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Evidence-based management:
What is stopping us?
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WHAT’S STOPING US?
The quick fix problem
The management fad (fashion) problem
Why don’t academics and researchers like EBMgt?
Why don’t managers and practitioners like EBMgt?
What is stopping us?
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WHAT’S STOPING US?1. The Quick Fix Problem
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QUICK FIXES
A ‘solution’ which
Focuses on style and presentation, not content
Is always slower than we hoped
Usually doesn’t work
Is followed by another quick fix
What is a quick fix?
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QUICK FIXES
Because quick fixes
Can be career-enhancing for managers
Speed is often valued over accuracy
Do we crave quick and easy solutions?
So who needs or wants academic research?
So why do we do quick fixes?
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WHAT’S STOPING US?2. The Management Fad Problem
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Group think: management fads
The nearly-forgotten fads:
Scientific Management/Taylorism
Business Process Reengineering
Management by results
Excellence
Total Quality Management
Learning Organizations
Knowledge Management
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Group think: management fads
The fads that haven’t been forgotten
(yet):
Talent management
Management development
Executive coaching
Emotional intelligence
Employee engagement
Knowledge management
Myers Briggs Type Indicator
Belbin Team Roles
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Promise to deliver a lot and fast
Appear simple
New and shiny
Will make everything alright and help contain anxieties around intractable problems
Help user feel effective and cutting edge
Bits of some fads may work in some contexts
So who needs or wants academic research?
*Evidence-based management not a fad!
So why do we do management fads?
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WHAT’S STOPING US?3. Why don’t academics like EBMgt?
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Ambivalence about the value and applicability of management research
Few incentives to get involved
Primary research (collecting new data) valued more highly than secondary research (reviewing existing data)
EBMgt not academics‘responsibility – this is about practice not research
Some concern that systematic reviews will expose the limited nature of management research
Some academics are like ‘gurus’ and feel that EBMgt might show their claims to be untrue
Why don’t academics like EBMgt?
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WHAT’S STOPING US?4. Why don’t managers like EBMgt?
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Undermines formal authority
They feel it constrains freedom to make managerial decisions
Speed valued and rewarded more than accuracy
Feel they cannot use their own experience and judgment (not true)
Managers not necessarily rewarded for doing what works (organizations rarely evaluate)
Why don’t managers like EBMgt?
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Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads
Why don’t managers like EBMgt?
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“And there we see the power of any big
managerial idea (or fad). It may be smart, like
quality, or stupid, like conglomeration. Either
way, if everybody's doing it, the pressure to do it
too is immense. If it turns out to be smart, great.
If it turns out to be stupid, well, you were in good
company and most likely ended up no worse off
than your competitors. Your company's board
consists mostly of CEOs who were probably
doing it at their companies. How mad can they
get?
Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads
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The true value of conventional management
wisdom is not that it's wise or dumb, but that it's
conventional. It makes one of the hardest jobs in
the world, managing an organization, a little
easier. By following it, managers everywhere see
a way to drag their sorry behinds through
another quarter without getting fired. And isn't
that, really, what it's all about?”
(Colvin, 2004, Fortune)
Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads
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SO WHAT’S STOPPING US?
We are stopping us!
So, what is stopping us?
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