Population Distribution Diagrams: Definitions

(Nov 19, 2008)Population Distributions Defined

There’s a pretty length series of discussions about Population Distribution Diagrams (PDDs) in the archives. (There’s also a list of  links at the end of this piece).

In a nutshell, PDDs are graphs that show how a group of people are distributed along the lines of calendar age, tenure within the organization, experience within the industry and so on.  (They used to be called Population Pyramids because that was the normal view of things) On the vertical axis, you have banding by time (five year increments give you a standard span of adult life). On the horizontal axis, one or two variables (Gender is commonly found. That would be 2 variants, male-female.) The graphs are designed to show the impact of time or duration on one aspect.

The basic PDD Simply shows Gender population in age bands. Over time, the ways that population changes are easier to understand using snapshot PDDs. There is a growing consensus that a PDD can help you understand the current health, agility and long term prospects for a culture.

Check out these snapshots of Population Change in Algeria.

You can see that the population of  Algeria begins as a pyramid, develops a youth bulge and then transforms into something other than a pyramid.

Similar things are happening in India, China, Pakistan and much of South Asia. Meanwhile, more developed countries show a different dynamic (notice the narrowing of the base in Italy, Germany and Japan … that’s what a shrinking population looks like…getting older and smaller)

Our companies, non-profits and government organizations can (and should be) viewed in this way. Age distributions  (or tenure/experience) can tell you a lot about a company’s health and circumstances.

Is the culture aging? Is it growing or shrinking? Where is the bulge?

But, what’s more interesting is that the tools can be used to drive a conversation about the ideal shape of the organization. This makes it possible for Workforce development functions to become truly strategic. In my book, “strategic” means “able to have an independent, measurable, positive outcome that supports or drives the core mission. Images of a sought after PD shape can infuse each Staffing transaction with strategic importance.

The goal of strategic relevance is not achievable by a reactive function.

It’s clear that some Population Distribution shapes foster growth and innovation while others retard it. Some are expensive to maintain in the near term; some are unsustainable in the long term.

The project is designed to open a long conversation on workforce sustainability.

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)

(Nov 18, 2008)

The Problem

Hiring is almost always reactive, transactional and shortsighted. Even the best hiring environments rarely consider the aggregate impact of an individual hire. Relatively few organizations provide guidance beyond platitudes about the strategic meaning of any given position.

Before automation and the various management technologies of the 80s and 90s, service functions within the firm were all like this. Priorities were set by the relative political importance of the customer rather than the strategic importance to the operation. The heaviest weight always won the argument.

A large part of the problem has been the lack of real strategic direction for the recruiting and staffing functions. "We hire the best." is only a little worse than "We hire at the 75% percentile of equivalent salaries." There is simply no current method for articulating the refined choices and impacts of the hiring process on the overall workforce.

As a result, inefficiency is the norm and layoffs (the shedding of unnecessarily accumulated fat) are seen as natural occurrences. When layoffs do come, there is precious little in the way of real guidance. Targets in next years payroll budget or an across the board sweep of 10% simply misunderstand the impact of the decision.

The big complication is the way that demographics are changing. We no longer live in a world where job seekers are an infinite resource. Even in this difficult economic time, no one will be able to make more babies fast enough.

The "aging of the workforce" is the dawning of a new and permanent situation. In fact, some industries and cities are rapidly dying because they are starved for young people. Consider the steel industry (and plenty of old school manufacturing operations). With a median age in the 50s, high levels of tenure, great camaraderie amongst lifetime friends, it’s virtually impossible to attract and retain 25 to 35 year olds.

These organizations face eroding profits and declining adaptability because they have hired and retained to measures that were always too simplistic. Most will go out of business over the course of the next ten years because they can not attract the right talent for sustained organizational renewal.

And that is never in a job description.

(September 04, 2008) Thanks for patiently wading through the descriptions of Population Pyramids over the past week. I am struggling to make the idea simple enough for popular consumption. I think that population distribution maps have the potential to be very useful tools in the development of Recruiting Strategy, among other things.

