative performance

Try This! Put the contents of Figure 9-5 on a series of

slides and ask the students who have not already read
the chapter to try to figure out the answers to the tests of

9-8
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

creative thinking (note that the answers are in the

Takeaways section of the chapter). Have students raise
their hands or tap the desk when they think they know
the answers. Did the individuals who excelled at this test
also score high on openness in the OB Assessments?
You might also explore the two URL’s in the table note
to look for some other creativity puzzles that you could
introduce during class.

B. Other Taxonomies of Personality

1. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

a. Evaluates people on the basis of four types of preferences:

i. Extraversion (being energized by people and social

interactions) versus Introversion (being energized by
private time and reflection)

ii. Sensing (preferring clear and concrete facts and data)

versus Intuition (preferring hunches and speculations
based on theory and imagination)

iii. Thinking (approaching decisions with logic and critical

analysis) versus Feeling (approaching decisions with an
emphasis on others’ needs and feelings)

iv. Judging (approaching tasks by planning and setting

goals) versus Perceiving (preferring to have flexibility and
spontaneity when performing tasks)

2. Interests

a. Holland’s RIASEC Model

i. People are characterized by six different personality

types

a.) Realistic: Enjoy practical, hands-on, real-word tasks.

Tend to be frank, practical, determined, and rugged.

b.) Investigative: Enjoy abstract, analytical, theory-

oriented tasks. Tend to be analytical, intellectual,
reserved, and scholarly.

9-9
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

c.) Artistic: Enjoy entertaining and fascinating others

using imagination. Tend to be original, independent,
impulsive, and creative.

d.) Social: Enjoy helping, serving, or assisting others.

Tend to be helpful, inspiring, informative, and
empathic.

e.) Enterprising: Enjoy persuading, leading, or

outperforming others. Tend to be energetic, sociable,
ambitious, and risk-taking.

f.) Conventional: Enjoy organizing, counting, or

regulating people or things. Tend to be careful,
conservative, self-controlled, and structured.

C. Cultural Values

1. Culture is the shared values, beliefs, motives, identities, and

interpretations that result from common experiences of
members of a society and are transmitted across generations.
Most cross-cultural research focuses on shared cultural values,
which come to reflect the way things should be done in a given
society.

2. Hofstede’s taxonomy of cultural values

a. Individualism-Collectivism
b. Power Distance
c. Uncertainty Avoidance
d. Masculinity-Femininity
e. Short-Term vs. Long-Term Orientation

i. U.S. citizens tend to be high on individualism, low on

power distance, low on uncertainty avoidance, high on
masculinity, and high on short-term orientation

Asset Gallery (International Management & OB/Group

Exercises: Hofstede’s Model of National Culture. This group
exercise asks one U.S. student and three students from
different cultures to fill out a short, four-question assessment of
Hofstede’s values. The exercise also provides rankings of fifty
different countries on those same values. The exercise asks the
four student volunteers to compare their power distance,
individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance to their
relevant country norms. Discussion should focus on whether the

9-10
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

students should be expected to closely adhere to their national

profile, or whether it makes sense for them to be different than
those profiles.

3. Project GLOBE’s taxonomy of cultural values

a. Includes many of the same dimensions as Hofstede’s work,

including power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and
collectivism. Also includes the following dimensions:
b. Gender egalitarianism
c. Assertiveness
d. Future Orientation
e. Performance Orientation
f. Humane Orientation

i. U.S. citizens are described as Anglo in the GLOBE

formulation, and should tend to score near the middle on
most of the dimensions

4. The bulk of the cross-cultural research in OB has focused on

collectivism, showing that highly collective individuals tend to
exhibit better task performance and more citizenship behavior
when working in team settings, relative to individualists. They
also tend to feel higher levels of affective and normative
commitment than individualists.

5. Differences in cultural values create differences in reaction to

change, conflict management styles, negotiation approaches,
and reward preferences

Asset Gallery (International Management & OB/Hot Seat:

Cultural Differences: Let’s Break a Deal. This Hot Seat
feature shows a U.S. manager struggling to seal a negotiation
with a manager from Japan. The conversation reveals
differences in communication styles and differences in the
importance of rapport and familiarity.

a. Differences in cultural values can be problematic if

employees are high in ethnocentricism (viewing one’s culture
as right and other cultures as wrong)

OB Internationally. This box explains a multicultural

personality tool that can be used to determine how likely
people are to be successful in expatriate assignments. Ask
students to raise their hands if they believe they would score
highly on the five dimensions described in the box. Are those

9-11
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

students drawn to international study or assignments, or

have they spent a significant amount of time traveling
internationally? Then ask students to volunteer if they
believe they are low on most of the dimensions described in
the box. If those students have been abroad, did they find
the experience to be stressful or uncomfortable? You might
also explore whether the students presumed standing on the
five dimensions is predicted by their openness score for the
OB Assessments box.

