Blink
I thought it would still be some time before science was brought into the workplace to identify such things as, for example, the causes of more productive behaviour or greater team effectiveness.
Not so. The latest edition of The Economist has run a story on an ingenious scientific experiment that has sought to do just that - with fascinating results. The story can be read here.
For my own part I think this offers a real breakthrough for management science. For too long it has languished in a pseudo-conceptual mire where very little of the real culture of an organisation is quantifiable, and the secrets of an effective human resource - which accounts for a huge competitive difference between companies - remain a mystery.
The 'blink' school of management, where employees are recommended to use their intuition, simply cannot work in large-scale organisations where feedback of what is effective is essential so that those ideas, actions and behaviours can be replicated easily.
This is the space I feel Waber's and Pentland's study can occupy. Using their technology and approach companies could, for example:
Talent Talk
- Adapt their corporate cultures to local ones, ensuring employee engagement across diverse cultures.
- Discover linkages between corporate effectiveness and employee behaviour, then drill down and identify the causes of these.
- Manage the many 'intangibles' including employee selection and engagement, linking these to financial outcomes.
Of course many people might find this all a bit scary, but I would consider such studies in the light of trying to achieve a harmonious and dynamic working environment, where everyone stands to gain. It's really little different to a doctor's stethoscope, only on a much grander scale. The alternative however is to continue with overbearing bosses, processes and concepts that may have little or nothing to do with reality. Science like this, properly-used, is surely positive.
Stumble it!