It is hard to understand why leadership in business seems so difficult to practice and even harder to perfect. The art and science of leadership and good business management is hardly what you would call an understudied subject.

It all comes down to the quality of management as determined by the quality of their decisions and the quality of their interactions with the market, with customers and with their employees.

So a few questions to ponder. What choices have you made?

Chemistry or Alchemy?

Court of Law or Court of Public Opinion?

Medical Doctor or Witch Doctor?

Fact or Fiction?

Which side is your organization's management team on?

Are you running your organization based on Hard Facts, or do you fall victim to Dangerous Half-truths or, worse yet, Total Nonsense?

To be sure, many organizations would be better off and would change radically if they asked themselves a simple yet revolutionary question - "If we started this company today, would we be doing the things we're doing?"

We all know the answer.

Double Jeopardy

At the junction between yesterday and tomorrow lies the burden of decision making and good decisions are made when great questions are posed. Executives in organizations everywhere would be well advised to re-read their Annual Report and look for the one sentence that should serve as their mantra. Typically, it will read something like this

"Our past performance will not indicate future success."

In order to survive in today's challenging and even toxic environment, businesses have to take a sober look at their "reality" and develop an ethic to practice what Stanford Graduate School of Business professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton are calling "evidence-based management" in their book "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths & Total Nonsense".

Just the Facts

In short, evidence-based management is a process whereby managers and leaders are actually encouraged to use their heads. Pfeffer and Sutton state that by using "…better, deeper logic…and facts…" leaders can ultimately perform at a higher level.

The main element of rigour in evidence-based (EB) management lies in the ability of managers and leaders to continually challenge their own assumptions, beliefs, mental models, and data sources. Author Gary Hamel once summed this concept up nicely by stating that "those who live by the sword will be shot by those who don't."

No Data Diving

Evidence-based management is not, however, about creating a culture laden in analysis paralysis. On the contrary, EB management bases decisions and management practices on hard data, rather than causal benchmarking and out dated or biased information.

EB management is about speed.

It's abut knowing which pieces of data are important, and following up on them quickly. It is not about grinding the organization to a stop to pour through every piece of data possible.

A good leader knows what to heed and what to ignore and therein lies the heart of EB management.

Comfort Blanket

Those of us who are parents know that every child, at one point or another, becomes obsessed with a certain toy or a certain object that becomes the centre of their attention and affection. They have a certain doll, a certain hat, a certain pair of shoes, or a certain blanket. They insist that every day they must be in possession of this certain thing.

The logic - this thing is their stability.

This thing does not change

This thing is comfortable (even comforting).

Change is scary. Organizations have their own "security blankets". The key is to peek under the covers, and ultimately expose the change that must happen.

Storied Past

One of the best titles ever for a business book has to be "Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers." Truer words have never been spoken. Forget the elephant in the room, or the moose on the table - find your organization's sacred cow(s), and fire up the barbeque.

Having a strong sense of history and pride of legacy are wonderful aspects of any successful organization. But when that history starts to blur otherwise logical management decisions, it is time to put the past in its place.

In Our Opinion
The Beacon Group's Key's to using Evidence-Based Management

There would be no greater gift to your organization than to:

Develop Controls - The key to effective EB management is not about keeping your eyes on the data, it's about understanding which pieces of data to watch. It is the insight, not the information. In other words, you have to keep your eyes on the right dials on the dashboard - no sense watching your speed if you end up running out of gas.

Limit Variables - The key to practicing EB management is focus. Understanding what may have led your organization astray in the past will help you prevent it from happening again.

Validate - All great scientists perform their tests repeatedly to ensure that the results are, indeed, accurate. Understand which processes led you to be successful, and incorporate those aspects into other decisions you make.

Publish - Once you have uncovered the scientific phenomena that affect your business, it's practically your professional obligation to transfer that knowledge to the rest of your organization.

Our Monthly Rant
The Bravery at Nokia

Paper, rubber and cables.

That's how Nokia started in 1865.

Now they are the world's largest producer of mobile phones. How did this happen? We believe it is rooted in evidence-based management.

Nokia quickly understood how their skill sets and competencies were, in fact, being underutilized in the paper, rubber, and cable industries. As a result they got up and they got out.

This sort of confidence, and bravery, is seldom seen in the business world, but we would certainly be well served if the bravery embodied by Nokia became a "trait" more organizations encouraged and pursued.

To begin, your organization should focus on understanding the gap between where you are and where you could be - and then doing whatever you can to get there. The solution will most likely lie more with what you are prepared to abandon than adopt.