Evidence-Based Management, An Introduction

Hungarian Association
of Executives

Evidence-Based Management
An introduction

Hungarian Association of Executives
October 26, Budapest

of Executives

 Where does it come from?
 What is it?
 Why do we need it?
 How does it look like in practice?
(An example)

of Executives

Evidence based management:
Where does it come from?

What field is this?
of Executives

 “there is a large research-user gap”
 “practitioners do not read academic journals”
 “the findings of research into what is an effective intervention
are not being translated into actual practice”
 “academics not practitioners are driving the research agenda”
 “the relevance, quality and applicability of research is
questionable”
 “practice is being driven more by fads and fashions than
research”
 “many practices are doing more harm than good”

Medicine: Founding fathers
of Executives

David Sackett Gordon Guyatt

McMaster University Medical School, Canada

How it all started
of Executives

Problem I: too much information
of Executives

 More than 1 million articles in 40,000 medical journals per
year (= 1995; now probably more than 2 million). For a
specialist to keep up this means reading 25 articles every
day (for a GP more than 100!)

 Most of the new insights and treatment
methods don‟t reach the target group

Problem I: too much information
of Executives

 HRM: 1,350 articles in 2010 (ABI/INFORM). For an HR
manager to keep up this means reading 3 to 4 articles
every day (for a „general‟ manager more than 50!)

Problem II: persistent convictions
of Executives

if you’re
breathe into a bag
hyperventilating

Problem II: persistent convictions
of Executives

elderly people who have give them a drug that
an irregular heartbeat are reduces the
much more likely to die of number of
coronary disease irregular beats

How 40,000 cardiologists can be wrong
of Executives

In the early 1980s newly introduced anti-
arrhythmic drugs were found to be highly
successful at suppressing arrhythmias.

Not until a RCT was performed was it realized
that, although these drugs suppressed
arrhythmias, they actually increased mortality.

The CAST trial revealed Excess mortality of
56/1000.

By the time the results of this trial were
published, at least 100,000 such patients had
been taking these drugs.

of Executives

David Sackett
 Half of what you learn in medical school will be
shown to be either dead wrong or out-of-date
within 5 years of your graduation; the trouble is that
nobody can tell you which half.

 The most important thing to learn is how to learn
on your own: search for the evidence!

 (Remember that your teachers are as full of bullshit
as your parents)

Evidence-Based Practice
of Executives

1991 Medicine
1998 Education
1999 Social care
2000 Nursing
2000 Criminal justice
???? Management?

of Executives

What is it?

Definition
of Executives

Evidence-based management means making decisions
about the management of employees, teams or
organizations through the conscientious, explicit and
judicious use of four sources of information:

1. The best available scientific evidence

2. Organizational facts, metrics and characteristics

3. Stakeholders’ values and concerns

4. Decision supports and practitioner expertise

Four sources
of Executives

Definition
of Executives

When making an important
decision, an evidence-based manager
knows whether there is scientific
evidence available to support this
decision (and how „strong‟ the
evidence is).

of Executives

Evidence-based management:
Why do we need it?

of Executives

Trust me: 20 years of management experience!

Errors and Biases of Human Judgment
of Executives

of Executives

 Seeing order in randomness
 Mental corner cutting
 Misinterpretation of incomplete data
 Halo effect
 False consensus effect
 Attribution error Confirmation bias
 Group think Authority bias
 Self serving bias Small numbers fallacy
 Sunk cost fallacy In-group bias
 Cognitive dissonance reduction  Recall bias
 Anchoring bias
 Inaccurate covariation detection
 Distortions due to plausibility

of Executives

“I’ve been studying intuition for 45 years, and I’m no better
than when I started. I make extreme predictions. I’m over-
confident. I fall for every one of the biases.”

of Executives

Doctors and managers hold many erroneous
beliefs, not because they are ignorant or stupid, but
because they seem to be the most sensible conclusion
consistent with their own professional experience!

of Executives

stress & lifestyle peptic ulcer

Oct 2005

Peptic ulcer – an infectious disease!
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Barry Marshall and Robin
Warren, who with tenacity and a prepared mind challenged prevailing dogmas. By
using technologies generally available (fibre endoscopy, silver staining of
histological sections and culture techniques for microaerophilic bacteria), they
made an irrefutable case that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is causing disease.
By culturing the bacteria they made them amenable to scientific study.