D. Summary: How Can We Describe What Employees Are Like?

(Figure 9-7)

III. How Important Are Personality and Cultural Values?

A. Conscientiousness is linked to performance across wide spectrum

of jobs

1. Conscientiousness drives “typical performance” or day to day

performance, while ability drives “maximum performance” or the
person’s best efforts

2. Conscientious employees are more likely to engage in

citizenship behaviors

3. Conscientious employees are less likely to engage in

counterproductive behaviors

4. Conscientious employees are more committed to the

organization

B. The concept of situational strength says that personality variables

tend to be more significant drivers of behavior in weak situations
than in strong situations

C. The concept of trait activation says that situations can provide clues
that trigger the expression of a given trait

OB at the Bookstore: StrengthsFinder 2.0. This sequel to “Now

Discover Your Strengths” reviews 34 different “talent themes” and
talks about how these themes can impact a person’s success on
any given job. Many of the themes are closely related to the Big
Five. The central thesis of the book is that people will be more
successful if they “play to their strengths” as opposed to focusing
on trying to improve their weaknesses. You might ask for a
volunteer to take the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment (you can

9-12
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

usually buy the book for around $10 on Amazon, and the book
includes an access code). One nice aspect of the book is that you
are given detailed feedback on only your top 5 talent themes (thus
the feedback is not giving you any kind of negative criticism). If any
students have taken the test, ask them if their top 5 match their
standing on the Big Five assessment. For example, if they scored
high on conscientiousness, then their top 5 should include at least
one of the following: achiever, arranger, deliberative, focus, or
responsibility.

IV. Application: Personality Tests

A. Many organizations today are using paper and pencil personality

tests to determine whether or not to hire employees

1. Integrity tests focus on a predisposition to engage in theft and

counterproductive behaviors

a. Clear purpose tests ask straightforward questions about

attitudes toward dishonesty, etc.

b. Veiled purpose tests assess more general personality

characteristics that might be associated with dishonesty

c. Integrity tests have a moderately strong, negative correlation

with counterproductive behaviors such as theft, and are
more strongly related to job performance than
conscientiousness scores

d. Because everyone fakes their scores to some degree

(answers questions in a socially acceptable way)
correlations between integrity tests and outcomes like theft
or other counterproductive behaviors are relatively
unaffected

Try This! Ask students if any of them had filled out a

personality test to apply for a job. Then ask them to recount
how they approached the test. Did they understand on some
level what the “right” answers were? If so, did they give the
exact best “right answer” on each and every question? For
example, if a 5 was always the best answer, did they give
nothing but 5’s on the test? Chances are students will report
that they worried about answering the best way every time,
so their answers wound up having a grain of truth, even if
the exaggerated them in a socially desirable fashion.

9-13
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

9.1 Assume that you applied for a job and were asked to take a
personality test, like the one offered by Kronos. How would you
react? Would you view the organization with which you were
applying in a more or less favorable light? Why?

Answers to this question will vary. Some will view the organization
positively, viewing any form of data collection as in the
organization’s best interests. Others will maintain that there is no
way personality tests could work, despite what the chapter says.
Still others will agree they may work, but be uncomfortable with the
practice on some level, perhaps on privacy grounds.

9.2 Research on genetic influences on personality suggests that more

than half of the variation in personality is due to nurture—to life
experiences. What life experiences could make someone more
conscientious? More agreeable? More neurotic? More extraverted?
More open to new experiences?

All of these traits could become more pronounced if exhibition of

the trait was rewarded. For example, a powerful reward for all
young children is getting the attention of their parents. If the
parents pay attention to the child when he or she completes a work
project, the child is likely to grow up to be conscientious. If the
parents pay attention to the child when the child complies with their
wishes, the child is likely to become agreeable. And if the parents
pay attention to the child for acting nervous or anxious, the child is
likely to become neurotic.

9.3 Consider the personality dimensions included in the Myers-Briggs

Type Inventory and the RIASEC model. If you had to “slot” those
dimensions into the Big Five, would you be able to? Which
dimensions don’t seem to fit?

While some dimensions are comparable (for example, extraversion

on the Big Five and extraversion/introversion on the Myers-Briggs),
for the most part, the tests categorize personality in different ways.
The Myers-Briggs focuses on how people process information –
thinking/feeling, for example is not comparable to anything in the
Big Five. The Holland RIASEC model is designed to identify career
interests – again, artistic people may have a variety of personality
profiles on the Big Five.

9.4 Consider the profile of the United States on Hofstede’s cultural

values, as shown in Table 9-3 . Do you personally feel like you fit
the United States profile, or do your values differ in some respects?

9-14
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

If you served as an expatriate, meaning you were working in

another country, which cultural value differences would be most
difficult for you to deal with?

This answer will differ from student to student. Many cultural values
vary as much within cultures as they do between cultures, so it is
entirely possible that a U.S. citizen could have a profile opposite to
the U.S. as far as Table 9-3 goes.

9.5 If you owned your own business and had a problem with employee
theft, would you use an integrity test? Why or why not?

Again, this answer may vary. What most students could agree on,
however, is to begin gathering integrity test data for several
months, without using the scores to hire. Then, once enough data
has been gathered and enough time has passed, scores could be
accessed to see if they would have been predictive of incidents of
counterproductive behavior.

CASE: PANDA EXPRESS

Questions:

9.1 Does it make business sense for a CEO to prioritize self-

improvement on the part of his employees? Does it make more
sense in some industries or types of businesses than others?

Certainly it would benefit any business for employees to improve

themselves in some way. The degree of benefit would depend on
how “business-relevant” the particular improvements happened to
be. In terms of the industry, one key factor centers on the typical
tenure of employees. In industries with more churn, or with more
seasonal or temporary employees, attending to self-improvement
seems to make less sense.

9.2 Do you find it appropriate for companies to ask about the books that
applicants have read, or to encourage employees to attend self-
improvement seminars that could be psychologically and
emotionally intense? Why or why not?

