Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Pfeffer (Author), Robert I. Sutton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2006

The best organizations have the best talent. . . Financial incentives drive company performance. . . Firms must change or die. Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management “wisdom” isn’t wise at all—but, instead, flawed knowledge based on “best practices” that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health.

Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton show how companies can bolster performance and trump the competition through evidence-based management, an approach to decision-making and action that is driven by hard facts rather than half-truths or hype. This book guides managers in using this approach to dismantle six widely held—but ultimately flawed—management beliefs in core areas including leadership, strategy, change, talent, financial incentives, and work-life balance. The authors show managers how to find and apply the best practices for their companies, rather than blindly copy what seems to have worked elsewhere.

This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life—and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Named one of the “Highlights from the Decade” in strategy+business magazine.

About the Author

Jeffrey Pfeffer is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Robert I. Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford. They coauthored The Knowing-Doing Gap (HBS Press, 2000).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591398622
• ISBN-13: 978-1591398622
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He studies innovation, leadership, and civilized workplaces. Sutton has written five books including New York Times bestseller "The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't," which won the Quill Award for the best business book of 2007. His new book "Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best ....and Learn from the Worst" will appear in September 2010. Sutton was named as one of 10 "B-School All-Stars" by BusinessWeek, described as "professors who are influencing contemporary business thinking far beyond academia

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

185 of 192 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent studied revisionism of modern managerial practices. March 11, 2006

By Gaetan Lion TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This is an outstanding book written by two business and engineering Stanford professors. Analyzing modern management practices using surveys and studies, they debunk many of modern management practices. According to their studies, pay-for-performance does not work. Companies that had the widest range of pay scale between top and bottom performers also suffered the poorest financial results. So, pay-for-performance does not translate into superior stock performance. Similarly, forced ranking where employees performances are clustered in three different buckets (top 20%, middle 70%, and bottom 10%) where the weakest bucket is expectedly weeded out does not work either. Companies using this system have been plagued with an employee force with low morale, high turnover, and low productivity.

The authors debunk tens of other well established managerial practices. These practices are often so well established that no one seemed to question them until these two academic types came along. By doing so, they have done a great service to the business community by opening our eyes using the scientific method.

So, why have such practices that seemed to be part of corporate capitalism not work so well? According to the authors' analysis it is because they all foster a winner take all mentality. They reinforce an individual star system. That works well in individual sports like alpine skiing where it is one individual against the clock. The corporate business world is more like a team sport. Soccer comes to mind. One star within an otherwise demoralized team does not stand a chance against a motivated high performance team. In the corporate world it gets even more complicated than that because the team concept extends way beyond the walls of the corporation. Effective teamwork entails including suppliers and customers in product design and management decision. In such an environment, pushing internally a star system that is demoralizing to the 99% who come in distant seconds does not foster optimal team performance either internally or externally.

This book has a wealth of information relevant to any corporate employee. The authors do an excellent job at analyzing existing managerial practices. Besides suggesting a stronger focus on teams, they don't offer any easy solutions. That's refreshing. You know these guys are not trying to market themselves as the new managerial gurus. This gives them much credibility in criticizing the existing ones.

86 of 94 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but... July 3, 2006

By Robert Shaw

Format:Hardcover

Pfeffer and Sutton's book Hard Facts takes 276 pages (including index) to make one simple point - business leaders cling to miracle cures and don't do the work or homework necessary to become evidence based managers. This is a good insight, but hardly new (try Richard Pascale's Managing on the Edge, 1990, or any Dilbert cartoon). It also treads a similar path to Sydney Finkelstein's earlier book "Why Smart Executives Fail" (2003) and both have similar tables of contents, observations and conclusions. Personally I'd recommend Finkelstein, especially for Chaper 10.

The cover asks "Are you making the right decisions" and leaves the reader to wonder if they are. The first 214 pages illustrate through anecdotal evidence, and some limited analysis, that:
- organizations would perform better if leaders applied evidence better
- implementing evidence based management is difficult
- integrating work and rest of life is good (is this really central to the book?)
- wise people are better than intelligent ones and they must be nurtured
- strategy is something senior people aspire to, without fully appreciating how difficult it is to formulate or implement it
- there are advantages to getting change done quickly
- leadership is difficult and bad leadership is dangerous

At times it's difficult to see the coherence of these diverse ideas, maybe they are nothing more than a list of ideas. I agree with most of the ideas, but they're not new nor original. The test of an idea is in the action, so my expectation was that this book would deliver in Part 3 "From Evidence to Action".

Part 3 is a big disappointment. It's brief, and says:
- treat your organization as an unfinished prototype
- no brag, just facts
- master the obvious and mundane
- see yourself and organization...etc
By the time I got to page 225 I'm pretty frustrated. I plough on the last page, and feel disappointed. I've just spent a lot of time reading stuff I already know, and the practical advice is a mirage.

Evidence based leadership is difficult for key reasons that these authors overlook. Leaders are seldom in a position to control their organizations because they do not have the evidence in their hands to decide, direct, or even influence on the basis of anything other than luck and guesswork. How to get leaders into a position to lead? Well that's a practical question that this book didn't answer, but I sure wish it had

Suggested reading:
- Managing with Power (ISBN: 0875844405 )
- Marketing and the Bottom Line (ISBN: 0273661949)
- Marketing Payback (ISBN: 0273688847)

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jam-packed with intruiging thoughts and evidence April 5, 2006

By Coert Visser

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Ever since I read his book "Competitive Advantage through People" I have bought every book Jeffrey Pfeffer has (co-)written. And I have never been disappointed. All his books both are consistent with and build on his previous work and add new and interesting angles. When this new book by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton was advertized I had a slight worry about its title. It sounds so decisive and self-assured .... I worried whether it wouldn't be too pretentious. Management surely is not only a matter of applying knowledge! It is also dealing with uncertainty, improvisation, choices etc....

But after reading the book, I can (again) say that it is fantastic. It fully acknowledges 'the other half of management' (the parts where you can not yet rely on proven knowledge).

The authors pose some brilliant questions like: is work fundamentally different from the rest of life and should it be? Do the best organizations have the best people? Do financial incentives drive company performance? Is strategy destiny? Is the reality of organizations nowadays "change or die"? Are great leaders in control of their companies?

Do you think you know the answers to these questions? And if you do, do you know what these answers imply for you actions as a manager? I bet you will learn a lot by reading what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton have to say about these things (like I did).

This book is jammed with intruiging thoughts, packed with practical wisdom and a true inspirational read!

Coert Visser, http://www.m-cc.nl/solutionfocusedchange.htm