Pseudo-science forms the basis of too many of today’s management techniques

 
Many modern management theories and techniques claim to be “scientific” or based on “scientific findings.” The truth is that most of them are based on a perversion of real scientific methods. Here’s why that is so.

Science proceeds by the careful accumulation, testing and re-testing of ideas. It’s focus is on disproving all current beliefs. Only those theories that can stand up to continual attempts to prove them wrong are accepted — and then only provisionally, since new findings might still disprove them at any time. True scientists engage in constant efforts to replace all current theories by better explanations.

In contrast, concentional management — and the schools that teach it — is addicted to preserving the status quo. Even today, people are urged to “keep it simple, stupid;” “not to fix what ain’t broke;” and to rely on notions of economic behavior dating from decades when the circumstances of business life bore very little resemblance to today.

Efforts devoted to disproving or replacing such hoary notions are routinely dismissed as “blue-skies thinking.” to be set aside in favor of a “practical focus” on “what works.” Never mind whether actual evidence that it works is tenuous at best and more often missing altogether.

The myth of the infallible free market

Take the myth that a free market will produce optimum results, because all the plays choose freely and seek to maximize the benefits available to them.

Scarcely a moment’s thought will show that isn’t true.

People don’t choose their actions to maximize rational benefits, economic or otherwise. The vast majority of decisions are made emotionally, often in total ignorance of the facts or any likely outcomes. People follow fashion, do what their friends do, act on the advice of self-appointed pundits, or fall into the hands of unscrupulous confidence-tricksters.

That’s not just amateurs either. Recent events have proved that the majority of CEOs, executives, and other professionals — especially in financial corporations — have been acting in the same way. It seems nothing appeals to the intellectually lazy and greedy at any level as much as a simple rule-of-thumb.

Why should governments stand aside and let “the market” take care of problems like downturns, recessions, or egregious cases of greed and trickery? Those who are loudest in proclaiming the need to maintain total market freedom are often the first to demand government action the moment some aspect of free-market economics starts to hit their own pockets.

The managerial muddle machine

How have we got into such a series of messes? Why does our economy seem to lurch from crisis to crisis? How is it that all these smart people in top jobs make mistakes that are totally predictable, act like lemmings, or resort to dishonesty and manipulation to conceal their incompetence?

The reason is simple, if depressing: Management as we know it is based on a jumble of rules-of-thumb, folk tales, myths, commonsense notions (usually untested), and plain guesswork — all applied with ruthless determination and both eyes kept firmly on the shortest of short-term outcomes.

It is nearer to folk myth and witchcraft that any kind of science. Those vaunted MBAs have more in common with training shamans to impress primitive tribal members than they have with equipping rational leaders to think for themselves in a complex world. Indeed, until managers begin to value evidence over assertion, and long-term understanding over short-term results, their methods should not be graced by the term scientific.

The plain truth

For all their assertions of expertise and business know-how, today’s executives are as often confused and baffled as anyone else. perhaps more so, since they have been trained to be little more than snake-oil salespeople, decked out with the latest pseudo-scientific jargon, and totally focused on doing whatever is fashionable with complete determination. They have become addicted to the quick fix, the instant outcome and cutting corners, even when none are left.

What we need are mavericks and skeptics: leaders who will be truly scientific by casting aside all dogma in favor of evidence-based results. We need people in charge who begin by admitting they don’t know the answers, and don’t trust conventional ideas (What got us into this mess?), then bend their efforts to find new and better ways to understand how best to run an operation.

In business, as elsewhere in life, we usually get what we deserve. If, as I do, you believe we deserve better than we are getting today, it’s time to speak up and demand more than sleight-of-hand as the basis for holding leadership positions.

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