Managing Leadership^®

Have you ever read a book that trumpets its grounding in “research,” but been left with the nagging sensation that the author really just sort of asked around? The book I alluded to on Wednesday is like that. There is a lot of talk about experience and dedication to researching important questions. But there is no hint of any actual academic or other scientific rigor employed in this quest.

So, one is left to wonder, is there any? Or is the fellow just enthusing about conversations with people he enjoys, about ideas that seem good to him? If so, he is merely expressing his opinion based on his personal judgement – not scientific experiment or examination. Why should his judgement be more valid, or his opinion more valuable, than anyone else’s – than ours? Is his posing before the facade of research actually an acknowledgement of a concern about such questions, and a device to ward them off?

Of course, as we know, the effort to conduct actual research in a field like management can be problematic. After all, if fully half of the research published in any given year in “hard” sciences such as the field of medicine are “proven” false by research published in succeeding years, what chance do researchers in the “softer” sciences really have?

But the allure of being able to occupy the presumably unassailable citadel of science proves irresistible. Some of the most highly regarded, widely published, and broadly influential figures in management succumb to it. It turns out that they are kidding not just us, but themselves.

And as it happens, the best guide into the secrets behind this amazing fact is an insider, one who knows the difference between jargon and mumbo-jumbo, between method and madness – or, at least, folly.

It is very important that such insiders examine the foundations and fortifications of their own institutions, in order to ensure their ongoing value and viability. Henry Mintzberg, Sumantra Ghosal, and Jeffrey Pfeffer are known for their critical examinations of the worth of business education. They have included in their critiques concerns about the validity and value of the material taught there.

Now they are joined by another academic, but one who is more specifically interested in that latter issue. Phil Rosenzweig‘s “The Halo Effect” is a carefully considered, strongly organized, and meticulously argued – and yet engagingly presented – exploration and expose of the widespread and fundamental flaws in the most popular management writing of recent decades.

Much of that writing is buttressed, at its more obviously extraordinary or weaker points, by its authors’ glancing references to academic rigor, which can seem to be intended to deflect critical examination on the presumption that it has already been dealt with by our betters. There is no such condescension in this book. Rosenzweig understands both that his audience is not composed of academics, and that it is nevertheless fully capable of comprehending the basic principles of good research and scientific thought.

More importantly, he understands a third thing: not only are we sufficiently like academics to understand what they do – they are also inescapably like the rest of us in their vulnerability to unwitting, but potentially grievous, error. They are subject to unconscious bias and intellectual sidetracking, and they, also like us, are all the less likely to discover that they’ve fallen victim to these errors for the very reason that they have.

The Halo Effect actually describes a wide range of fallacies – nine, altogether – that infect the thinking of the most influential writing of recent times. Principle among these is indeed the halo effect, which is examined in detail due to its insidious tendency to spawn a variety of other ailments. One is the infamous confusion of correlation for a cause and effect relationship. Another uniquely disturbing effect of the halo is that it seems to lead almost inevitably to the error of making unsubstantiated and judgemental assumptions about which is the cause, and which the effect.

But there are a number of other dangerous mines littering these fields. Rosenzweig reveals a wide range of hidden traps, such as the delusions of lasting success, absolute performance, and rigorous research – and the especially seductive and dangerous delusion of organizational physics.

He points out that one tends to conceal the presence of another. For example, the delusion of rigorous research can blind a person to the insinuation of other fallacies into his or her thinking; it doesn’t matter how much data you collect if it is all gathered, classified, and analyzed under the influence of other delusions.

One of the best things about this book is that it is not just abstract argumentation. The author names names. He penetrates the assertions made by some of the best-selling authors – self-proclaimed rigorously scientific consultants and academics – in the history of management and business writing.

He provides detailed explanations of what is wrong with their arguments. He scrutinizes their evidence, as well – iconic organizations and executives widely touted as exemplars for this or that. He then demonstrates how these delusions lead to skewed conclusions that can be real problems for us, readers innocently taken in by the dazzling academic credentials of these authors.

It is worth noting while you read this book that much insight and thinking of real value to managers does not need to arise from academic researchers, deluded or otherwise. And sometimes, just asking around can reveal truly innovative and valuable ideas to a practiced, disciplined inquisitor. But when such approaches are fenced around with pretensions to academic respectability – even by otherwise genuinely respectable academics – then you should ask why those barriers are being erected between your questions and their judgment.

And the best way to formulate those questions is to learn the lessons offered in The Halo Effect, by Phil Rosenzweig. It is a must have for any manager in any field, in any sort of organization.

By all means, read the best-sellers. You will undoubtedly get plenty of great ideas. Moreover, these books are obviously influencing your colleagues and competitors; it behooves you to be acquainted with concepts that have gained such wide and enthusiastic currency.

But read The Halo Effect first. You will be better positioned, then, to determine which influences are beneficial, and which baleful. You will arm yourself with additional means of understanding, and leave yourself better able to interpret and use, information. That’s what managers do.

Buy the book. You will enjoy it – and gain more from your subsequent reading as well.

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Today’s tips: We spoke Monday about who is in charge and who is the agent, and what that means for society’s problems – and their solutions. Please see Peggy Noonan, in her most recent WSJ opinion column, take a similar approach to the Office of the Presidency and its occupants.

And speaking of the difference between affectation and efficiency, between noisily parading the process and quietly producing the results, please be sure to read all of this piece about what service really is, by Cultural Offering. Is your business as good as his barber shop – or, amazingly, his bank? Are your customers’ attitudes toward you anything at all like his toward them?

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