Corporate America is ripe for scams, half-baked twaddle masquerading as insightful business advice, and dressed-up children’s books about misplaced cheese. One needs only to peruse the Business section of a local bookstore to see the never-ending parade of schemes. It’s the economic version of the Self-Help section, and there’s no shortage of self-promoting business “mavericks” hawking their unique method to improve profits and climb the corporate ladder to success. Not all of them are scams, of course, but a healthy skepticism is especially important in the business world. (For an interesting look at business fads, see Joel Best’s book Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads.) 

Enter Personalysis, which “since 1975 has worked with progressive, leading, and emerging companies to develop leadership capacity, improve communication, and high performance teams” using “a powerful personality-profiling instrument that accurately captures and graphically illustrates the human assets of an organization. Personalysis takes the guesswork out of understanding people and why they do what they do. Using the data provided by our technology, people have a road map to accelerate teamwork.” 

All that sounds great (if a bit vague), but is there any substance behind the buzzwords and corporatespeak? There are a few impressed clients; the program is endorsed by Steven Sample, President of the University of Southern California: “Personalysis is a valuable tool that we have used in a variety of situations here at the University of Southern California. In 2000 we used Personalysis to help our five senior vice presidents and me better understand each other and form a more effective administrative team.” 

According to information provided by the Personalysis Corporation, the company was founded in 1975 by James R. Noland, who has “graduate degrees from Yale University and New York University [and] also worked with the New York Institute for Psychological Research.” He developed the program based largely on ideas of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Abraham Maslow. From questionnaire responses, the program gives advice on communication, cooperation, expectations, and other measures important to the business world. One distinctive feature of the Personalysis report is the Colorgraph, a visual representation of personality traits that somewhat resembles the artwork of Piet Mondrian (see Figure 1). 

A close review of Mr. Vande Voorde’s” Personalysis Summary” reveals information that seems very much like astrology, depending on the “Barnum Effect” (using generalizations that seem specific but apply to everyone) to provide the illusion of personal validity. It includes such comments as, “You need freedom to explore ideas and act,” and “You are frustrated when having to deal with repetitious details or needless bureaucracy.” This is of course in stark contrast to the rest of us, who don’t need freedom to explore ideas, and who enjoy dealing with needless bureaucracy. 

Though the Personalysis literature is heavy on testimonials, it is light on studies supporting its efficacy. The only published review  I could find of Personalysis (Gebart-Eaglemont andLeung, 1995)is quite scathing, noting “there is no clear evidence that test items were generated in a systematic manner…test reports provide test takers with very specific comments about who they are, [yet] the empirical foundation of these specific comments is quite weak. There is no information on how items were developed, and how these items were written to reflect theoretical constructs upon which the test was anchored. Also, there is no information on whether a scientific process was involved in selecting test items, [and] no information given on the characteristics of norms. The technical manual was not comprehensive and informative… the sections on reliability and validity were not written in a clear and concise manner.” 

In other words, it’s not clear how Mr. Noland developed his “scientific management tool that provides a unique assessment” of one’s personality. It may have been created using cutting-edge behavioral science research. Or Noland may have just dreamed it up over a bottle of wine. Either way, it’s a money-maker. The Basic Personalysis workshop costs $6,000, and Advanced training is available for $3,000. For $400 per hour, you can consult with a Personalysis consultant via Web-based videoconferencing. 

The basis for Mr. Noland’s expertise is unclear. Curiously, the “New York Institute for Psychological Research” where Noland claimed to have worked doesn’t seem to exist, and when I contacted the Personalysis Corporation inquiring about Mr. Noland, no one there could provide any further information on his academic background, including the years he allegedly graduated from Yale and NYU. Noland has long since retired and is no longer with the company. A search of the medical literature turned up nothing published by Noland since the 1960s, and little or nothing on the topic of behavioral science, despite the fact that Noland is cited as a “behavioral scientist.” 

As for the signature Colorgraph that is supposedly a visual representation of personality, the reviewers noted, “It is not clear why colors, instead of descriptors that might convey meanings, are used to denote personality traits.” The four-colored diagram seems more of a creative gimmick than anything based in science (“Look, that green rectangle represents my motivation to control things!”). 

The review concludes, “From a scientific perspective, Personalysis is not developed through a vigorous and systematic research process. As this point, there is not sufficient empirical evidence to support the reliability and validity of Personalysis. Test takers should use it cautiously and with reservations.” 

You can find more on me and my work with a search for “Benjamin Radford” (not “Ben Radford”) on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!