Denise Rousseau's take on Evidence Based Management

A few weeks ago, I got in touch with Denise Rousseau, professor of Organizational Behaviour the Carnegie Mellon University and one of the figureheads of the emerging 'Evidence Based Management' school of thought. She was visiting colleagues in Ireland, but took the time to answer a few of my questions. Jeffrey Pfeffer also replied, but was swamped in his work and preparing to leave the country for an extensive trip abroad. He'll probably give his point of view later. Bob Sutton hasn't been in touch yet. Today I got in touch with another leading thinker in this field. His name is Rob Briner, professor of Organizational Psychology from Birkbeck College, University of London, who already collaborates with Denise on the Evidence Based Management Collaborative. But, back to Denise.

1. What do you view as the core idea and purpose of EBM?
EBMgt in my opinion is family of approaches to improving the quality of managerial decisions and organizational practices by combining in a more systematic fashion
1) relevant findings from mgt/social science research,
2) business facts and metrics with
3) more skillful individual judgments.

2. What do you think would be the benefit(s) for organizations and society as a whole if management would be based more on evidence?
In both public policy and organizational decisions, we possess so much more relevant knowledge and information than is actually ever used. Improving the uptake of scientific evidence with better understanding of how people organize and make decisions  translates into better quality decisions and easier implementation.

3. What progress has the EBM movement currently been making?
I would say that there are three legs in the EBMgt tripod and on 2 of the 3 we see some progress, though much work remains to be done. The two legs were we see developments are;

• education where there is greater attention in teaching managers and other practitioners who can benefit from managerial knowledge (e.g., nurses, social workers, doctors, public policy professionals, etc.) and
• scholarship/research, where somewhat more attention is being paid to identifying what we can confidently know from mgt research, as opposed to always focusing on brand new ideas or new theories at the expense of assessing progress to date.  

You can probably gather that I believe the weakest link (but really all need work!) is managerial USE of quality business facts in making decisions let alone any use of or reliance on social science findings in the decisions being made.

Is there evidence of evidence based management getting a foothold in organizations? I am doubtful. Hit or miss, and it may be that as in medicine, it takes a generation before a new evidence-informed practice takes hold.

4. What future do you envision for EBM in (research and practice)?
This is the project of a community, perhaps several communities, and a generation, I think we are seeing ENERGY in several communities to move EBMgt forward. I am hopeful and patient!

Thank you very much.

Toward evidence based change management

Change management is very much alive today! Despite the lack of success and reports about high percentages of failure (the infamous 70%), popularity is on the rise. This is the opening statement from the article "Op weg naar evidence based change management" by Eric Barends and Steven ten Have which was published in the Holland Management Review. These Dutch researchers disagree with the reported percentages of failure and have refuted this in another article. They are however optimistic about systematic research (in the spirit of Peter Drucker) in order to establish What, Why and When works and what doesn't regarding change management. Their article provides an overview of the developments in change management and investigates the practical barriers for evidence based change management. They make an analogy with psychology, where there was consensus amongst clinical psychologist that 'debriefing' after shocking events prevents psycho trauma. Only, until recently it was discovered that 'debriefings' enhances the chance of a psycho trauma. Without any doubt there are similar misperceptions in change management and we should work extra hard to reach the next level toward evidence based change management and root these misperceptions out.

The term '' change management' generates 252.000.000 hit in 0.32 seconds on Google (26 october, 2009). No doubt very popular, but heavily polluted and debased by IT management. When you try it in Google Scholar it yields 3.600.000 hit in 0,16 seconds. Still an impressive number.

The authors concur with Tichy who was very critical about the efforts toward change management when he observed 20 years ago: Billions of dollars have been spent in the last two decades on management and organizational development activities purposely designed to change organisations. These include programs to introduce management by objectives, organizational development programs, the managerial grid. leadership training, strategic planning models, and, more recently quality circles. Virtually none of these efforts has any systematic monitoring or evaluation associated with it. This leads to an unfortunate state of affairs where waxing and waning of organizational improvement remedies are associated with limited understanding about what works and what does not and why"

But does that imply that change management is bankrupt? Well, if we limit ourselves for the next rise and fall of the latests management hype, the answer is yes.

Developement in change management
The analogy with clinical psychology is made. This discipline matured in the last decades (as opposed to change management). In the 1960, there was a struggle between two therapy schools. This is known in literature as "Theory E" and "Theory O". This struggle lead to an enormous improvement in research methods. Therapy effects could be compared and supported by empirical evidence. The fase of "free theorizing" was closed and succeeded by scientific (effect) research. In the beginning there where many methodological problems, but over the years they where sorted out and this made the profession a lot less arbitrary.

The next step: scientific (effect) research
Authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton claim in their book Hard facts, Half truths and Total Nonsense the call for scientific evidence of postulated theory and models. This call is inspired by  the "evidence based" school of thought in medicine. Managers and educators disregard the enormous amount of behavioural science research which is evidence based. The lack of a shared body of knowledge (in the spirit of Peter Drucker) prevents the development of "peer pressure" focussed on the use of "evidence". Evidence based medicine should guide the way and inspire.

Practical barriers for evidence based change management
1. Management is no academic discipline: Bennis and O'Toole state: "The scientific model, as we call it, is predicated on the faulty assumption that business is an academic discipline like chemistry and geology. In fact, business is a profession, akin to medicine and the law, and business school are professional schools - or should be." 
2. Research of the management practise: For methodological and practical reasons researchers can not afford to allow solely homogeneous patients. Research would be invalidated for the heterogeneous clinical practise.
3. Management is not strictly defined: Christensen and Sundahl argue: "Many researchers and writers about management have been eager to offer theories - in the form "if you do this, this will result"- that they haven't taken the care to build their predictions of cause-and-effect on a robust classification scheme".In other words, management is to broad to do serious research.

How to proceed from here?
Experience from medicine and clinical psychology learn us that great harm can come from personal experiences alone. Just recall that until 30 years ago, stress was thought to induce stomach ulcers. To the great amazement of the medical community a bacteria (Helicobacter pylori) turned out to be the root cause and it is easily treatable with antibiotics. The same goes for "benefits" of the aforementioned 'debriefings' by clinical psychologists. Without any doubt there are similar misperceptions in change management and we should work extra hard to reach the next level toward evidence based change management and root these misperceptions out.

Note: Non Dutch speakers are advised to use Google translate to upload the file and translate Dutch to English to read the full article.

References:

• Managing strategic change: Technical, political and cultural dynamics, N. Tichy, New York, Wiley&Sons, 1983, p. 363
• Hard facts, Half truths and Total Nonsense, J. Pfeffer, B. Sutton, Harvard Business Press, 2006
  
• How Business Schools Lost Their Way', W. Bennis, J. O'Toole, Harvard Business Review, vol. 83, No. 5 (May), 2005, p. 96-104
  
• Op weg naar evidence based change management, E. Barends, S. ten Have, Amstelveen, Holland Management Review, nr. 120. 2008, p. 15-21.