Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not surprising, not accurate, not the latest brain science and not worth the money, July 8, 2009
When I first saw heard about the book, Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, I got excited. There's been a lot of research in the last decade about how we perceive the world and how our sensory systems and brains work. I expected the book to be about what we've learned.
The subtitle and publicity material make some very provocative claims. We're told that "feedback doesn't work" and that "setting measureable objectives often backfires on managers" to name two. I expected the book to support those assertions.
But this book doesn't do either of those things. Instead it's filled with selectively chosen research that is more from the last century than the latest brain research.
The author claims that "feedback doesn't work." The way he supports that assertion seems characteristic of the book.
To quote the book:"a landmark study at General Electric found that the company's performance appraisal system didn't work, it produced results that were virtually the opposite of what was intended."
First, it's not a "landmark study" within any common meaning of the term. The article is cited only six times in scholarly literature
The researchers did not study feedback. They studied the performance appraisal system in place at GE. Their comments on feedback were about feedback as delivered in an annual performance appraisal and a system where it was common that the annual appraisal was the only time a worker received feedback. GE has since changed this procedure in several ways.
The study (named "Split Roles in Performance Appraisal") was based on the analysis of less than one hundred questionnaires. Not a real big or broad sample.
This is not "the latest brain science" either. The study in question was reported in the Harvard Business Review issue for January-February 1965.
So the conclusion that "feedback doesn't work" turns out to be based primarily on a small study of one company's performance appraisal system as it existed almost half a century ago.
Other studies are also offered to support this "surprising lesson." There is one by Leon Festinger that is mentioned but not cited. It deals with cognitive dissonance produced when people are paid to lie.
Elliot Aronson is one of the greatest of psychologists. But his studies cited here involve children solving puzzles and playing or not playing with toys based on the reward system used. They don't relate to management and they aren't "the latest brain science."
The author also cites research by George Homans on how people respond when they do not get a reward they expect. Homans says they get angry. This is not exactly cutting edge, either.
So, let's review. The research cited is not "the latest brain science." This is old stuff.
The only study that involves the workplace involves a small sample in one company four decades ago. And the study was on the performance appraisal system, not feedback.
The other studies are the kind of laboratory psychology that is difficult to translate into practical actions you can take in the workplace. Even so, they are selectively quoted. If you read only this book, you would never know that there's a lot of solid academic research that comes to very different conclusions.
Weasel wording abounds in the book. Jacobs says, "Setting measurable objectives often backfires on the manager." But when you read that text it turns out that the real finding is that "setting measurable objectives without team member participation often backfires." Any manager who's ever tried that could have told you.
There are lots of other findings that just don't' seem all that "surprising." Here are some.
"Smaller rewards tend to be more motivational that larger rewards." This is not news. My grandmother knew it which is why she always gave us lots of small presents instead of fewer big ones.
"Being competitive is often the best way to encourage cooperation." This is a workplace staple when one team or shift or plant competes with another.
"Pay increases don't motivate." We've known for decades that for most people most of the time pay is a hygiene factor, not a motivation factor.
There you have it. The "surprising lessons" in this book are only sketchily supported by carefully selected "evidence." Other lessons really aren't that surprising. And only a pinch of those lessons have anything to do with the latest brain science.
Don't waste your time or money on this book.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to lead a horse to water and get it to drink, be the horse, June 17, 2009
//Management Rewired// explores the implications of the latest discoveries of neurosciences as they relate to business management and leadership. With the invention of the functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), scientists are able to view the brain as individuals process information and perceive reality. These discoveries directly challenge long-held beliefs of how to motivate people. Jacobs demonstrates how common managerial practices produce the opposite of the desired results and shows that indirect or counterintuitive practices actually produce far more favorable results.
This is a must-read for anyone who leads people. //Management Rewired// saves potential leaders many years of trial and error and illustrates how to truly motivate individuals by showing leaders how people actually perceive and respond to their actions. Jacobs does an excellent job of taking complex science and presenting the material in an interesting and intriguing manner. He is an effective storyteller that adeptly uses historical business examples to demonstrate the latest scientific findings. It gives the reader the ability to understand complex scientific research without requiring them to have a Ph.D. To his credit, Jacob doesn't present his ideas as a silver bullet for management, but rather as a guideline for leaders to develop their own leadership style. This book should be required reading at West Point.
