This article advocates for evidenced‐based management and aims to demonstrate how it works.
The article identifies seven implementation principles to help people and companies that are committed to doing what it takes to profit from evidence‐based management.
The seven principles are: treat your organization as an unfinished prototype; no brag, just facts; see yourself and your organization as outsiders do; evidence‐based management is not just for senior executives; like everything else, you still need to sell evidenced‐based management; if all else fails, slow the spread of bad practices; and the best diagnostic question: what happens when people fail?
A follow‐up article needs to show results when firms institute evidence‐based management.
A key underpinning of evidence‐based management are three truths: that most so‐called breakthrough ideas are either old, wrong, or both; that effective companies and leaders are more interested in what is true than what is new; and that those that do simple, obvious, and even seemingly trivial things well will dominate competitors who search for silver bullets and instant magic.
The article explains why the implementation of evidenced‐based management promotes competitive advantage.
