Summary
Many managers inadvertently harm their organizations and stakeholders in much the same way that bloodletting doctors inadvertently harmed their patients. The time has come for an evidence-based management movement. Like evidence-based medicine, evidence-based management can help managers figure out what works and what doesn't. Although the evidence for what works in management is ample, the signal drowns in an ocean of noise. The cacophony in the marketplace of ideas is not the only barrier to evidence-based management; so is the pecking order within organizations. When done right, evidence-based management disrupts established power dynamics, replacing formal authority, reputation, and intuition with data. Creating a culture that fosters an evidence-based approach to management and problem solving is one of leaders' most crucial tasks, regardless of whether they are in charge of a business, a nonprofit, or a government agency.
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Extract
Act On Facts, Not Faith
The 19th-century French physician Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis put a lot of leeches out of business. For centuries before his research, doctors believed that removing a few pints of a person's blood would help cure all sorts of ailments. In the 1830s, doubting bloodletting's alleged effects, Louis undertook one of the first clinical trials. He compared the fates of 41 pneumonia victims who had undergone early and aggressive bloodletting to the fates of 36 pneumonia victims who had not. The body count was clear: 44 percent of the bled patients subsequently died, compared to only 25 percent of the patients who did not get the bleeding treatment.1 Louis' discovery helped convince physicians to abandon bloodletting and earned him the title "Father of Epidemiology."
Louis' study is a touchstone of the modern evidence-based medicine movement, which trains physicians to conduct, evaluate, and act according to research. Despite the wealth of research on what makes organizations and peopl...See the full content of this document
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