How to Be Skeptical About the Claims of Human Relations Experts
"Quackery and pseudoscience can be very dangerous, not only in medicine but also in human resources." Harassed and sued, a Belgian HR consultant persevered and produced a great takedown of HR experts.
“It will never happen.” That’s what I would have said about the prospects of my ever writing a dustjacket endorsement for a book by a TED-talking HR consultant before I got to know Patrick Vermeren.
I had never heard of Patrick until he emailed me in July 2017 with a one-line request, “Would like to hear your view on this...”He was puzzled by what he read in Mad in America about treatment with long-term psychotherapy versus antidepressants.
Patrick had found my Mind the Brain blog post while surfing the Internet. He humbly acknowledged that he had no advanced degree, but he asked for references for articles to read. He consumed voraciously everything I provided and asked for more, especially about mindfulness and positive psychology. He mentioned that he was in awe of Nick Brown and I encouraged him to contact Nick directly. The two got into regular, chatty email contact, like the two ordinary human beings that they were, with no pretentions otherwise.
We then negotiated two half da…