Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management

Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management “wisdom” isn’t wise at all—but, instead, flawed knowledge based on “best practices” that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health.

This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life – and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Profiting From Evidence-Based Management, 2008-07-31
"Why do executives do things without real knowledge or evidence that what they are doing is valid?"

In today's ultra-fast, ultra-competitive, and ultra-confusing world, executives are constantly seeking anything that will provide a performance or competitive edge. And there are gurus, writers, consultants, and former executives who all have a plan or formula or template for that edge. The need and these so-called solutions come together in a seductive and sometimes lethal package called "best practices."

But:

* Who says these are the best practices?
* What is the evidence that these are valid beyond their immediate context?
* What is the real cost and strategic impact of adopting the best practice?

Pfeffer and Sutton point out that executives often make decisions based on gut feel, what's worked in the past, recommendations from others, and conventional wisdom. In fact, conventional wisdom is so powerful that executives have difficulty seeing the evidence to the contrary and continue to make decisions that do not enhance the performance of the company. This echoes the insight of Edwards W. Deming who noted that most management knowledge is based on superstition, not fact. As an antidote, the authors recommend evidence-based management.

The book also includes extensive supporting notes pointing the reader to the evidence behind their conclusions.

The goal of this book is not to make the job of the executive or manager more difficult, but to improve thinking and decision-making so that you understand what and why you are doing what you are doing. And in doing so, you reduce cost and risk while increasing the chances of improving competitive performance. At the least you'll be a more careful consumer of business advice.

Read the entire review at http://insidework.net/resources/readinglist/entry-0000020678


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Another thought provoking work from Pfeffer, 2008-05-25


I've been an avid Pfeffer fan since 'Resource Dependency', so am inclined to give him 5 stars for anything he writes.

The main themes in here are extremely thought provoking and are great for jogging one's brain to think thorough one's management assumptions. A few of his analogies are weak...I believe there are better cases as analogies for some of Pfeffer's points. He relies upon his corporate experience, but most of the half-truths have graphic examples in government bureaucracies. Using those types of examples would have made the book more alive.

I bought this when it first came out and just reread this weekend. It's the type of book I share with my staff to start the conversation about our approach to work. Very useful tool in that regard.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Great scientific evaluation of many management beliefs, 2008-04-27
This is one of the best books on management, which takes a hard scientific look at deeply ingrained beliefs and provides scientific pointers, in many cases to the gold standard--controlled experiments.

As with any book, each of us loves evidence that supports our own beliefs, but this book provides strong evidence that made me re-evaluate some other deeply ingrained (and likely wrong) beliefs, and that's the real value of the book.

Unlike In Search of Excellence, which was highly motivating, but weak on causal data (most evidence was correlational), this one is full of great pointers to solid evidence and controlled experiments.

To keep the balance in this review, I'll mention one gripe. In multiple cases the authors have fallen into the trap of pointing to anecdotal evidence and single examples of "success" to support their claim, thus failing to pass the bar of scientific-based evaluations. These are few, and most evaluations are very solid, hence the 5 stars.

Read it, and re-evaluate some of our own misconceptions!



1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Rigorous Research Put Into Practice, 2008-04-26
Pfeffer and Sutton cover a lot of important territory in this book. I learned lots of useful lessons about managing people, incentives, organizational change, leadership, and a host of other HR fundamentals. But the main lesson that I took away from the book is to be wary of excessive claims by people who claim to have great experience and expertise, and lots of success stories, but don't know or reject the findings from the best research. As Pfeffer and Sutton point out, one of the biggest problem with management methods and advice is that the people who sell them have a financial incentive to make claims that that their ideas are effective even when the best evidence clashes with their advice. And because of the well-documented human tendency to "see what you believe," people - including managers and doctors too - will go on using and recommending suspect practices throughout their careers while firmly believing that the evidence is on their side, even though it is not. This isn't a fast or light read, but it is an important wake-up call for management.


1 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

Lousy "Facts", 2008-04-10
Wow, the author criticized by book without calling me and without noting that CEOs (including Jack Welch) of every case study personally signed off on all the claims of improvements in hiring.

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