Students will vary in their reactions to such practices. Some will find
it an invasion of privacy, or a case where an employer is
“overstepping its bounds” into an employee’s personal life. Others
might find it laudable that an organization would view an employee
in personal terms--that they are “more than a number”, and that
they even care about improvement efforts.

9-15
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

9.3 From the brief descriptions offered, what personality traits (or
cultural values) seem to be reflected in Covey’s seven habits, and
in the content included in Landmark’s seminars? Do those traits or
values seem important in a business like Panda Express’s?

Many of the seven habits center on (or are facilitated by)

conscientiousness, including “be proactive,” “begin with the end in
mind,” “put first things first,” and “sharpen the saw.” As for
Landmark, many of the topics seem to focus on engendering low
levels of neuroticism. Thus, Panda seems to be targeting traits that
underlie the two most predictive members of the Big Five.

BONUS CASE: KRONOS (from 2nd ed)

Have you ever heard of a company called Kronos? No? Well, surely
you’ve heard of the following companies: Best Buy, Blockbuster, Target,
Toys “R” Us, Marriott, Bennigan’s, Universal Studios, Sports Authority,
CVS Pharmacy, and The Fresh Market. All of those companies have one
thing in common: They use the personality tests offered by Kronos, a
workforce management software and services provider headquartered in
Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Applicants who apply for hourly positions at
those companies are asked to fill out a personality test at a computer
kiosk as part of their application. During the test, they indicate their degree
of agreement with statements like:

• You do things carefully so you don’t make mistakes.

• You can easily cheer up and forget a problem.
• You don’t act polite when you don’t want to.
• You’d rather blend into the crowd than stand out.

The test includes 50 such statements, designed to assess personality

traits relevant to job performance. Ten minutes after the applicant
completes the test at the kiosk, the hiring manager receives an e-mailed
or faxed report from Kronos. That report identifies the applicant with a
“green light,” “yellow light,” or “red light.” Green lights earn an automatic
follow-up interview, yellow lights require some managerial discretion about
granting that follow-up, and red lights get politely excused from the hiring
process. Kronos’ report even includes some recommended interview
questions that managers can use to delve more deeply into any potential
question marks.

Kronos’ test was originally designed by another company you’ve probably

never heard of: Unicru, based in Beaverton, Oregon. Kronos acquired
Unicru in 2006, giving it the biggest piece of the burgeoning personality
testing industry. To give you some idea of the size of that industry, a
recent survey of Fortune 1000 firms suggests that around one-third of the

9-16
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

firms rely on or plan to implement personality testing. Such tests are

controversial, of course, especially for applicants (and hiring managers)
who are used to the traditional half-hour employment interview. To find out
how controversial, type “Unicru personality test” into Google (we got over
15,000 hits, which no doubt include a fair number of postings from
applicants rejected at the companies that use it). For its part, Kronos
encourages organizations to save the data from its personality test for
several years. That way, organizations can make up their own minds
about whether the scores seem to relate to performance and commitment
on the job.

Before acquiring Unicru, Kronos had specialized in other segments of the

human resources technology field, such as time-and-attendance
applications and payroll systems. Its other products are relatively
uncontroversial, but the Unicru acquisition has thrust Kronos into a
vigorous debate about ethics in hiring for the first time. Unicru executives
point to the high costs of new-hire turnover as an important reason for
using personality tests. Indeed, Unicru’s CEO, Chris Marsh, even cites a
value of testing for the applicant, noting that matching personality traits to
job requirements is “not good just for the company, that’s good for the
employee.” The company acknowledges, however, that the test does
result in some “false positives”—applicants who would have turned out to
be good employees but got flagged on the test anyway. Of course, “false
positives” occur with any hiring method. Traditional employment
interviews, often executed by untrained employees with little thought given
to the questions, may overlook effective employees because of interviewer
bias, applicant nervousness, or random events that alter the complexion of
the interview.

Ironically, the economic downturn may wind up boosting Kronos’ business.

As unemployment rises, the number of applications for open positions
goes up, as does the time needed to process all those applications. At the
same time, the number of employees available to handle staffing duties is
also lower, as organizations downsize to grow as lean as possible.
Kronos’ personality tests may therefore be seen as a more efficient, not
just a more valid, screening option. Mike Roemer, chief operations officer
of Blockbuster, points out the efficiency gains that personality testing can
offer, noting, “We’ve taken a two-week hiring process and brought it down
to 72 hours. Given that we hire, on average, one employee per store per
month—and we have about 4300 company owned stores in the United
States—this is a huge improvement.” Dennis Hannah, a Blockbuster store
manager, also considers the recommended interview questions another
benefit of the Kronos system, noting, “Having a guide for the interview
phase takes away one-third of the time that I have to spend preparing for
an interview.”

9-17
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Frauenheim, E. “The (Would-Be) King of HR Software.” Workforce

Management, August 14, 2006. pp. 34–39; Frauenheim, E. “Unicru Beefs
Up Data in Latest Screening Tool.” Workforce Management, March 13,
2006, pp. 9–10; Overholt, A. “True or False: You’re Hiring the Right
People.” Fast Company, January, 2002, p. 110; and Dixon, P.
“Employment Application Kiosks and Sites. Excerpted from the 2003 Job
Search Privacy Study: Job Searching in the Networked Environment:
Consumer Privacy Benchmarks.” World Privacy Forum, November 11,
2003, http://www.worldprivacyforum.org (February 24, 2006). Gellar, A.
“Hiring by Computer.”
http://jobboomcc.canoe.ca/News/2004/06/09/1225576-sun.html (February
24, 2006). Piotrowski, C., and T. Armstrong. “Current Recruitment and
Selection Practices: A National Survey of Fortune 1000 Firms.” North
American Journal of Psychology 8 (2006), pp. 489–96. Rafter, M.V.
“Assessment Providers Scoring Well.” Workforce Management, January
19, 2009, pp. 24–25.

