Miguel Olivas Lujan take on evidence based management

Just last week I received a nice email from Miguel Olivas Lujan. He just became aware of this little blog and was kind enough to attach his article on evidence based management, which was not yet in my collection. Miguel is professor of administrative sciences at Clarion University in Pennsylvania. The article is titled Evidence Based Management: A Business Necessity for Hispanices which he published in The Business Journal for Hispanic research. Subscribers to this journal can read the whole article here. Non subscribers can send an email to Miguel for a personal copy. (this prevents any copyrights infringement on my part...). Since he wrote an article on evidence based management, I thought it would only be fair to ask him some fundamental questions on evidence based management.

1. What do you view as the core idea and purpose of EBMgt?
The core idea in my opinion is –first of all—the systematic use of research methods in managerial decision making. But the decision maker’s judgment and the integration of stakeholders’ values are also essential components that have often been overlooked. Managerial problems are often so complex that decision makers have to extrapolate (also known as making “best guesses”) from previous experiences because a solution has not been tried in a particular context. Also, there are many areas (take for example, international management) whereby stakeholders’ values (particularly customers’ and employees’ values) are such that “what has been found” in one context might not work in another (a classic example would be managing by objectives or MBO). The core purpose is making managers and organizations more effective and rational, less wasteful, yet respectful of differences and mindful of personal competencies and weaknesses (yes, I’ll admit this sounds much as a “pie in the sky” but I’m an idealist at heart).

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?
Greater efficiency, less politics (well, of the “spinning wheels in vain” kind; I agree that the use of evidence per se will have political repercussions), accelerated progress, more competitiveness…

3. What progress has the EBMgt movement currently been making?
At this point, I believe we have been able to start a much needed conversation. I wish I could report a greater impact but (well, speaking from the academic experience) it’s not easy to dedicate the time this movement deserves when teaching our students is what brings bread to the table. Now, the conversation is not “without teeth” either! Denise Rousseau, along with David Denyer and Josh Manning have raised the standard for literary reviews; Sara Rynes has been documenting specific problems and making actionable recommendations within the Human Resource Management profession; Joan Pearce just wrote a new, and already award-winning textbook focusing on research findings; Jean Bartunek, Gary Latham, Sara Rynes, and others have individually been writing on how academicians can better communicate their findings to practitioners, etc. Plus, the fact that you, Tracy Altman, Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer have been bringing this topic to the “blogosphere” (I probably should include my blog here too) also attests to the fact that there is an important need to be satisfied. But, as Denise stated in her response to this question, it may take “a generation before a new evidence-informed practice takes hold.”

4. What future do you envision for EBMgt in (research and practice)?
More focused work! The need is too important to be left unattended! As my article in the Business Journal of Hispanic Research suggests, if other fields such as Medicine and Education have been able to make such significant inroads through the Cochrane and the Campbell collaborations, why not Management? It is evident that the ride will not be smooth as the inertia to do things the old way is quite strong… but, as we say in Spanish, “Roma no se hizo en un día” (Rome was not built in a day) ;-D

Thank you very much Miguel for sharing your insights.

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.
  

Is the evidence based management movement dead?

When you go to see a doctor, you would like him or her to make medical decisions based on scientific evidence and research. Not stick the first needle or pill in you, because he or she heard rumours that it just might work. However, in management we are still in the middle ages of science, where the alchemists still try to make gold from lead. And by alchemists I mean all types of managers (managers, consultants, coaches, interim-managers, project managers, etc.). One of the reasons why managers still make decisions based on anecdotal evidence, gut feeling or a whim is the fact that management is not a profession. Well, perhaps it is, but we lack a body of knowledge and skills. Everybody with decent qualifications can become a manager in contrast with nurses, judges or engineers. Management is still treated as a 'skill' and if you have a better story than the next guy, you just found yourself a new career.

Around the year 2000, the evidence based management movement emerged. It is a movement to explicitly use the current, best evidence in management decision making. Its roots are in evidence based medicine, a quality movement to apply the scientific method to medical practice.

Evidence-based management (EBMgt) entails managerial decisions and organizational practices informed by the best available scientific evidence. Like its counterparts in medicine (e.g., Sackett, et al., 2000) and education (e.g., Thomas & Pring, 2004), the judgments EBMgt entails also consider the circumstances and ethical concerns managerial decisions involve. In contrast to medicine and education, however, EBMgt today is only hypothetical. Contemporary managers and management educators make limited use of the vast behavioral science evidence base relevant to effective management practice (Walshe & Rundall, 1999; Rousseau, 2005, 2006; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2001). (Source: en.wikipedia.org)

Last month the annual Academy of Management meeting was hosted in Chicago and a couple of my colleagues who work for Universities went to meet people and take in the latest developments on Organisational and Management Science. The Evidence Based Management movement is still there, but progress is really slow. Most developments are exchanged in closed communities and you really have to make an effort to dig up new information and stay in the loop of recent developments. I'm now in the process of preparing an interview (together with my friend Coert Visser) with the four figureheads of the Evidence Based Management movement. These are Denise M. Rousseau, Tracy Altman, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton. Interviews take time, but I'm confident we'll get some answers. Wait and see what they have to say about the future of Evidence Based Management.