Week 1 Post- Evidence-Based Management: Importance and Its Difficulties

One of the most important concepts that was discussed in the book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton was the definition of evidence-based management.  According to Pfeffer and Sutton, "[e]vidence-based management is based on the belief that facing hard facts about what works and what doesn't, understanding the dangerous half-truths that constitute so much conventional wisdom about management, and rejecting the total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice will help organizations perform better" (pg 13).  Evidence based practices are what drives the health care industry.  Trials and studies are completed in order to see what treatments yield the best outcomes for patients.  This guiding practice for medicine is partly what inspired evidence-based business management.  In terms of health care, an example of evidence-based management practices would be a manager practicing what he/she preaches to staff and maintaining transparency versus a 'do as I say, not as I do' style leadership.  From my health care quality class, evidence supports that staff are more receptive and more loyal to changes if a manager also takes stock in those changes.  Implementing changes within the health care realm is often difficult due to the number of responsibilities that a nurse for example has to manage in an individual day.  Effective management styles (without immediately turning toward punishments) can facilitate the transition, while ineffective management styles are met with push back and resistance from nurses.  Evidence-based management helps to guide management with the most effective styles of leadership.  I think this is very important because it is helpful to learn from others with respect to what can work the best and what may not work at all versus having to do trial and error yourself.  Pfeffer and Sutton mention that managers should be suspicious of breakthrough studies and ideas.  It is important to not take every single new piece of information as the new standard.  Not to start a controversial fire, but look at the article written about the link between vaccines and autism and the detrimental effects it has had on preventive vaccines across the country and the world.  Illnesses like whooping cough have become increasingly more prevalent and with more deaths associated with the illness.  The article has since been formally retracted since no formal link has been establish between autism and vaccinations.  If treated appropriately and compared against other evidence-based practice studies, then it is safe and beneficial to research this type of information.  A manager must pay attention to the culture that he works in and evaluate what may work best for himself and those around him.  Do you think it is beneficial to evaluate new management styles even if the organize already runs smoothly?  Is it best to look toward evidence-based management or be creative and develop your own?
Another important concept from this week's discussions is what makes it difficult to be evidence-based.  Some of the bumps in the golden road for evidence-based management include there is too much evidence, there is a lack of good evidence, the evidence does not quite apply, and people are trying to mislead you.  This translates into: management's efforts to bring the best evidence to bear on decisions, but even though an individual follows business press, buys the books, hires consultants, evidence-based management is still difficult to apply.  This is important to recognize because evidence-based management may actually be difficult to apply in every instance.  It certainly is not a one-size-fits-all scenario and the majority, if not all, evidence-based management suggestions may not be applicable for an organization.  In the article, "Evidence-Based Management," a major issue with evidence-based management is that there is so much evidence available, but the majority of it is not good evidence.  There is not enough of an in-depth study and often does not go beyond subject assessments of their value.  Even though a new or different style of management may sound really promising, it should be taken into consideration against other styles and against the organization's culture and beliefs before automatically implementing it.  Is there such a thing as too much evidence-based information (considering the number of journals and articles that are published on a yearly basis)?  Based on the downsides of, is trying to follow evidence-based practices for management worth spending millions of dollars or is it better to be creative and find something on your own that works well?
The article, How Changing Gears Stopped MyStartup from Failing by Karim Abouelnaga, discusses the effects, benefits, and success of doing evidence-based research on his non-profit partnership.  The group ran a mentor to mentee ratio of 1:2 without any rationale as to why they chose that number other than it sounded appropriate to the founders of the group.  The founders did trials on groups ranging from ratios of 1:1 to 1:6 and found that a ratio of 1:4 worked best.  The group initially had no rationale for the group size and after doing a trial in order to yield evidence-based data, they found that they were able to conduct groups at ratios of 1:4 and achieve the highest levels of productivity.  The group did perform evidence-based research, but it was only on participants related to their organization.  With respect to their work though, it was a successful outcome for creating evidence-based outcomes as their results are strong enough to drive an initiative.  It should be noted that even for this group, it cannot be a set in stone standard because some individuals may require more one-on-one care and others may not.  It is not broad enough to make a generalization for a standard type of result, either.  Abouelnaga knew well enough that the initial startup is not the end result, so pivot points were developed to help gauge performance and progress (Abouelnaga, 2014).
My personal learning mostly stemmed from negatives against evidence-based practices.  I was aware of the number of articles and practices that are available based on the amount of articles published per year.  I had never considered that an overload of information is a negative and that the information truly might not be termed 'good.'  I thought and still think it is important to try and follow evidence-based suggestions, but that those same suggestions need to be taken with a grain of salt.  When looking toward evidence-based initiatives to update guiding practices, it should consist of reviewing more than one article.  The other item that really struck me was the table of current standards versus evidence-based management.  I thought it was odd that evidence-based management recommends to treat old ideas like old ideas.  I know that in health care, practices can be recycled.  Intervention A gets replaced with intervention B and then ten years later, intervention B is replaced with A again.  Next week goals for learning are to see what drives company performance and to have my postings on time since I finally figured out what was wrong with my voice comments.

Abouelnaga, K. (2014, February, 6). How Changing Gears Stopped MyStartup from Failing. Entrepreneur, inc. Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231291
Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. I. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management. Hardvard Business School Press: Boston.
Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. I. (2006). Evidence-Based Management. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: http://www.cebma.org/wp-content/uploads/Pfeffer-Sutton-Evidence-Based-Management.pdf.

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