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

by Jeffrey Pfeffer (Author), Robert I. Sutton (Author) "ON THE DAY Synoptics and Wellfleet Communications merged to form Bay Networks, the company's revenue was about equal to its major competitor, Cisco Systems..." (more)
Key Phrases: best logic, microprocessor market, United States, New York, Southwest Airlines (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Every potential manager should be made to read it before they are allowed to be in charge of anything." -- The Observer, Simon Caulkin, March 12, 2006

"The workplace version of Consumer Reports, it evaluates virtually every aspect of managing a business against old and new thinking" -- Chicago Tribune, April 24, 2006

"…a rarity on the crowded management shelf…a useful reminder that the gut is often trumped by the facts." -- BusinessWeek

2006 Best Business Book of the Year -- Globe and Mail, December 13, 2006

CNN selects Hard Facts as one of the two "Best books to enlighten (and impress)" for "the career conscious." -- CNN.com, June 16th, 2006

Product Description
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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591398622
• ISBN-13: 978-1591398622
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,663 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

154 of 160 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 - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

48 of 52 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 "solutionfocusedchange.com" (Driebergen Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to avoid the "doing-knowing gap", July 13, 2006

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In my opinion, the most valuable business books are those which pose and then respond to an especially important question. For example, before Pfeffer and Sutton wrote their previously published book, The Knowing Doing-Gap, they asked: Why is it that managers who know so much about organizational performance, say so many smart things about how to achieve performance, and work so hard are nonetheless trapped in firms that do so many things they know will undermine performance? Their research indicated that a substantial majority of the executives they studied demonstrated a significant gap: They knew what to do and how to do it but seldom took effective action based on that knowledge.

In this book, Pfeffer and Sutton examine what they call "the doing-knowing gap": doing without knowing, or at least without knowing enough. "People kept telling us about the wonderful things they were doing to implement knowledge - but those things clashed with, and at times were the opposite of, what we knew about organizations and people. Upon probing, we soon discovered that many managers had been prompted by a seminar, book, or consultants to do things that were at odds with the best evidence about what works." Pfeffer and Sutton identify some of the barriers to what they call "evidence-based management" and recommend specific steps that leaders can take to overcome those barriers. Of special interest to me is what they have to say about "half-truths that bedevil organizations."

These are among the specific questions to which Pfeffer and Sutton respond and they do so brilliantly:

1. What exactly is "evidence-based management"?
2. Evidence of what? And how to verify it?
3. Why do all organizations need evidence-based management?
4. What are the most damaging half-truths about managing people and organizations?
5. When attempting to implement evidence-based management, what are the most formidable barriers to overcome?
6. How best to overcome each?
7. Which incentives are most important to individual performance?
8. To organizational performance?
9. What are the most valuable potential benefits of evidence-based management?
10. Which specific principles can guide and inform the collaborative efforts of those who are committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve such benefits?

As I read this book, I thought about what Pfeffer and Sutton had said about "the knowing-doing gap" in their previous book bearing that title. Whereas that gap indicated that people could possess sufficient skills and knowledge but are unable to take effective action, "the doing-knowing gap" suggests problems of a quite different nature. Perhaps Pfeffer and Sutton share my own concern that many of those who read their book will then exclaim "Aha! That's it! Now I understand!" In fact, some of them will "get it" but most won't...at least not immediately. I agree with Pfeffer and Sutton's suggestion that each organization be viewed as an "unfinished prototype." Readers would be well-advised to consider Pfeffer and Sutton's ideas with the same perspective.

In my opinion, hard facts are not enough. They must also be the right facts and there must be enough of them. Although I fully appreciate the importance of faith, trust, hope, empathy, and decency, the fact remains that what cannot be verified cannot be managed.

What about half-truths? I suggest that they be treated like cockroaches: Turn on bright lights and refuse to let them hide or escape. One of my favorite techniques, "fishboning," involves saying "Why?" to each response until neither you nor anyone else can bear to continue. When subjected to such rigorous scrutiny, half-truths don't have a chance. Fishboning worked well for Socrates and it will also work well for us.

With regard to "total nonsense," it is amazing how durable it can be. The fact remains that some people are convinced that wet highways cause rain...and that's that. For whatever reasons, it is very important to them to cling to such beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary. It seems a fool's errand to waste time and energy trying to convince them of the merits of evidence-based management...or of anything else.

One final point: What Pfeffer and Sutton recommend can - and should - be implemented at all levels throughout any organization, regardless of size or nature. The leadership which evidence-based management requires has nothing to do with title or tenure but everything to do with being resourceful, empirical, and pragmatic, skeptical and suspicious but not cynical or manipulative. And the initiatives to achieve and then sustain effective evidence-based management must be collaborative and continuous .

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Pfeffer and Sutton's earlier book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action as well as Robert Mittelstaedt's Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal: Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes Which Can Destroy Your Company, Michael Levine's Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards, George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker's Periferal Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company, and Sydney Finkelstein's Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes.