Sometimes things happen that are so typical and so representative of a problem that you have to discuss it. I am referring to the case of Paul Flowers in the UK. For my international readers who are not familiar with this, the basic facts of the case are that a man named Paul Flowers was appointed Chairman of the Co-operative Bank in the UK. Flowers attracted attention in two ways last year. The Co-operative Bank is a well known ‘ethical’ bank in the UK and was led (by Mr Flores and the Board) to require a £ 1.5B bailout (and thus become a minority shareholder in its own right, only owning 30%) when it was dramatically and financially overextended. Additionally, Mr. Flowers was caught in a newspaper “sting” and was found to be using illegal drugs extensively.

If this weren’t enough, two more things: when Parliament came to investigate what happened through its Treasury committee, it found that Mr. Flowers had no qualifications or experience to be a banker and when asked directly what his estimate of the bankroll was. size of the Bank’s assets. Flowers answered £ 3 billion when it actually turned out to be £ 47 billion, a pretty incredible discrepancy for someone at the top. But worse, we learn from Rodney Baker-Bates, the former vice president of the bank, who voted against and then resigned over the bank’s disastrous efforts to overreach (the acquisition of 630 branches of Lloyd’s Banking Group), that the appointment of the Mr. the basis that “he did well in psychometric tests”! As Treasury committee chair Andrew Tyrie observed: Flowers proved to be “psychologically unbalanced but psychometrically brilliant.”

Think about it: be “psychologically unbalanced but psychometrically brilliant” and consider how companies trust this tool, and indeed how HR talks about its validity (as there are so many flavors). The next time you hear an HR manager or other manager talk about the validity of psychometry, remember to point out: So if I understand what you are saying about validity, then who we are looking to appoint may be someone who is ” psychologically unbalanced but psychometrically brilliant “? Beware of the withering contempt with which you greet each other. But why not?

The point is, this is not likely to be an isolated case. Banks are famous for using psychometrics and spending a fortune on them, and to what end? We know from the financial crisis all about ‘Fred the Shred’ and the other lesser known psychopaths and ego maniacs who captained their ships, hideously, during that turbulent period. And without a doubt, they were named on the same basis. In fact, Sir David Walker, now president of Barclays, recommends that institutions use these “objective” methods to screen candidates. Frankly, if that’s what objectivity does, wouldn’t subjectivity be better?

Of course, the psychometric industry has already raced to limit the damage from this damaging disclosure. Dr. Mark Parkinson, a business psychologist who works in high-level recruiting in the city, told the Financial Times that “responsible employers would never use psychometric testing in isolation … one would expect due diligence.” Well, I guess you would say that, right? Maybe common sense even precedes due diligence! What we have with this psychometry is fundamentally a lazy form of stereotyping. We pigeonhole people and then imagine that we know everything there is to know about them. The tests produce a kind of static result. As long as we realize that the result is a model, it is a map (and not the territory, not the “thing” or the “person”) then everything is fine. But that is almost beyond human capacity; the ability of busy people with jobs to do, reputations to establish, and easy knowledge, such as psychometric knowledge, to demonstrate.

That is why I also have a shaft to polish. That is, it would be much more difficult to appoint Mr. Flowers after completing a self-perception inventory, than a psychometrician. Within the tests of the type of self-perception is the notion of change and subjectivity, since, after all, they are what is called ipsative: they are comparing you with yourself! What could be more subjective? But the brilliance of this is that there is no stereotypical profile, and even if there is, it can change! Therefore, the self-perception inventory is short-lived and this is good when considering appointments; Think about it, they only allow US presidents to be in office for two terms. Why could that be? We need to think about now and context if we want to make sense of a profile and its relevance to a post.

The good news is that ‘Psychometric Flowers’ points to the need for a new dawn in the tools we need to evaluate candidates, and there are many self-perception inventories waiting behind the scenes, their time is about to dawn.