Organizations such as companies, governmental institutions, NGOs, and hospitals are an important building block of our society. Most of us spend a considerable portion of our (working) life in some sort of organization. Whether we are happy, successful, depressed, or angry depends to a great extend on what we achieve and experience in our organizational life. There is no doubt that organizations have a profound impact on all of us.
Evidence-based management (also known as EBM or EBMgt) is a management approach that involves using multiple sources of scientific evidence and empirical results as a means of attaining knowledge (Barends, Rousseau, & Briner, 2014). To be an evidence-based manager is to use the scientific literature as a means of answering questions, inspiring strategy decisions, and forming long-term plans. Published academic research from the fields of psychology, behavioral economics, communications, and even sociology can help to inform the decisions of a well-informed evidence-based manager. An evidence-based manager carefully considers the body of evidence, evaluating research for its quality and relevance.
The aviation industry has reached an unprecedented safety level. This is an outstanding achievement taking into consideration that global air traffic is on the rise and every new aircraft becomes technically more sophisticated. Of course, one of the reasons for this achievement is superior technology. However, without a crew that performs well technology would be useless. A considerable body of evidence indicates that one reason for this strong safety track record in aviation is due to airlines conducting Crew Resource Management trainings as means to improve team performance. Initially inspired by management as a team development intervention, Crew Resource Management has become a de-facto standard in the aviation industry. Is it time for management to re-adapt what the aviation industry has developed to the next level?
The phrase coaching is popular in today’s management circles and has received both complimentary and critical attention. One of the most popular types of coaching to emerge from management development research is executive coaching. Executive coaching is a custom-tailored intervention that has become popular in corporations over the past thirty years (Smither, London, Flautt, Vargas & Kucine, 2003).
There is a lot of information available on the web about the concept of personality, personality tests and personality development. This is not a big surprise considering the role personality plays in our lives and the size of the market associated with services related to personality testing and development. However, most of the things you will find on the web do not really live up to their promises and end up doing more harm than good. This is why we decided to put together this guideline to shed some light on what personality is and why personality development truly matters for every professional.
Within organizations, there is inevitably conflict between supervisors and their subordinates and also between team members and peers. However, sometimes there are individuals who are destructive in their behavior because of their leadership style and personality traits (Wright et al., 2017). Workplace bullying is a real problem in organizations and can cause physical and psychological health issues for employees who are being harassed (Branch & Murray, 2015). This blogpost takes insights from research on workplace bullying and CQ Dossiers to introduce a simple step-by-step guideline on how to deal with bullies.
This blogpost takes insights from several CQ Dossiers on teams and introduces a simple step-by-step guideline on what to consider when seeking to solve workplace conflict - useful for all working professionals. While the blogpost mentions teams, these insights can also be applied to one-on-one relationships at the workplace. Simply replace “team” with “organization” or “employer-employee-relationship”.
Niklas Luhmann, one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century and father of social systems theory, once stated that organizations are made of decisions (Luhmann 2000). He even went further and argued that every decision taken builds on past decisions which accumulate to an organization’s future. On a more practical level, making the right decision can be a matter of life and death in high-risk environments such as aviation, medicine, or the military. In business, management and organizations, decision-making quality is a key determinant of good performance. We will take a look at the state of decision-making in the business sector and how Evidence-based Management can help managers, professionals and other stakeholders to improve decision-making quality.
Technology has the potential to amplify human capabilities. Yet, it is not digital transformation but rather business transformation as a whole that will help propel organizations into being top performers in the digital economy. Technology is a trigger and a driving force to re-think processes and business models. Research shows that this is what will constitute real value formation in the VUCA world. This blogpost will present the case of why management innovation is at the core of strategic advantage in the age of disruption, and offer insights into the management skills that are necessary for the digital age.
Many organizations rely on on-the-job training to equip employees with leadership skills. There are many advantages to on-the-job training including its convenience and low-cost. However, in offering this type of training, many organizations ignore science-based evidence when considering best approaches. This blog describes on-the-job training and compares the training with the approach at CQ Net - Management skills for everyone!, which relies on evidence to provide instruction to training participants. The blog argues that our evidence-based approach is more valid and reliable and provides you with the essential management skills that help boost your career and personal growth.
