EBMgt Course Module 4: What Is Stopping Us?

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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?