EBM impacts Business

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense:  Profiting From Evidence-Based Management
This book written by Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton take the position that management can follow medicine's lead and rely on evidence, not on half truths (now if we can only get the majority of medicine following this trend!).  This book is one of the first times that I can recall where medicine has been the example and business implementing a medical practice.  It is an outstanding read and for a very good synopsis of the book, please download this article which appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Download 2006SP_feature_Pfeffer_Sutton.pdf

Larry

Comments

[britt]

Larry,
Interesting read on business & the use or lack of examination of the evidence of company performance. They offer a nice discussion about the problems about preconceived notions, ideologies and gurus (PTs should listen).
It was fascinating that the authors give examples how Pay-4-Performance has failed in education and in non-profit organizations. Indeed, they intimate that in education the 'merit' pay system has demonstrated consistent increases in the incidences of cheating with the P-4-P (i.e. merit) plans. The authors point out that outcomes (ie. test scores and student performance) are multifactorial beyond teacher motivation (e.g. teaching skill, student participation, parental involvement, community support)....the same levels of complexity in healthcare.
thanks,
Britt