When I was younger, I wanted to be a ninja. I remember being influenced by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the fact that ninjas had cool swords and fancy throwing stars and could sneak about the place without anyone knowing they were there. Little did I realise that when I grew up I would be a ninja of sorts.
Because it turns out, being an organisational or work psychologist is strangely similar to being a ninja. We are highly trained, have efficient and useful tools at our disposal… and hardly anyone knows we’re here.
The other day a student came to talk to me about doing a Masters in Organisational Psychology and said he’d only just realised that organisational psychology even existed. This isn’t an unusual occurrence either. When people ask what I do (and I say work psychology rather than ninja), I usually get the reaction of “I didn’t even know that was a thing!” quickly followed by “You should come and sort out my work!” or “You’d have plenty to study in my company!”.
People can instantly see how it would be useful to have psychologists helping to improve work and it’s a great opportunity for those of us who work in the field to show how we can help. It seems everyone knows about psychology but few people seem to know how to use it to understand and improve our workplaces. As we start a new year, it’s my hope that we can keep raising the profile of work psychology until everyone knows we're here.