In 1982, when this bacterium was discovered by Marshall and Warren, stress and
lifestyle were considered the major causes of peptic ulcer disease. It is now
firmly established that Helicobacter pylori
causes more then 90% of duodenal ulcers.
The link between Helicobacter pylori
infection and peptic ulcer disease has been
established through studies of human
volunteers, antibiotic treatment studies and
epidemiological studies.

Beliefs vs Evidence
of Executives

“What gets us into trouble is not what we
don't know,

it's what we know for sure that just isn't so.”

Mark Twain

True or false?
of Executives

1. Incompetent people benefit more from feedback than
highly competent people.

2. Task conflict improves work group performance while
relational conflict harms it.

3. Encouraging employees to participate in decision
making is more effective for improving organizational
performance than setting performance goals.

How evidence-based are we?
of Executives

HR Professionals' beliefs about effective human resource practices: correspondence
between research and practice, (Rynes et al, 2002, Sanders et al 2008)

 959 (US) + 626 (Dutch) HR professionals
 35 statements, based on an extensive body of evidence
 true / false / uncertain

On average: 35% - 57% correct

Evidence-based?
of Executives

 Competence management
 Excellent care
 Total Quality Management
 Flexible workspace / The New World of Work
 Knowledge Management
 Investors in People, Great Place To Work
 Balanced Score Card / INK
 Lean / Six Sigma / TOC

Evidence-based approach
of Executives

How „new‟ is this question or problem?

Is there evidence from scientific research that
can help us find the most effective approach?

How „strong‟ is this evidence?

Is the evidence applicable to my situation?

of Executives

How does it look like in practice?

The 5 steps of EBP
of Executives

1. Formulate a focused question (Ask)

2. Search for the best available evidence (Acquire)

3. Critically appraise the evidence (Appraise)

4. Integrate the evidence with your managerial
expertise and organisational concerns and apply
(Apply)

5. Monitor the outcome (Assess)

of Executives

1. Formulate a focused question

Asking the right question?
of Executives

 Does team-building work?
 Does the introduction of self-steering teams work?
 Does management development improve the performance
of managers?

 Does employee participation prevent resistance to change?
 Is 360 degree feedback effective?

Focused question?
of Executives

 Does team-building work?
 What is a „team‟?
 What kind of team?
 In what contexts/ settings?
 What counts as „team-building‟?
 What does „work‟ mean?
 What outcomes are relevant?
 Over what time periods?

Answerable question: PICOC
of Executives

P = Population

I = Intervention or success factor

C = Comparison

O = Outcome

C = Context

Focused question: PICOC
of Executives

P = Population

I = Intervention or successfactor

C = Comparison  Employee productivity?

 Job satisfaction?

O = Outcome  Return on investment?

 Market share?
C = Context
 Organizational commitment?

of Executives

2. Finding the best available evidence

Where do we search?
of Executives

Hands on instruction
of Executives

of Executives

3. Critical appraisal of studies

Making sense of evidence

of Executives

Best available evidence?

Research designs
of Executives

What is the BEST car?

Research designs
of Executives

Which design for which question?

Which design for which question?
of Executives

Explanation

of Executives

Best research design?

Best available?
of Executives

What is evidence?
of Executives

 Evidence is not the same as „proof‟ or „hard facts‟
 Evidence can be
- so strong that no one doubts its correctness, or

- so weak that it is hardly convincing at all

of Executives

Step 4: Turning evidence into
practice

of Executives

Applicable / Feasible? Hungarian Association
of Executives

 organizational facts and characteristics
 cultural aspects
 stakeholders‟ values and concerns
 political aspects
 financial aspects /cost-effectiveness / ROI
 priorities
 change readiness / resistance to change
 implementation capacity
 timing

of Executives

Evidence-based practice:

 Focuses on the decision making process

 Uses research findings to increase the
likelihood of a positive outcome

Evidence-Based Management, An Introduction

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Evidence-Based Management, An Introduction

Similar to Evidence-Based Management, An Introduction (20)

More from Center for Evidence-Based Management

More from Center for Evidence-Based Management (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Evidence-Based Management, An Introduction