Questions

9.1 Assume you ran a Blockbuster store and you didn’t use the Kronos
personality test. What kinds of interview questions would you ask
potential hires?

Most customer service jobs demand high levels of both

conscientiousness and agreeableness. Thus, interview questions
that focus on those traits would make sense. Such questions could
focus on past behaviors or could pose hypothetical scenarios (e.g.,
How would you react if you saw a customer acting rudely toward
one of your coworkers). Interview questions could also focus on
past experience in customer service jobs, especially experiences
dealing with difficult customers.

9.2 If you did have access to their Big Five scores, what particular
profile would you look for when deciding who to hire at
Blockbuster? Would MBTI or RIASEC data seem valuable to you?

Aside from conscientiousness and agreeableness, Blockbuster

might look for high levels of extraversion and low levels of
neuroticism, in order to identify employees who will project positive
emotions in front of customers. High levels of openness might also
be valuable, given that curious, creative, and sophisticated
employees might be drawn to a wider variety of movies, thereby
having more knowledge to share with customers. The MBTI seems
less relevant to the kind of profile one would want in a Blockbuster
employee. As for RIASEC, employees who are high in artistic or
social interests would seem to be effective in such jobs.

9-18
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

9.3 Now assume you were granted access to the Kronos personality
test, but you were skeptical of its usefulness. What could you do to
“test drive” the system to examine its effectiveness in your own
store?

As noted in the last Discussion Question, the best thing to do would

be to gather integrity test data for several months, without using the
scores to hire. Then, once enough data had been gathered and
enough time had passed, scores could be accessed to see if they
would have been predictive of incidents of theft or other such
behaviors.

BUSINESSWEEK CASE: SCOTT FORSTALL, THE SORCERER’S

APPRENTICE AT APPLE

by Adam Satariano, Peter Burrows, and Brad Stone, Bloomberg

BusinessWeek, October 17-23, 2011, pp. 78-84.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-
10122011.html

The deteriorating health of Steve Jobs loomed over Apple’s (AAPL) Oct. 4
press event at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Apple
wanted the day to be all about its new iPhone 4S, but the absence of the
company’s charismatic co-founder was palpable. On the far right of the
jam-packed theater’s front row was an empty chair, its back covered by a
black cloth with “reserved” written in bright, white letters—possibly a subtle
tribute to the ailing icon. Tim Cook, the company’s new chief executive
officer, took the stage first to kick off the 90-minute show, but he spoke
slowly and deliberately, and perhaps, in hindsight, with a touch of
melancholy. He didn’t mention Jobs once. Neither did Phil Schiller, Apple’s
longtime marketing chief, who pulled the curtain off the new iPhone, or
Eddy Cue, head of Internet software and services, who rolled out a new
Web storage system, iCloud. The executives knew the situation was grim.
Jobs passed away at 3 p.m. the following day, kicking off a wave of
reflection and adulation that continues even now.

The executive who summoned the most energy at the press conference
was a boyish-looking senior vice-president named Scott Forstall, who
reviewed the features of the new iPhone operating system. Toward the
end of the event he returned to the stage to introduce the device’s surreal
digital assistant, Siri. “Who are you?” he asked his iPhone. “I am a humble
personal assistant,” the device replied, bringing the biggest laugh of the
otherwise low-key morning. Forstall then showed off his Jobsian knack for
ungrammatical hyperbole. “That is absolutely blow-away,” he said.

9-19
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

With the death of Jobs at age 56, Forstall has now become an even more
important and visible member of Apple’s leadership team. As the person in
charge of Apple’s mobile software division, he oversees the iOS operating
system, which runs the iPhone and iPad, devices that account for 70
percent of Apple’s revenues. At 42 he’s the youngest senior executive at
Apple. He may also be the best remaining proxy for the voice of Steve
Jobs, the person most likely to channel the departed co-founder’s exacting
vision for how technology should work. “He was as close to Steve as
anybody at the company,” says Andy Miller, who headed Apple’s fledgling
iAd group before leaving the company this summer. “When he says stuff,
people listen.”

Forstall, who went to work for Jobs right out of college, is one of the key
architects of Apple’s current success. In less than five years, iOS—the
latest version, iOS 5, ships this week—has become one of the most
valuable corporate assets on earth. His name is on about 50 Apple
patents that cover everything from how application icons are laid out on
the iPhone screen to the method of turning off a device with a finger
swipe. On a crucial 2009 patent for a touchscreen device controlled by
finger commands, “Forstall, Scott” is listed second, right after “Jobs,
Steven P.”

In many ways, Forstall is a mini-Steve. He’s a hard-driving manager who

obsesses over every detail. He has Jobs’s knack for translating technical,
feature-set jargon into plain English. He’s known to have a taste for the
Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG, in silver, the same car Jobs drove, and even
has a signature on-stage costume: black shoes, jeans, and a black
zippered sweater. (He favors Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts for normal
days at the office.)

