1. Postgraduate Course Evidence-based management: Why do we need it?

2. Postgraduate Course Reason 1: Mounting criticism ”Staff in the private and public sectors are addressed on a daily basis in a language which does not express their own specific reality but the make-believe world of managers. This make-believe world is dominated by objectives couched and repeated in a theatrical rhetoric: top quality, excellence and continuous innovation” Managers have to endure a great deal of criticism from various directions. Misuse of the position of power to one's own benefit, failure and mismanagement are the charges most commonly heard.

3. Postgraduate Course Trust me, I’m a manager.

4. Postgraduate Course Reason 2: Accountability As a result of this increasing social pressure there is an external drive for transparency which fosters an upheaval for ‘objective opinion’ and even ‘objective evidence’.

5. Postgraduate Course  Half of what you learn will be shown to be either dead wrong or out-of-date within 7 years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half Reason 3: false information

6. Postgraduate Course 1. Incompetent people benefit more from feedback than highly competent people. 2. Task conflict improves work group performance while relational conflict harms it. 3. Encouraging employees to participate in decision making is more effective for improving organizational performance than setting performance goals. True or false?

7. Postgraduate Course How evidence-based are managers?  959 (US) + 626 (Dutch) HR professionals  35 statements, based on an extensive body of evidence  true / false / uncertain On average: 35% - 57% correct HR Professionals' beliefs about effective human resource practices: correspondence between research and practice, (Rynes et al, 2002, Sanders et al 2008)

8. Postgraduate Course 5 years? 7 years? 10 years? Reason 4: half time value of knowledge

9. Postgraduate Course  Evidence-based practice movements abound in medicine, education, and public policy  Management research from psychology, engineering, operations research yields 1000s of studies annually  Internet (scholar.google.com) gives ready access  Innovative companies now hiring “chief evidence officers”  Public demands accountability (quality decisions that are defensible) Reason 5: The Zeitgeist

10. Postgraduate Course But the MAIN reason is.....

11. Postgraduate Course Bounded rationality

12. Postgraduate Course Bounded rationality System 1  Fast  Intuitive, associative  heuristics & biases System 2  Slow (lazy)  Deliberate, ‘reasoning’  Rational

13. Postgraduate Course Bounded rationality limbic system and brainstem (system 1) neo cortex (system 2)

14. Postgraduate Course Systeem 1: necessary to survive

15. Postgraduate Course  Seeing order in randomness  Mental corner cutting  Misinterpretation of incomplete data  Halo effect  False consensus effect  Group think  Self serving bias  Sunk cost fallacy  Cognitive dissonance reduction System 1: very prone to biases  Confirmation bias  Authority bias  Small numbers fallacy  In-group bias  Recall bias  Anchoring bias  Inaccurate covariation detection  Distortions due to plausibility

16. Postgraduate Course Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Managers and consultants hold many erroneous beliefs, not because they are ignorant or stupid, but because they seem to be the most sensible conclusion consistent with their own professional experience! (system 1 will always engage!)

17. Postgraduate Course “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool”. Richard Feynman

18. Postgraduate Course I’ve been studying intuition for 45 years, and I’m no better than when I started. I make extreme predictions. I’m over- confident. I fall for every one of the biases.” Bounded rationality

19. Postgraduate Course Developing expert skill and intuition 1.A sufficiently regular, predictable environment 2.Opportunities to learn regularities through prolonged practice and feedback The management domain is not highly favorable to expert skill and intuition!

20. Postgraduate Course “It’s hard to tell the signal from the noise. The story the data tell us is often the one we’d like to hear, and we usually make sure it has a happy ending. It is when we deny our role in the process that the odds of failure rise.” Nate Silver EBP is about the signal and the noise

21. Postgraduate Course EBMgt Overcomes Limits of Unaided Decisions  Bounded Rationality  The Small Numbers Problem of Individual Experience  Prone to See Patterns Even in Random Data  Critical Thinking  Decision Supports  Research Large Ns > individual experience Controls reduce bias The “Human” Problem Evidence-Based Practice