Now that we have the fundamentals under our belts, let’s talk about the basic shapes. (If the image isn’t visible, click here to see it in a separate window)

For starters, it looks like there are six types of population distribution:

A. Pyramid
This is how societies have typically looked. The foundation of hierarchical thinking. Lots of young people, not too many elders. India, China and some of Africa still look like this.

B. House
This is the transition state. The population is aging, the elders are getting more elderly. A bulge is coming up from the bottom. This is what the baby boom impact looked like as the boomers entered their 30s.

C. Silo
The “mature” culture. Life expectancy extensions and reduced birthrates level the playing field. There are as many elders as youngsters. Most of the industrialized world looks like this. The world, in general is headed in this direction

D. Fencepost
The young people have left. If the sdilo isn’t managed correctly, all of the opportunity leaves a culture. This results in a declining base for the young and they go elsewhere. The fencepost is either the precursor to the Floating Box or the hourglass. Cleveland (and much of the midwest)

E. Floating Box
There are no young people left. Median age is high, the opportunity for inclusion of the young is absent. Manufacturing, The Metals Industry and the Energy Industries all look like this. This is a fatal condition.

F. Hourglass
Economic renewal has succeeded and the floating box has been avoided. Postwar Europe had this type of distribution.

These fundamental types can be used to diagnose any population…Country, city, industry, region, organization.

Read the Entire Population Distribution Series

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)

(September 03, 2008) Here’s an example of a population pyramid (Canada, 1961). The left side is a bar graph that describes the percentage of men in a given age bracket. The right side describes the distribution of women by age. The term “pyramid” refers to the shape of the diagram.

You can see that the pyramid narrows toward the top. This is because the death rate is higher among older people than among younger people.  

There are also a few bulges and narrower parts in the middle part of the pyramid. For example, there are not as many people in their 20s as in their 30s in Canada in 1961. The people in their 20s in 1961 were born during the Depression, a time of economic hardship in Canada when people were having fewer children.

Read the Entire Population Distribution Series

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)

In 1961, the pyramid had a wide base. In fact, when we add the percentages for the three lowest age groups, we find that 35% of the population was under 15. These are the “baby boomers,” a large group of people born between 1947 and 1966 when the economy was growing and prospering.

For the vast majority of human history, population distributions looked just like this example….Lots of young people, increasingly fewer old people.

Over the past 50 years, things have been really changing. Life expectancy has grown while family size has shrunk. There are many more older people and fewer young. Here are some examples of the kinds of pyramids that are emerging.

 

 Finally, here’s how you use the pyramid to analyze changes in a population.

 

Watch some of these animations. They display the changes in the pyramid in Canada’s provinces

(August 28, 2008) Conversation is a difficult standard to achieve online in a public forum. The crossfire reciprocal shouting model in which each commentator is an advocate for a preexisting point of view is good entertainment. It’s really bad conversation.

There are not many examples of nuanced movement towards a shared understanding of a new idea. There are few, if any (the WeLL is a sometimes exception) real collaborative dialogs. Mostly it’s verbal combat more suited to a courtroom than a living room.

In my email and my personal life, I have actual conversations about actual stuff with actual people. We don’t yell at each other. We don’t take extreme points and refine our extremities. We work together to try to see a picture that can’t be seen by either of us alone.

It’s not that I don’t love the fuss and tumble. It’s just that wrestling with new ideas doesn’t always happen easily in a cauldron. The impulse to defend gets in the way of clarity.

In a good conversation, each partner works hard to make sure that the other understands. The responsibility for the communication rests entirely with each person (That’s 100% plus 100% divided by two equals 100%). Not half responsible, completely responsible.

Read the Entire Population Distribution Series

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to have this sort of relationship with Colin Kingsbury, President of HRMDirect (and an exceptional writer when he writes). Online and off, we have this great conversation. He always pokes holes in my story and my story always gets better as a result. That’s because Colin wants to learn, not fight.

This week, Colin took the time to respond to my blathering about pyramids. I can’t reprint his note for competitive reasons. To summarize, Colin believes that the Recruiting Funnel is a fact of life regardless of the state of the population. He gave a strong example from a new customer (HRMDirect is in the Applicant Tracking System business).

Here’s my response to his note:

As usual, you stretch me.

