BUS576-1

Evidence-Based What? 

Source: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/product/mug/keep-calm-and-love-business-psychology/

I chose to read the readings not in the order listed on the class website. I was excited to read the Fiske and Borgida piece first because I do have a psychology background. In this reading Fiske and Borgida are leading the reader down a path that shows them science and psychology can come together to create best business practices. For years common sense has been the foundation of doing business. But the truth about common sense is that it is not so common! Business decisions should be made on the foundation of high-quality and empirical evidence. This is a very useful business management method known as evidence-based management. A simple example would be to say you inherit a restaurant that has been in your family for three generations. However, the family restaurant is starting to see slow business and less profit. As the owner you could keep doing things the old way as your parents and grandparents have done them or you could research the best business practice of how to run a restaurant. This research would include reliable, proven studies that have been tested and have supplied real results. This summer I am working as a waitress at a four-star Italian restaurant. Also, I have just finished the BUS 577 Information Technology course. I guarantee that once you work at a restaurant you will never look at dining out the same way again. I read an interesting article at Entrepreneur.com that talks about IT, restaurants, and management. I think it's a nice article that blends my summer work experience and my two summer classes together.

Perhaps most people think that managing a business should be done in a way that follows tradition or just follows the leader but I believe that businesses cannot grow and become exceptional without challenging tradition. I was surprised to hear in the Pfeffer and Sutton text that evidence-based management is a new way of thinking. This actually shocked me. This is probably because I have spent the last 6 years in college and have only been exposed to the business world through internships. I kind of thought that everyone did their best to research the best possible options before making a decision. But apparently this is not the case. Evidence-based management is how I go about my personal, everyday life. Before I buy a new internet modem I research which one will be most cost-effective and which one modem has the best reviews. So, I am completely sold as to why and how evidence-based management should be used and I know this class will help be to better understand this. At this time I am more interested as to why individuals choose to not use evidence-based management methods.

Let's examine why some business leaders do not prefer the evidence-based management approach. The first problem is that good business leaders are generally too hard to find. There was a great piece on the HBR Blog Network published in March that examines this very problem. Before a company uses evidence-based management practices they must first hire a good manager that sees fit to use evidence-based management. This article in itself is a part of evident-based management. Gallup conducted research to discover what makes a good manager and how managers can affect employee productivity and work quality. Gallup found that great managers possess the following qualities:

• motivate all employees to take action towards the goal or team mission 
• exhibit assertive behavior to drive employees toward the desired outcome
• hold employees accountable 
• build relationships of trust, transparency, and communication 
• make decisions not based on politics 

According to Gallup's poll only 1 in 10 people possess the right combination of skills required to make good managers. But we are in luck. On average there is one manger for every 10 employees. That means that there should be one person in this group of people who possesses the skills to become a strong leader (Randall and Harter, 2014). And a good leader is a leader who is open to learning more about evidence-based management.

For this last section, I would like to reiterate something I have expressed during my comments on Weekly Discussion 1 and during my Self-Intro on VoiceThread. During graduate school and my time at Chatham I have been taught to think critically about everything I am presented. This has been a useful skill and I feel that critically thinking is something that should definitely be applied to organizational behavior. I am looking forward to a reading on an area where perhaps evidence-based management has failed or an area that evidence-based management needs to improve. For there is always room for improvement.

Beck, R., & Harter, J. (2014, March 13). Why Good Managers Are So Rare.Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 1, 2014, from http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/why-good-managers-are-so-rare/