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Thought Leaders
Industry Gurus Live
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Thought Leader: Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer on Basing Decisions on Evidence
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Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer's most recent book, co-authored with Robert Sutton, called Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, was recently published. He spoke with HR.com's Karen Elmhirst on 'Truth Versus Fiction: Basing Decisions on Evidence'.
Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. Jeff has served on the faculties of the business schools at the University of Illinois and the University of California at Berkeley. During the 1981 - 1982 academic year, he was the Thomas Henry Carroll-Ford Foundation Visiting Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Pfeffer served as Director of Executive Education, responsible for all of Stanford Business School's executive education activities. He has taught executive seminars in 28 countries, in addition to lecturing in management development programs and consulting for many companies, associations, and universities in the United States.
He is the author or co-author of 11 books including The Knowing-Doing Gap - How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action, which has been translated into Japanese, German, and Polish. He has also published more than 110 articles and book chapters. You may also have read his monthly column; he writes the Human Factor column for Business 2.0, a leading business magazine with a circulation of 650,000. His most recent book, co-authored with Robert Sutton, called Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management was published recently by Harvard Business School Press, and is the focus of this interview.
Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. in Administration and Management Science and his M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie-Mellon University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
KE: Our topic today is Truth versus Fiction: Basing Decisions on Evidence. Jeff, what was the impetus for you and Robert to write this book?
JP: There were three reasons why we wrote the book. First of all, there is an evidence-based movement in medicine, which began with Dr. David Sackett from Canada, which has had a wonderful effect. There is evidence that the doctors trained in evidence-based medicine keep up-to-date even 15 to 20 years after they graduate, and do so more than doctors who haven't been educated in evidence-based practices. And there is a very big movement to try to bring knowledge from the research lab to the bedside in medicine and to base treatment decisions on evidence, as opposed to what the vendors are pushing, etc. There is also an evidence-based movement in the policy sciences, in criminology, in education. We felt that it was time for an evidence-based movement in management as well, since so few decisions in companies seem to be based upon evidence.
The second reason we wrote the book is that after we wrote the "Knowing-Doing Gap" people would say, "We are actually turning our knowledge into action. Let us tell you what we are doing." They would describe something that they were doing and we were horrified because often times what they had implemented in their organization was so contrary to what social science and research showed they ought to be doing. We would say, "Why you are doing this?" They would say things like, "Our CEO went to some seminar and heard this idea," or, "Our CEO read an article," or, "Our CEO read a book." It was so contrary to what ought to be going on, we became concerned.
And the third reason we wrote the book is that it's not just that organizations were not doing things based upon the evidence, but there is in fact a lot of evidence that what's going on in companies is not good for either companies or their employees. For instance, public survey data from the US, Canada and the UK show that many employees do not believe what their companies are telling them, that there is a lot of distrust in senior management, that there is a lot of employee disengagement.
There is a Gallup survey out that talks about 19% of employees being actively disengaged and by active disengagement they mean these are employees who are actually trying to sabotage the performance of their organization. There is a lot of evidence from studies done about workplace bullying. This is not physical bullying but is workplace intimidationand verbal abuse. A shocking number of people, (the surveys vary from 25% to 50%), experience workplace bullying on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, nurses experience quite a lot of workplace bullying from doctors, for example.
So, we really felt it was time to try to get senior business leaders to pay more attention to evidence and less attention to what they do seem to make decisions on - if not the evidence, it's things such as casual bench marking. The famous line, "Well, GE does it so we should also," or, "What we have done in the past is a long-standing tradition here," even if we have done it only once or, "We did it because it is what the vendors are pushing." Every HR consulting business and strategy consulting business has their favorite idea of the week, be it forced ranking or individual pay for performance, or whatever they are pushing.
Very much like in medicine, what the vendors are pushing tends to be what is implemented. People also tend to do what they are experienced and comfortable with doing, and in medicine the old joke is, if you want an operation ask a surgeon if you need one. I think in the HR domain, if you want an individual pay for performance program, ask a compensation consultant if you need it. These are the reasons for us to try to get a little bit more thought back into the practice of management.
KE: You have made a comment to me that in your view, HR departments have missed an opportunity to be, as you call it, "the R & D department of the human system." What do you mean by that statement?
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Karen Elmhirst is a Senior Analyst with HR.com focused on learning and leadership. She is also co-host of our weekly Thought Leader Live interviews delivered via webcast each week. For a complete listing of our Thought Leader interviews,
click here.
Karen has over a dozen years of experience as a sales and marketing executive in various industries including recruitment and training, work as a communication coach, a writer, and editor. Karen graduated with a business degree from the University of British Columbia. |
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Steven Stein on Measuring Emotional Intelligence
June 19, 2006
1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
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