book

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense

by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton

February 2006

Intermediate to advanced

276 pages

9h 10m

English

Harvard Business Review Press

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Poor Decision Practices, and How to Recognize and Avoid ThemWhat Is Evidence-Based Management?What to Do When There Are No Sound Data AvailableThe Focus on Dangerous Half-TruthsMaking the Difficult Job of Managing a Little Easier
Obstacles on the Road to Implementing Evidence-Based ManagementUse Sound Logic and AnalysisSome Guidelines for Evaluating Management Ideas and KnowledgeWisdom: The Most Important Thing

What Is Supposedly Different About Work?Work Doesn’t Have to Be Different from the Rest of LifeThe Benefits of Keeping Work Separate from the Rest of LifeThe Benefits of Integrating Work with the Rest of LifeStriking a BalanceAccommodating the Rest of Life May Actually Be More Efficient
Why Smart and Skilled People Fuel PerformanceWhy an Obsession with Individual “Talent” Can Be Hazardous to Organizational HealthThe Right Kind of TalentPrestige, Pride, and Performance
What Incentives Can DoThe Growth in Incentive PayIncentives Signal What Is Important, but the Signals May Be BluntIncentives Motivate—Sometimes the Wrong BehaviorIncentive Systems Do Attract Talent—Often the Wrong KindVariable Pay = Pay Dispersion = Lower PerformanceGuidelines for Using Incentives
Strategy as a Source of SuccessWhy Strategy May Not Be That Important: The Logic and the EvidenceWhat to Do About Strategy
Is the Change Worth Doing?Does Change Need to Be Difficult and Take a Long Time?What to Do About Change
Leaders Make a Big DifferenceExcept When They Don’tWhy the “Leaders Make a Big Difference” Half-Truth PersistsShould Leaders Be in Control of Their Organizations?What Should Good Leaders Do?Getting Beyond the Half-Truths of Leadership
Implementation PrinciplesA Different Perspective on Leadership

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7 Change or Die?

NO ONE in the business world ever says that you, your people, or your company are good enough and you can rest on your laurels. The not-so-subtle message is that if you aren’t constantly getting better by generating new products, services, and business models, or aren’t borrowing and installing best practices, then you deserve to be mocked and fired, and your company deserves its inevitable, swift, and certain death. If you resist new ways of thinking or acting, if you aren’t ready to start Winning Through Innovation, if you are always worried about Who Moved My Cheese ?, if you chafe at advice like If It Ain’t Broke, Break It, and are frozen in your tracks by The Change Monster, it is better for you and everyone else if you ...