A Debate or a Discussion?

Bob Sutton is a professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford Engineering School and one of my all time favorite authors and commentators on innovation, management, and creativity in business.  

In their book on evidence-based management, he and Jeffrey Pfeffer, hold that: “Evidence-based management is based on the belief that facing the hard facts about what works and what doesn’t, understanding the dangerous half-truths that constitute so much conventional wisdom about management, and rejecting the total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice will help organizations perform better”.

Michael Lovaglia, a Professor and Department Chair in the Sociology Department at the University of Iowa, wrote to Sutton and Pfeffer and proposed Lovaglia's Law:

The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it.

As Professor Sutton writes, “…Clearly, the more important the decision, the more people involved stand to lose and gain, and the more strongly they push for outcomes that enhance their self-interest rather than are best for everyone involved.”

David Maister took this one step farther. 

“I have always been fascinated by the fact that (in spite of what they teach us in school) logic, reason, rationality and sensible analysis seem to play so little part in human affairs”.  

But David’s comments are really interesting. He is highly, diversely and “well” educated, yet he says “The more I think about this, the more outraged I get that my education positively encouraged me to ignore these considerations, and focus instead on advanced logical skills so I could pass the exams at the end of the semester.”

Are Maister’s, Sutton’s, and Lovaglia’s views in conflict?

Or are they merely different perspectives of the same situation? 

What do you think (my thoughts tomorrow!)?

Comments

[Liz Strauss]

I love that sentence that you put in bold. I've imprinted on my brain next to another one. The other one is

When the time comes to make a decision I will have the information I need to make it.

Interesting that I have been able to gather the research I need in time always, but often wait for that last bit before deciding. Hmmmm

[ann michael]

Well, Liz - my dear, you are unique! (I knew that)