Hard facts: Dangerous half-truths & total nonsense.

PFEFFER, J., & SUTTON, R. I. (2006). BOSTON: HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS.

These authors are professors at Stanford University Graduate Business School. Their premise is that managers do not use evidenced-based information when making managerial decisions. The authors present "accepted" managerial truths and proceed to debunk these "myths" using evidence-based literature reviews. Now, I realize this sounds deadly dull and dry but the authors have written this book in such a manner as to make these topics interesting. Part One discusses why every company needs evidence-based management and how to practice it. We as nurses are familiar with the use of evidenced-based clinical practice. Pfeffer and Sutton lay out their arguments for why evidenced-based management is also necessary. Pfeffer and Sutton use examples from well-known companies and apply what research indicates as the best approach and evaluate the impact of evidenced-based actions. Interestingly enough, as did Levitt and Dubner, these authors discuss incentives and what they produce.

On pp. 105-107, encouraging people to be "noisy and nosy" as a way to promote wisdom is discussed. The first paragraph had me thinking of past employees who fit this category, and then the authors cited work done on this question with nurses and physicians and found an interesting relationship between leader and coworker relationships and the influence these have on errors on eight nursing units. In the chapter "Strategy is Destiny?" the success of applying what has worked for others without consideration of the organization it is being applied to is presented.

The book ends with information on how to move from evidence to action. As with the first book reviewed, this section offers examples for implementation that are useful but not as practical as in The Results-Driven Manager: Taking Control of Your Time.