Forstall is like Steve in one other important way: He can be, in what some
of his co-workers might call an understatement, a polarizing figure. He’s
won the intense loyalty and allegiance of many of his underlings, and his
engineers are among the hardest workers at the company. At the same
time, according to several former Apple employees, a number of high-
ranking executives have left the company because they found working
with Forstall so difficult. That sentiment, it seems, has not been limited to
fellow executives. One former member of the iOS team, a senior engineer,
describes leaving Apple after growing tired of working with Forstall and
hearing his common refrain: “Steve wouldn’t like that.” Similarly frustrated
engineers from Forstall’s group have been hired by other Silicon Valley
companies, according to one CEO. (Forstall and Apple declined several
requests to comment; Steve Dowling, a company spokesman, says Apple
does not cooperate on media profiles of its top executives.)

9-20
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Some former associates of Forstall, none of whom would comment on the

record for fear of alienating Apple, say he routinely takes credit for
collaborative successes, deflects blame for mistakes, and is maddeningly
political. They say he has such a fraught relationship with other members
of the executive team—including lead designer Jony Ive and Mac
hardware chief Bob Mansfield—that they avoid meetings with him unless
Tim Cook is present.

Office politics are nothing unusual in Corporate America, nor are

ambitious and divisive managers. Even if Forstall is controversial, he may
just be what Apple needs now that Jobs is gone—a detail-oriented
obsessive who gets things done, egos be damned. “I once referred to
Scott as Apple’s chief a–hole,” says former Apple software engineer Mike
Lee, who left the company in 2010. “And I didn’t mean it as a criticism. I
meant it as a compliment. You could say the same thing about Steve
Jobs.”

Yet part of what’s made Apple such a spectacular success has been the
ability of its management team to drive toward a common goal. Whatever
the internal debates, the company has been a disciplined, almost
monolithic agent of innovation whose executives fell in line with their
leader.

Apple now confronts a whole set of new challenges if it is to continue its

epic success into the post-Jobs era. Without its Decider-in-Chief, the
company must fundamentally change the way it works. At weekly Monday
meetings, Apple executives disagreed about matters all the time, but could
count on Jobs to make the final call. Its board of directors must find a new
chairman and take a more assertive role guiding the company. And Cook
must ensure there isn’t an exodus of those in the company’s top ranks, all
of whom are extravagantly wealthy and were loyal to Jobs.

The controversial and ambitious Forstall may present the greatest

management puzzle. In families that lose a beloved parent, the children
either band together with a shared sense of history and mission—or tear
each other apart over the spoils of the estate. Apple’s executives “have to
learn new roles, but if somebody among them rises up and lords over the
others, they can be resented for being presumptuous, [of trying to]
assume Steve Jobs’s legacy,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate
dean of the Yale University School of Management. “But if they treat it as
a shared legacy, there is a way to keep that spirit alive.”

Forstall’s most recent triumphs are likely bittersweet. Over the last few
years he watched as his biggest champion and mentor slowly lost an
agonizing personal battle, all while products running his software have
helped make Apple the most valuable company in the world. Apple has

9-21
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

sold more than a quarter billion devices running Forstall’s iOS. The iPhone
alone, since its 2007 debut, has generated more than $70 billion in sales,
inspiring a wave of copycat touchscreen phones from Samsung
Electronics, HTC, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Research In Motion
(RIMM), among others. The iPhone 4S, which goes on sale on Oct. 14,
sports a speedy Apple-designed A5 processor and a beefed-up digital
camera. And it operates on both major types of cell networks. On Oct. 10,
Apple announced that more than one million orders for the new iPhone 4S
were placed in a single day, a new iPhone record.

The most significant changes in the device are in Forstall’s upgraded

operating system, iOS 5. The new digital assistant, Siri, listens to voice
requests for things like driving directions and calendar appointments. This
virtual helper completes these tasks, and reports back in a robotic female
voice. The iPhone 4S also makes it easier for users to post on Twitter.
“They’re shifting the focus from hardware to software and services,” says
Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray (PJC), who
predicts Apple will sell 183 million iOS devices in 2012.

In addition to building the iOS group from a tiny skunkworks into an

operation with hundreds of employees, Forstall has pushed deal-shy
Apple toward acquisitions that further enhance his team and influence.
Last year he lobbied to buy Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising
company, and Siri, the startup that provided the technological
underpinnings of the iPhone’s new feature. “He knows what he wants, and
he’s driven to get it,” says AT&T (T) Chief Technology Officer John
Donovan. “He can be relentless about getting it.”

Relentlessness is a virtue, most of the time. Forstall is clearly adept at

motivating his employees. Colleagues say members of the iOS team often
skip Apple’s Friday night beer bashes for coding sessions, and work such
long hours, says Lee, that they have piles of the vouchers that entitle them
to free dinners at the company cafeteria, Caffe Macs. The group seems to
have embraced some of the us-versus-the-rest-of-Apple mentality of
Jobs’s legendary early-1980s Mac development team, which was housed
in a separate building that flew a Jolly Roger flag. “Every iPhone engineer
and iOS engineer I know at Apple has some of that,” says Wil Shipley, an
independent developer who has written software for the Macintosh for
decades. “They will tease me that iOS is crushing Mac in sales.”

Then there’s the other Forstall, the one former colleagues say wielded his
relationship with Jobs as a bludgeon to expand his authority, and sent
other talented execs packing. These include iPod chief Tony Fadell, who
they say left Apple after clashing repeatedly with Forstall, and Jean-Marie
Hullot. The CTO of Apple’s application division until 2005, Hullot,
according to two people familiar with the situation but who weren’t

9-22
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

authorized to speak on the record, left the company in part because he

was unwilling to work with Forstall. Hullot, now CEO of Paris-based photo-
sharing site Fotopedia, declined to comment on why he left Apple other
than to say he was ready to try new things.

