In his outstanding book, The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First, Stanford University's Jeffrey Pfeffer offers the observation that the biggest cause of business failure is due to the misuse of "conventional wisdom." Pfeffer suggests that many commonly accepted management theories are actually untrue and detrimental to business success. Do you agree with Pfeffer? Which examples of "conventional wisdom" do you believe to be most dysfunctional?
As I understand from your question The focus on human as a means and target at the same time will make companies successful if this philosophy is applied in management because it represents(philosophy) the product and the consumer at same time as well represents the processes that connect the product or service and the consumer
In our executive education programs we increasingly talk about management principles based on evidence. This emphasis stems from Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton's influential article, ‘‘Evidence-based management’’, and the subsequent meta-analyses that it stimulated.
One of the most popular "conventional wisdoms" is to duplicate the best practices of the most admired companies. We now know that organizations could save a lot of time, effort and money if they avoided the herd instinct and concentrated on investing in approaches that fit their circumstances.
Short and shallow leadership & management training programs generally do *not* pay off. Longer-term mentoring and, yes, executive education do pay off, resulting in significant and sustainable behavioural changes and improvements in key indicators of individual and organizational performance.
Another example of a "conventional wisdom" is that good managers are consistent and treat all of their employees the same. In fact we find that the most effective managers treat all their employees fairly, but *not* the same. That means with respect, professionalism and courtesy for all, but adapting to the needs and preferences of each. Some employees perform best when allowed to work autonomously. Others need more guidance.
Kepes et al. (2014, Academy of Management Learning & Education) argue that the promise of evidence-based management is limited by the extent that our cumulative scientific knowledge is trustworthy. I believe that this a legitimate criticism of relying on what we know, or think we know.
Rynes and Bartunek (2017) have published a comprehensive review of evidence-based management. One of their recommendations is for more research collaboration between academics and practitioners so that knowledge is co-created. Bridging the gap between management research and practice is sensible if we want to move beyond "conventional wisdom" and management myths.
Use different criteria to select personnel.
According to Pfeffer and Veiga, selecting the best person for the job is an extremely critical piece of the human resources inflow process (Pfeffer & Viega, Putting People First for Organizational Success, 1998). Selective hiring helps prevent the costly turnover of staff and increases the likeliness of high employee morale and productivity.
Research has found the predictive power of a typical job interview is around 20%. Hiring managers that utilize psychometric testing with interviewing significantly raises the probability of selecting and retaining the right talent.
If interested in learning more - http://www.insightintotalent.com
I completely agree with Pfeffer on this subject. Nowadays there are two "conventional wisdoms", I believe. On the one hand, economicism, consisting of measuring everything and putting strong incentives based on each one of the measurements or a composite of them (which are about the same thing), and forgetting about other types of motives and the (maybe enormous) dysfunctional consequences of those measurements.
The other one is new institutionalism, encouraging firms to do what everybody else is doing, and, therefore, forgetting that this means not having a differentiated strategy, and thus leading them to mediocrity (which means exactly this, doing what everybody else does).
Doing the two things at the same time may be a hit: firm goes bankrupt in a few years at most...
Agree with much of the above. The idea that if you can’t measure it, it’s not worth doing doesn’t make any sense. For example, you can’t measure growth in safety awareness, although you can point to indicators that verify such awareness has increased. Not everything is quantifiably measurable.
also the best practise trap. Every organization is a unique system, so what is effective in organization A won’t play out the same way in organization B.. on top of that, best practice is, by definition, past practise.
i add the conventional deficit paradigm approach to change, whether behavioural change, process change, or whatever. Fixing weaknesses can be good, but also focusing on leveraging strengths will take things much further.
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