If the only problem were thin supply, I think your analysis would be perfect. What’s happening, though, is a change in the quality  and depth of the supply. I’m coming to the conclusion that “shortage” is a real misnomer (at least in the US and all of the world except the other top 50 industrialized countries).

Generally, population is growing and will for another generation at least.

But, there are pockets of strangeness. Cleveland, for example, has no young people. There actually are jobs that are better done by young people (as impolitic as that is). You simply can’t do them in Cleveland.

In the steel industry, the recruiting problem boils down to retention issues…They can’t keep the few young people they can get. They have to broaden their definition of what works (just as is the case in your example).

It was probably a mistake to use the recruiting funnel as an example of the pyramid stuff. I’m reaching for an idea that is just at the edges of my thinking. It’s a struggle. Something about the “few at the top, lots at the bottom” perspective has changed. I think it’s really big. I explain it terribly. I am working on simplifying and clarifying what is a powerful but vague concept.

Maybe it’s a question of selectivity and standards. In a time of abundance and unrestrained growth, one could be strict about what was in the pyramid. Today (in some cases but not young men in China) to have a pyramid, standards have to stretch. I’m not sure that’s it either.

 

I really appreciate your notes. You always push me in a positive direction.

Good conversations have real give and take. It’s very hard to do that while shouting.

(August 27, 2008) I am going to stick with the pyramid idea just a little longer. The theme is so embedded in our world view that it shapes the way we see, imagine and execute our possibilities.

The "Recruiting Funnel", where masses of candidates are winnowed down to a select few, is an example of pyramid theory.

The whole notion emerges from the longstanding shape of families and governments: a few old people running things, lots of younger people ‘being run’. It’s mommy, daddy and five kids.

It’s the foundation of hierarchical management.

Large organizations, with their single point (winnowing) authority perpetuate the view that pyramids are essential elements of society.

The reality is that family structure has changed. One or two kids and two parents is not an organization that can be run hierarchically. Combined with technology that is flattening our organizations, we’re in a transition period. The pyramid is built into our perceptual framework and it’s outmoded.

Historically, economic growth depends on a pyramid structure. More people, more work, more jobs, more goods. We have no idea how to engineer growth without an underlying impetus of population expansion.

And that’s just the point.

In all of the industrialized countries except the USA, population is leveling off or declining. That means that what used to be population pyramids are becoming rectangles or "silos". In those economies, the birthrate has fallen below the replacement level. As a result, the population declines while the median age rises.

The pyramid is being replaced.

Read the Entire Population Distribution Series

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)

(August 26, 2008) For the entire history of the human race, with virtually no exceptions. the age distribution of population has had the shape of a pyramid. As people get older, there are fewer of them. The pyramid shape means that there are few old people and lots of young people. The older that people get, the more of them die.

Little more than 100 years ago, people lived to be about 50. The average life expectancy was 47.8. The pyramid had very few old people and lots and lots of young people.

This historic pyramid structure of population influences the way we see and think about lots of things.

• Families have traditionally had fewer old people and lots of young people. The traditional model of parenting is built on the idea of power resting in the hands of an older few.
• Organizations are typically envisioned in this way (tiny leadership group, large workforce).
• Government used to be organized this way.
• Our ideas of excellence (winnowing the exceptional from the mass) has its roots in the pyramid structure.
• Selection processes are always described as an inverted pyramid: the funnel

The pyramid has been the backbone of our communities for so long that we overlook the depth  of its impact on our perception. Consider:

• Pinnacle of achievement
• Reaching the highest point.
• Rise to the top.
• The highest honor
• Climbing the ladder

Surprisingly, important parts of our world no longer resemble a pyramid. While life expectancy was growing, the average number of people in a family has been declining rapidly. Since 1970 the percentage of households containing five or more people has fallen by half. Overall, the average number of people per household decreased from 3.14 to 2.57.

More old people and fewer kids means that the so-called pyramid no longer resembles a pyramid in the US and all of the industrialized world.

Read the Entire Population Distribution Series

• 080825 Population I
• 080826 Population II
• 080827 Population III
• 080828 Population IV
• 080903 Population V
• 080904 Population VI (Types)