Forstall seems to engender one of two completely opposite emotions in

people that have worked closely with him. Many rave that he works
tirelessly, endures constant pressure, and has a comprehensive view of
what’s happening in the industry. Others have a more visceral reaction to
the mere mention of his name. Jon Rubinstein, a former iPod chief who
left for Palm in 2006, chatted amiably at a Silicon Valley party last month,
until Forstall’s name came up. Then he turned away abruptly. “Goodbye!”
he said.

Scott Forstall grew up in middle-class Kitsap County, Wash., second of

three boys born to a registered nurse and an engineer. (Forstall’s older
brother, Bruce, has been a senior software design engineer at Microsoft
(MSFT) for 20 years; imagine the Thanksgiving dinner conversations.)
Friends and classmates recall the Forstall family as one of the first in the
neighborhood to have a PC. In junior high school Scott qualified for a
gifted science and math class that gave him regular time in a classroom
outfitted with Apple IIe’s. “We learned how to program,” says Heather
Brockington, a family friend who has known Forstall and his high school
sweetheart, now wife, Molly, since they were teenagers. “That was very
easy for him. The rest of us found it very hard.”

Forstall entered high school a year early and immersed himself in

competitions of all kind: chess club, National History Day quizzes, and a
contest called “The Knowledge Bowl.” One year his team, the “Babbling
Anglos,” made it to the state finals. “He did not slack on group projects,”
says former classmate Kati Carthum, who has known Forstall since
seventh grade. “He would step up and do the hard work to get it done.”

He graduated as co-valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

(His future wife was the other co-valedictorian.) “His goal is to be a
designer of high-tech electronics equipment,” said an article at the time in
a local newspaper. “Part of what appeals to Scott about that career is the
creative element.”

His classmates marvel at how far he’s come but don’t sound surprised.
Brockington recalls Forstall as a relentless debater—“he’s a bit like a dog
with a bone sometimes”—who loved being on stage. In his senior year,
she says, Forstall played the lead in a high school production of the
Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. “There are two kinds of men,
and only two,” the demon barber of Fleet Street famously sings. “There’s
the one staying put in his proper place and one with his foot in the other

9-23
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

one’s face.” During a rehearsal, Brockington says, Forstall was ill with a
fever but refused to rest or break character. Eventually, he got
lightheaded, tumbled off the stage, and was knocked out cold.

Forstall went on to Stanford University, where he received an

undergraduate degree in symbolic systems, an interdisciplinary
department that combined classes in philosophy, linguistics, and computer
science, and then a master’s degree in computer science. After finishing
at Stanford in 1992, he joined Jobs’s NeXT Computer, where he worked
on the company’s pioneering operating system. When Apple acquired
NeXT in 1996 and Jobs returned to become interim CEO, Forstall was put
to work designing user interfaces for a reinvigorated Macintosh line.

In 2000, Forstall was a leading designer of the Mac’s new user interface,
dubbed Aqua, which included water-themed visual cues such as
translucent icons and reflections. “One of the design goals was when you
saw it, you wanted to lick it,” Jobs said when the concept was introduced.
A few years later, Forstall managed the group that created the highly
regarded Leopard version of the Mac operating system. “He was viewed
as a real talent,” says Fred Anderson, the company’s former chief financial
officer. “He was a rising star.”

During that ascent, Forstall accumulated enemies, particularly during the

long, arduous process of creating the iPhone. Around 2005, Jobs faced a
crucial decision. Should he give the task of developing the device’s
software to the team that built the iPod, which wanted to build a Linux-
based system? Or should he entrust the project to the engineers who had
revitalized the software foundation of the Macintosh? In other words,
should he shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or
enlarge the iPod? Jobs preferred the former option, since he would then
have a mobile operating system he could customize for the many gizmos
then on Apple’s drawing board. Rather than pick an approach right away,
however, Jobs pitted the teams against each other in a bake-off.

Forstall led the Mac-centric approach. He commanded a team of fewer

than 15 engineers who went to work stripping down Apple’s OS X
operating system to see if it would work on a device with considerably less
power and battery life than a regular computer. Leading the other group
was Fadell, who helped create the iPod. Another boy wonder, Fadell in
2005 had become one of Apple’s youngest-ever senior vice-presidents at
36. The competition, according to former Apple employees, turned
explosive, with Fadell and Forstall arguing over talent, resources,
attention, and credit. (Fadell declined to comment for this story.) (After
publication, Fadell submitted a response. His comment can be found at
the end of this story.)

9-24
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Forstall’s team managed to get their shrunken Mac system to work, and
Jobs went with that software approach. From the get-go, Forstall
frustrated Fadell and other executives by raiding top talent and refusing to
show early versions of what would become iOS. (Forstall religiously
abided by Jobs’s demand for secrecy, which was required even among
the company’s own units.) After iOS shipped in the first iPhone in 2007,
Forstall’s position strengthened. Since all Apple devices had to work
seamlessly with the software, hardware executives such as Fadell couldn’t
add new features—a better camera, say, or a larger, Bluetooth-based
add-on display—without support from Forstall’s engineers. If Forstall didn’t
like an idea, the work wouldn’t get done. He also insisted that iPhone
versions of programs like iTunes be developed within his own group. By
2008, Fadell had resigned. According to three people familiar with the
internal politics, tension with Forstall was one important factor.

