The Edges People Carry

 

In my previous blog I examined how Game Theory failed to correctly identify the most likely strategy adopted by participants in The Ultimatum Game. I received a couple of comments on that piece, which actually serve as a segue into where I wanted to go this week. Any discussion of what the cutting edge of management science is, how it was developed, where it can be found, or when the next leap ahead might be expected or, if it’s already out there, recognized, largely depends on one crucial element: the who (not the rock band).

Who is it that developed the new, cutting edge idea? As I discussed in my September 3 blog, Thomas Kuhn points out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962) that when new theories are published and advanced that overturn an existing structure, those doing the publishing and advancing are almost always widely criticized, sometimes brutally so. No matter how effectively the new theory appears to explain the data points that appear to be only marginally explainable via the existing structure, those expounding the cutting edge hypotheses and theories can expect to be either widely ignored or wildly attacked, at least in the idea’s early stages of introduction. This phenomena is somewhat more pronounced in the so-called management sciences, since very little of the situation-stimulus-reaction-result chain that occurs in the macro\economic environment can be recreated in an experimental setting, where all of the factors and parameters are accounted for.

Take Tom Peters. In his works, he draws heavily from organizations that have realized some measure of success. His visits and interactions with the people from those organizations, when combined with his assessment of what’s different and what’s good about this particular organization, provide the majority of the narrative he provides in his books. However, as Nassim Taleb asserts in The Black Swan, it is an idea’s contagion, and not its validity, that drives its acceptance. We tend to take Professor Peters at his word, and try to search for some insight, some kernel of transplantable truth that we can take away from the stories of the sausage factory or gas station, or wherever else, and insert it into our organizations. We have no way of knowing what cognitive biases are in play when he assembles his narrative, nor do we even know if the examples he uses have realized long-term success as a direct result of the things he has identified as unique and good. Alas, such transplants are difficult and rare. It’s my opinion that Dr. Peters’ ideas are simply too broad and inchoate to lend themselves to specific implementations, lacking, as they do, an overarching structure that can be used to evaluate their fitness and meet.

Back home, within our organizations, it’s rather common for cutting edge ideas to be met with dismissal or derision. Problem is, bad ideas are also often met with dismissal or derision. On occasion, when a given employee has collected a critical mass of ideas that have been rejected by the owning organization, she will set out on her own and create a business based on the rejected model, to see if it really does work the way it was envisioned. This represents one of the truest laboratories for cutting-edge management science ideas, with the results written in terms of success or failure, for all to see.

For managers employed in areas where significant barriers to entry exist, this is usually not an option. These are pinned down in an environment of competing narratives, where attempts are made to attribute successes to various individuals’ contributions, and failures are laid at internal competitors’ feet (or hung around their necks – figuratively, of course). Politics – as I define as those actions taken that further an individual’s (or sub-group’s [clique’s]) agenda, but do not add (or even detract) from the macro-organization’s agenda – serve as a sort of watchdog that attacks those carrying the cutting-edge idea forward. Overcoming this bow-wave of resistance is the focus of the Implementation/Integration crowd’s body of work, and it is no small task.

Essentially, if you want to know what the cutting edge of management science is, then seek to find two essential ingredients:

1.      Who is trying to change the industry, or the organization?

2.      Assuming they are being frustrated in their attempts to implement change, why are they being frustrated? Is it because the change they seek is not beneficial or practical, or is it something else?

New and paradigm-shifting ideas are all around us, and not just in the management blogs and new, must-have books on the subject (like Game Theory in Management  http://www.gowerpublishing.com/isbn/9781409442417). We all work in mini-management science laboratories, with cutting edge ideas often just under our noses. The challenge to those seeking these cutting-edge ideas is to put aside our cognitive biases and political considerations, and recognize them.