In a recent LinkedIn post and related article, Mike Cardus argued strongly in favour of organizational consultants basing their work with clients on the use of evidence-based practice. I’m afraid that, in the context of organization and management practice, I disagree equally strongly with this line of argument. This post outlines some of the reasons why I advocated the use instead of what I call "practice-based evidence".
It is true, of course, that before introducing a new medical intervention or people-related technological development, say, it is essential to ensure that sufficient trials have been carried out to provide evidence that these are both safe and effective. However, in the context of organization, we are not dealing with products and practices that can be tested meticulously in advance and replicated precisely in design, development and deployment. You can’t put organization in a test-tube and arrive at universally applicable principles and practices.
Whilst the complex social dynamics of organization are the same in all cases, the way in which these play out in each situation places a premium on the the unique context, ‘path to now’ and relationship dynamics that are involved at that time, in those circumstances and between those people.
As Mike says, “coaching and consulting carry the responsibility of knowing your discussion will impact people’s work and livelihood”. And it’s for that very reason that those offering these services need to ensure that any advice they give, and any support they offer, takes complexity seriously. This means foregrounding the complex social dynamics of real-world organization and the practical implications that flow from these. Within that, the emphasis should be on encouraging, assisting and enabling clients to usel their own, practice-based evidence; gleaned from their individual and collective reflection on the perspectives, practices and performance, that are governing their own interactions, influencing their judgement and affecting the outcomes that are emerging.
Insofar as practice-based evidence draws on science, it is the sciences of uncertainty and complexity; coupled with aspects of the social sciences, where these are attuned to the complex social reality of organizational life. In Aristotlean terms, the approach is essentially one of phronesis, or applying practical judgement to the realities in which one is immersed, ahead of episteme (epistemology), which sits at the core of evidence-based practice. The latter presents a generalized (i.e. context-free) view of organization and management practice, based on research methodologies that often rely on managers’ post-event rationalization of the much messier reality in which they have been participating.
Practice-based evidence seeks to draw on, and make sense of, this messy reality. Its aim is to affect the patterning of interactions in organizationally beneficial ways. In The Wiggly World of Organization, I suggest that the mode of operation that flows from this is that of the bricoleur; imaginatively making do with whatever insights, ideas and resources might emerge from this reflection.
Mike Cardus’s article is entitled: Executive Consultant you are F-ing with People’s Lives. A link can be found on his LinkedIn profile (above).
A post in this blog from 2010, entitled From evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence, explores this same theme and adds some more thoughts on the subject. In the book, I've also included the notion of evidence-based practice as part of the suffocating grip of management orthodoxy that fails to take complexity seriously.
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