Steve Jobs had the same effect on some people over the first 10 years of
his career. Then he spent a decade in exile from Apple, creating the also-
ran computer company NeXT and honing skills as a strategist, marketer,
and manager. Forstall may more closely resemble the early Jobs,
scorching the earth behind him while retaining a remarkable ability to
come out ahead.

By the time he was promoted to senior vice-president in 2008, Forstall

was getting a reputation inside Apple as a striver who was better at
managing up than down—that is, making sure his accomplishments were
noticed first, and blaming others for mistakes.

Yet even critics don’t deny his accomplishments or ability to troubleshoot.

Before the introduction of the iPhone, Forstall supported Jobs’s view that
Apple didn’t need to create an ecosystem of third-party developers. Back
then they figured the device would stand out for combining a phone with
an iPod plus a superfast browser. For the most popular activities—
watching YouTube videos, for example—Forstall’s team would simply
partner with market leaders such as Google (GOOG) to create apps built
specifically for the iPhone.

That worldview changed fast, as consumers began tweaking their iPhones

to run unauthorized apps from hundreds of developers inspired by the new
device. Forstall oversaw the creation of a software developer’s kit for
programmers to build iPhone apps as well as an App Store within iTunes.
Forstall’s flexibility impressed even his rivals. “Scott’s a pretty amazing
guy,” says Vic Gundotra, a senior vice-president at Google. “In terms of
running an operating system team, he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

As the iPhone became a key ingredient of Apple’s phenomenal success,

Forstall started getting a lot more visibility. In June 2009, during one of

9-25
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Jobs’s medical absences, he handled a large portion of the keynote at

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. At one point, hamming
it up, he donned a white lab coat, goggles, and noise-canceling
headphones to help inflate a balloon with an iPhone and illustrate an app
designed to make science more fun for kids. The gag flopped; the balloon
failed to inflate and Forstall awkwardly tried to make light of the situation
by attempting to blow it up himself. When Jobs returned to work he
wouldn’t let Forstall live it down. One former executive says that in Apple
meetings after the event, Jobs routinely needled Forstall about “that
science experiment.”

By early 2010, Forstall made it through another screw-up. Before the first
iPhone came out, Jobs had limited the number of prototypes employees
could carry around to a handful, for fear of secrecy breaches. Before the
iPhone 4 went to market, Forstall persuaded Jobs to allow dozens of his
engineers to carry prototypes of the device to better test its network
performance and minimize dropped calls, says a former Apple employee
who was a manager at the time. Sure enough, in March an iOS engineer
left his preproduction iPhone 4 (camouflaged in a special shell designed to
make it look like an iPhone 3GS) on a bar stool at the Gourmet Haus
Staudt, a German beer hall in Redwood City, Calif. The device ended up
in the hands of the technology blog Gizmodo.

After the iPhone 4 went on sale, the issue of unreliable connectivity

blossomed into “Antennagate.” Customers complained that the phone
dropped calls when held a certain way. At a press conference Apple held
in July to minimize the fallout, a reporter asked about media reports that
the problem had originated in the device’s communication software.
Forstall took the microphone and declared there was no software glitch,
and such claims were “patently false.” (The same former Apple manager
familiar with the Gizmodo affair, as well as an executive at another
company with close ties to Apple, says that iPhone software did in fact
contribute to the problem.)

In any case, Forstall seems to have sailed through that controversy

unscathed. And Apple has since given him additional authority over quality
assurance and testing—reflecting the company’s belief that his team’s
software will almost surely be the foundation for future Apple products,
such as an oft-rumored flat-screen television. But Forstall hardly needs to
stick around. He has sold about 237,000 shares worth $42.5 million over
the past decade, according to regulatory filings. Brian Marshall, an analyst
at ISI Group, says that he would consider downgrading Apple stock if
Forstall were to leave.

Here’s another reason it’s so critical to keep him: He’s the high priest of
the iOS developer community, a guru to the thousands of restless,

9-26
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

advantage-seeking startups and programmers who build apps, and who

are also being wooed by Google, steward of the Android operating
system. Over the past two years these developers have received more
than $3 billion from Apple for sales of their applications at Apple’s App
Store.

Since Forstall controls the tools for building those programs, these folks
hang on his every word. At a meeting this summer arranged by venture
capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Forstall fielded questions
from several major developers who talked about their experience building
apps for Apple devices. They asked for a “fast lane” so their programs
would be approved more quickly for the App Store; Forstall said that would
be unfair to other developers and would invite them to cut corners once
they qualified. He was also asked about a technology called near field
communication that would allow the iPhone to be used as a credit card.
Forstall turned the question around: How would developers use NFC, and
what would consumers get out of it?

Responses like that made an impression on the gathering. “When you

make a statement, he asks questions back to drill down to see if it’s a
problem that happens for other developers,” says Cyriac Roeding, CEO
and co-founder of Shopkick, a shopping application. Another thing that
struck his audience: Forstall takes detailed notes without pen, paper, or
laptop. “He listens to you and he starts typing on his iPhone,” says Matt
Murphy, a partner at Kleiner Perkins and the manager of a fund at the firm
that invests in iOS developers. “You’re thinking he’s not listening and
sending a text message, then you realize he’s taking notes.”

Developers do have some complaints. One is that decisions requiring any

kind of collaboration between Apple’s hardware and software units often
must be elevated to the CEO’s office and take too long to resolve. Those
delays speak to the tensions within the different divisions of Apple, which
were largely hidden from sight during the tenure of the secrecy-obsessed
Jobs.

