CLOSING CASE ard Facts and Half-Truths 2. Be committed to \"fact-based\" decisio
ID: 348148 • Letter: C
Question
CLOSING CASE ard Facts and Half-Truths 2. Be committed to "fact-based" decision-mak 3. Treat your organization as an unfinished prototype- 4. Look for the risks and drawbacks in what people recom Stanford University professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton, authors of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense, have put out a call for a renewed reliance on rationality in managerial decision-making-an approach that they call evidence-based management (EBM).'Management decisions" they argue, "Ishould] be based on the best evidence should) systematically learn from experience, and organizational practices (should] reflect sound principles of thought and analysis. They define evidence-based management as"a commitment to 5. Avoid basing decisions on untested but strongly held finding and using the best theory and data available at the time to make decisions"but their 'Five Principles of Evidence-Based Management'make it clear that EBM means more than just sifting through data and crunching numbers. Here's what they means being committed to using the best evidence to guide actions. encourage experimentation and learning by doing mend (even the best medicine has side effects). beliefs, what you have done in the past, or on uncritical benchmarking" of winners. Pfeffer and Sutton are particularly persuasive when the use EBM to question the outcomes of decisions based on untested but strongly held beliefs" or on "uncritical'bench marking"Take, for instance, the popular policy of paying recommend Face the hard facts and build a culture in which people are encouraged to tell the truth, 1. h, even if it's unpleasant. performers significantly more than low performers. Pfeter it's unpleasant.
Explanation / Answer
1. Evidence based Management seems like common sense and the managers should be able to take best decisions out of their experience to ensure the organization’s success. Currently the organizations are facing tough competition in the market and the customers have started choosing the products based on brand and loyalty which demand the organizations to maintain strong values while decision making. The manager’s actions can determine employee satisfaction and the future of an organization. The policies and principles based on ethical values help the managers to take better decisions understanding the good and bad. Our leaders are highly capable to take best decisions understanding the risks and most of them understand the requirement to promote a culture where the employees can share their opinions without fear. Hence evidence based management seems like common sense in my opinion.
It was not advocated earlier because of the leadership style based on autocratic leadership. The managers were not friendly with the employees in older times and they always tried to be superior to the employees. They never allowed the employees to share the unpleasant truth and their decision making was based on their own untested beliefs and ideas without analyzing the facts and risks behind their decisions.
2. The evidence based leadership may not be the best approach when the managers need to take quick decisions and when the experience is not enough to provide the best evidence to support the decision. In case of emergency situations, managers cannot spend much time analyzing the risks and drawbacks. Certain circumstances require the decisions to depend on beliefs than experience if the situation is new for the managers. All these circumstances may not allow the managers to take decisions based on evidence based management.
3. Automated evidence based management cannot replace human decision makers because the situations may be different from case to case and the best decision needs to be chosen from the alternatives based on the factors that underlie the situation. The risks and benefits needs to be analyzed. The automated EBM cannot take decisions analyzing all these factors and even minute differences may have greater impact on decision making.
4. I would not work under Jack Welch’s system of decision making at General Electric. I find the forced ranking system to be unethical as they terminate the ten percentage employees at the bottom. The reason for non performance can be many including health conditions or other factors other than capability to perform the job. The automatic system never considers all these factors other than the performance results and even highly performing employees may face such situations. The system affects the job safety and employee commitment towards the organization and the employees need to work under high stress. Hence I would not prefer working in GE under Jack Welch’s system.