Bus576-1 Evidence-Based Management, What's That?

In my personal life, at work, and at school, I don't use evidence-based management ever. I go off of my own opinions, past experiences, and what I believe to be right. When you are in the moment, and think you know something, it is hard to hold back what you have experienced in the past. It is also hard to gather the evidence and facts you need to convince the other side that you are correct and why in such a casual, quick setting. After thinking about how I am a repeat offender of this, reading 'Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense' by Pfeffer and Sutton, I finally realized that I've been going about it all wrong. Having the facts can be tedious and more work than you want to do, but in the long run it can really affect the outcome of a situation. I thought it was comical when Pfeffer and Sutton talk about the doctor and the appendectomy. The doctor wants to do an appendectomy on the second patient because it made the first patient better. It is true that the treatment needs to fit the disease and the same holds true for business. There isn't one solution than can be used for different situations. This is why so many ideas and decisions fail. Benchmarking against a completely different circumstance in the past can be detrimental for the future. Do you fall into the same pitfalls I do? Why or why not? Why do you think people decide to go with past experiences rather than evidence? Can there ever be too much evidence? Why or why not?

I also liked the 'Substituting Facts for Conventional Wisdom' section. My family and I are avid casino goers and my dad has the highest tier card at the casino by us, but only has the first tier card at a casino over an hour away. They don't send him a lot of free play or perks at the casino by us since it only takes a little bit to get him to come in. COO, Gary Loveman realized this at Harrah's and stopped sending so much to the players who came in a lot without incentive. At the other casino my dad goes to, they send him free hotel rooms and a lot of free play because otherwise it isn't worth it for him to make the trip. Loveman also saw this and they stopped listening to the conventional wisdom and used the hard data and facts to turn a larger profit for the company. If the data is there, why not use it? At UPMC, my manager is constantly looking at new ways to make new ideas and decisions work successfully. It is hard to think that way at first, but once you get into the habit of using data instead of opinions, the work that is done will have a lot more value and worth in the end. There is also a high chance that the same work won't have to be done multiple times! Do you use conventional wisdom instead of facts? Provide an example of two of when wisdom was used in your life.

On Inc.com there is an article titled 5 Ways to Improve Quality by the Inc staff. They provide five ways that a business owner or manager can improve quality or at least put someone on the right path. In articles, the writer(s) can convey any message they want if the reader isn't educated on the subject, why wouldn't they agree? The article goes into the five ways which are make a commitment, track mistakes, invest in training, organize quality circles, and have the right attitude. They all sound great, but where are they getting these from? In each paragraph, they talk about a person who says this is a good way to improve quality. Phrases like 'experts say' or getting a CEO's perspective is not evidence-based. Those are doing what seems to have worked in the past, following deeply held ideologies (just because it's from post-war Japan doesn't mean it works now) and casual benchmarking. They also talk about a guy named W. Edwards Deming and he was the father of the quality movement. He believed many things, but they are focusing too much on what he believed versus the facts. Many people may look at the article as helpful or insightful, but there isn't too much evidence that supports the ideas.

In just one week of this class, I feel much more intelligent. I tested this evidence-based decision making on my mom while passing a bar. On the sign it said, 'No persons under 30 allowed.' I asked my mom why she thought they wouldn't allow people under 30 years old. She gave her opinion and I asked her where she got that information. She was basing it off of her experience and opinions. I said I didn't agree with her logic and we would have to research whether that was true or not. She then asked me why I thought people under 30 years old weren't allowed in the bar and I said that I didn't have enough information to come up with an educated conclusion and I would have to get back to her. She laughed and said that I was really learning a lot in my classes and was proud. Also, critiquing that article was such a different approach than I have taken before. I felt weird not believing a published article because they were using past experiences. It's going to be hard for me to use any article for resources now!

Resources:

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Staff, I. (2010, Sept 2). 5 Ways to Improve Quality. Retrieved Jun 26, 2014, from Inc.: http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/09/5-ways-to-improve-quality.html