By all accounts, Jobs and Forstall had a close collaboration. Colleagues

say Forstall would meet with Jobs frequently to show him the latest
features for the iPhone and iPad, and return to his office with lists of things
to change. Brockington, his longtime pal from childhood, recalls visiting
the Forstall family last year only to find Forstall lying on his hammock on a
Sunday, talking to Jobs on the phone. It’s well-known that Jobs loved to
hang out in Jony Ive’s hardware design lab, looking over hardware.
Another favorite spot was the user interface lab run by Forstall, located a
floor above.

9-27
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Jobs clearly took some pride in the young executive. “If the hardware is
the brain and the sinew of our products, the software is their soul,” he said
to a large audience at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
He was referring in large part to Forstall’s work. Later that morning, as
Jobs walked back on stage after Forstall had spoken about the latest
version of iOS, he said to his protégé, “Good job.” Then Jobs faced the
community of Apple loyalists for what would be the last time. “You like
everything so far?” he asked. “Well, I’ll try not to blow it.”

Fadell’s Statement
“I inherited the competitive iPhone OS project from Jon Rubenstein and
Steve Sakoman when they left Apple. I quickly shuttered the project after
assessing that a modified Mac OS was the right platform to build the
iPhone upon. It was clear that to create the best smartphone product
possible, we needed to leverage the decades of technology, tools and
resources invested in Mac OS while avoiding the unnecessary competition
of dueling projects.”

Questions:

9.1 Just based on the information given in this article, how would you
characterize Scott Forstall’s Big Five profile? From what you know
of him, how does that profile compare to Steve Jobs, the founder
and long-time CEO of the company?

Forstall seems to possess high conscientiousness, low

agreeableness, high neuroticism, high openness, and high
extraversion. That particular trait profile seems to closely mirror the
profile of Steve Jobs.

9.2 How does that profile likely shape Forstall’s effectiveness in his role
at Apple?

In some respects, his profile is vital in a role that relies so heavily

on creativity, innovation, and “envelope pushing.” His openness is
critical to his creativity, and the ability to be harsh and critical of
sub-par efforts rests on his low agreeableness. His ability to
influence the members of his team, and the other executives at
Apple, are facilitated by both his conscientiousness and his
extraversion. However, Forstall’s neuroticism--much like Jobs in his
younger days--seems to undercut the effectiveness of his many
strengths and talents.

EXERCISE: GUESSING PERSONALITY PROFILES

Instructions:

9-28
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Have the students write their Big Five scores on a piece of paper in the
format described. Impress upon students to use very plain paper so that
the type of paper is not a giveaway (you may even want to bring plain
copy paper). Also impress upon them to disguise their handwriting,
making it as gender neutral as possible.

Questions:

Most groups should be able to correctly identify 2-3 group members,

though early bad guesses will impact that batting average significantly.
Accuracy should be higher for groups that are more familiar, or when the
exercise is completed later in the term rather than earlier. Extraversion is
the natural trait to rely on first, as its most visible in typical interactions.
Given the school setting, students may use conscientiousness next,
especially if they’ve had enough time to observe study habits, classroom
habits, and grades on class assignments or exams. Other traits, such as
openness, neuroticism, or agreeableness, may only be diagnostic with
extremely high or low scores.

OMITTED TOPICS

The field of organizational behavior is extremely broad and different

textbooks focus on different aspects of the field. A brief outline of topics
that are not covered in this text, but which the professor might want to
include in his or her lecture, is included below. In cases where these
topics are covered in other chapters in the book, we note those chapters.
In cases where they are omitted entirely, we provide some references for
further reading.

• Self-Esteem – The degree to which individuals believe that they are

worthwhile as people. Self-esteem tends to have a strong negative
correlation with neuroticism, as highly neurotic people tend to also
have lower levels of self-esteem. For more on this, see:

Rosenberg, M., C. Schooler, C. Schoenback, F. Rosenberg.

“Global self-esteem and specific self-esteem: Different
concepts, different outcomes.” American Sociological
Review 60 (1995), pp. 141-156.

• Self-Monitoring – A personality trait reflecting the tendency to

change one’s behavior to suit the needs of a given situation. High
self-monitors are more likely to engage in impression management
than low self-monitors. For more on this, see:

9-29
Chapter 09 - Personality and Cultural Values

Snyder, M. Public appearance/private realities: The

psychology of self-monitoring. San Francisco, CA: Freeman,
1987.

• Emotional Intelligence – Some scholars suggest that the skills

grouped under the emotional intelligence umbrella (self awareness,
other awareness, emotion regulation, and use of emotion) actually
represent a combination of Big Five dimensions, such as high
conscientiousness, low neuroticism, and high agreeableness.
Emotional intelligence is included in our discussion of ability in
Chapter 10.

• Machiavellianism – A personality trait reflecting the tendency to

manipulate others in order to fulfill one’s own self-interests.
Individuals high on this trait act in accordance with the philosopher
Niccolo Machiavelli, who laid out a strategy for seizing power in his
book The Prince. For more on this, see:

Christie, R.; F.L. Gies. Studies in Machiavellianism. New

York: Academic Press, 1970.

• Type A Behavior Pattern – Individuals who are “Type A” tend to

have competitive, hard-driving, and irritable personalities, as
opposed to individuals who are “Type B.” The Type A Behavior
Pattern primarily represents a combination of high
conscientiousness and high neuroticism and is discussed in the
context of coping with stress in Chapter 5.

9-30