Reviewed by
Mike Scott
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why "we need to rethink everything we thought we knew about management", July 27, 2009
In recent years, a number of books have discussed recent research in neurological science and its relevance to traditional theories about knowledge and how we process it. Among the many revelations, Charles Jacobs notes in the Introduction to this book, "perhaps the most surprising discovery has come from mapping the path information travels from our sense organs to our awareness of the world we live in. Not only are the perceptual areas of the brain involved, so are the areas responsible for our memories, our feelings, our beliefs, and our aspirations. Our minds aren't objectively recording our experience of the world; they're creating it, and the creation is influenced by everything elder going on in the brain. Each of us lives in a mental state of our own making...Rather than sharing the same world, we all inhabit a world that is uniquely our own."
That has serious implications for those entrusted with management responsibilities "because we are not managing in a physical world but in a mental world, much of what is taken for granted as the right way to manage is actually the opposite of what we want to do. But to be more effective requires only a simple shift in perspective." How so? "Instead of seeing the world through the lens of Newtonian mechanics, we start seeing it as a process of natural selection. Rather than viewing people as inanimate objects, we recognize that they're thinking beings acting of their own volition. Because of the way the brain is organized, if we can keep this perspective in mind, we'll know the right things to do."
Jacobs asserts that "much of what is taken for granted as the right way to manage is actually the opposite of what we want to do," that the world we experience exists only in our heads, our thinking is never objective, and our emotions lead to better decisions than our logic. Given that, what specifically does he recommend to his reader?
1. Leverage the mind to stop doing what doesn't work (and never will) so that it can concentrate on doing what does work. There should be continuous improvement of what is most important.
2. Stop offering feedback to direct reports. It is usually ignored and often resented. Instead, ask questions, listen intently to responses, and then repeat them back in your own words.
3. Workers appreciate recognition much more than they do rewards. In fact, rewards frequently diminish rather than increase their motivation.
4. Eliminate preoccupuation with short-term goals because they are distractions; focus on achieving long-term objectives.
5. Anticipate the future by identifying -- and preparing for - the most likely contingencies. That will help to make better decisions, and to influence other people to do what must be done in preparation for a future that is never predictable but nonetheless. The lessons of brain science have far reaching ramifications, but with immediate practical applications.
6. Consciously use natural selection as a "lens" through which to view your experience. "All of a sudden, you'll see things differently. You'll start to realize how much of what you do is a function of your relationships with others and how much of what they do is a function of their relationships with you." Using it as a lens will also serve as an alert to how much we're a product of our environment and how wee can shape it to our advantage.
Jacobs makes a compelling argument that humans cannot possibly have the direct knowledge of the physical world they think they do. All that can be known is the representation of it in the brain in the form of ideas, "so the world we experience is mental, not physical." We all see it differently. Therefore, the challenge for transformational leaders is to change how others think, to rewire their minds, and one of the most effective ways to do that is "to package the right kind of ideas into a story and to effectively communicate it to the organization." On Page 185, Jacobs cites the example of Henry V, presumably Shakespeare's Henry V, as a "template for what a transformational leader needs to do in the corporate world." More recent exemplars include Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Kennedy. "Perhaps because they knew what it meant to be human and fallible, these leaders, with very different styles, communicated ideas that took people beyond themselves to accomplish more than they ever thought possible. That's the kind of transformation organizations need and people long for."
It will not occur unless and until executives rethink everything they think they know about management. The latest developments in brain science require a significantly new understanding of how the mind works that needs to be incorporated into everyone's thinking about business, especially among those responsible for supervising others. In this brilliant book Charles Jacobs explains how organizations can become more focused and efficient as well as how they can create a sustainable advantage. He book offers an integrated set of practices by which to rapidly transform people so that superior performance results in improvement in the bottom line that will not just be incremental, but a "quantum leap."
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by David Rock
by David Rock
