Consulting lecture 2

- There is a gap between what science knows and what management does
- Consultants and managers, they can be part of the problem or part of the solution
- Management fashion -> zijn de theorieën goed?
- One of the strongest mythes -> TYPOLOGIES (= stereotypering en karakterschildering)
o Unsound theoretical foundations
o Type is at odds with biological variation -> tegen de biologie in; de populatie is
normaal verdeel, waarom zouden de persoonlijkheden dan moeten worden
opgedeeld worden in hokjes?
o Fictitious and incorrectly used scales
o The tests are unreliable, artificially reliable or unresearched.
o People who define themselves according to their personality are annoying.

- Cognitive dissonance:
o We seek internal consistency regarding our beliefs, behaviors and attitudes
o Contradicting cognitions create discomfort
o Which we will seek to reduce by different means (= verminderen op
verschillende manieren)

- Ad hominem attack = we vallen de persoon aan en niet het argument

- We zitten met een probleem:
o Minder dan 1% van de HR-professionals leest regelmatig wetenschappelijke
literatuur en 75% van de HR professionals leest nooit wetenschappelijke
literatuur
o Platonic idealism -> in HR hebben we de neiging om te zeggen dat alles en
iedereen kneedbaar is als we maar de juiste trainingen geven, maar sommige
mensen beschikken gewoonweg niet over voldoende intelligentie
o Alle managers en professionals baseren hun beslissingen wel op bewijzen,
maar ze kijken bijna niet naar de kwaliteit van het bewijs.

- Motivated reasoning = je wilt dat iets waar is, dus je gaat argumenten zoeken die dat
kunnen bevestigen -> zo wordt het moeilijk om kritisch te blijven.
- Why would we use science and evidence at work? Who/ what to trust?
o Experience
o Bullshit bingo -> jargon
o Professor -> Diederik Stapel
o Expert -> Mark Van Ranst/ Stijn Baert
o Journalist -> willen verkopen dus aantrekkelijk verhaal (correlation is no
causation)
o Consultants -> commerciële interesses
o Famous -> “I never said half the crap people said I did “ Einstein
o Internet meme
o CEO -> Ricardo Semler, Welch, Steve Jobs
o Big company -> Elon Musk; ontslag via twitter
 o Guru
o Management book
o Self help book
o Motivational poster
o Tiktok
o Memory
o AI
o Our brain is our worst enemy -> Face Pareidolia = als we een gezicht in iets
kunnen herkennen, dan gaan we dat doet
o Don’t trust the gut feeling -> biases
 Overconfidence
 Survivorship bias
 Placebo bias
 Selective perception
 Blind spot bias
 …
- THINK, READ AND BE CRITICAL

- The arguments against evidence based (Falsehoods)

o “ A wrong theory or wrong measurement isn’t important, as long as it leads to
a good conversation and useful insights”. “It doesn’t matter, it is just a
conversation starter” (1)
o “There are no bad theories, models or wrong tests and outlandish therapies –
only wrong applications.” -> elke theorie is goed, als je ze in de juiste context
gebruikt. (2)
o “Some people (especially engineers) just need simplified explanations.” (3)
o “If people recognize themselves in the test results, it is a good test.” “It has
high face validity, which is better than a scientific test.” (4) (barnum effect =
wanneer mensen een algemene of vage beschijving lezen en ze dat zien als
van toepassing op hen.)
o “This measurement instrument is not to be considered as a measurement
instrument”. “The numbers are NOT numbers, but an abstract framenwork.”
(MBTI or 70:20:10) (5)
o “People have the right to think whatever they want, and as such, we don’t
need to interfere.” (6)
o “Aren’t you writing this book out of self-serving motives?” (7)
o “Scientific results change so often that what you claim now will be wrong in a
few years, and in a few years, researchers will revert to old theories that have
currently been abandonded.” (8)
o “so many (millions of) people can’t be wrong” (9)
o “If you don’t accept my model/test result or therapeutic approach, this proves
you have a problem.” (10)
o “there isn’t any evidence that evidence-based HR would be better than HR
without evidence.” (11)
- There is a context of discovery and a context of justification
o Discovery= het ontdekken en onderzoeken, de analyses doen en
experimenteren (in de wetenschap)
o Justification= we moeten weten dat het juist is (we moeten weten dat we de
juiste mensen aanwerven via de juiste methode) -> consulting
- Three fases about management trends
o Management fad/fashion as a quasi-scientific element -> “hey, this is
interesting, we should study that.”
o Management fad/fashion as a foreign body -> “wtf, do they really believe
this?”
o Management fad/fashion as object of study -> “why do they keep believing
this?”
- Companies that follow the newest trends
o No effect on productivity
o But, ..
 More admired
 Seen as more innovative
 Management is seen as “high quality”
 CEO’s get paid more
- Petitio principii = cirkelredenering
- Some more misunderstandings or counter arguments for evidence based
o Sounds good but ..
 Isn’t it too boring?
 I’m more of a feeling person and I don’t like all the ratio (rational vs
irrational) (emotion vs ratio is a false dichotomy)
o And by the way..
 We did our own study (wrong conclusions due to big data)
 Eviencde based working is too slow, it is slowing down innovation
 Some things are difficult to study
o In short ..
 It is a moral duty (5)
 Cost of failed change trajectories
 Human and financial cost of wrong selection procedures
 If you say “measure” something, people assume it is correct
 Self-fullfilling prophecies
 Payed with taxes
 …
- The search for reliable information:
o Sometimes it is hard
 HOW TO SELL PSEUDOSCIENCE (PRATKANIS, 1995) (9)
 Create a phantom
 Set a rationalization trap
 Manufacture a source credibility and sincerity
 Establish a granfalloon (= a group of people who affect a shared
identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is
meaningless.)
 Use self-generated persuasion
  Construct vidid appeals (Levendige/video oproepen)
 Use pre-persuasion
 Frequently use heuristics and commonplaces
 Attack opponents (SLAPP suits= strategic lawsuit against public
participation)
 CEBMa -> combinatie van verschillende bronnen
 Evidence based = science based?
 Evidence = information?
 A combination of critical thinking and the best available
evidence -> ???? and by evidence we in general just mean
information
o Sometimes it is easy
o Sometimes it is fun
o Tips and tricks
 Remain critical
 Read read read
 If you use google, add the following words:
 Fail
 Criticism
 Evidence
 Research
 (meta) analysis
 Ask critical (open) questions:
 What is this based on?
 Where can I find more information?
 Who were the researchers?
 When was this developed?
 How do I know this works?
 How do I know this works better then something else?
 Which scientific references can you provide me with?
 Talk to scientists
 They get payed with your taxes
 They tend to forget about copyrights

- TAKE HOME MESSAGE:

o As a consultant: the same techniques you can use as a consultant to sell BS to
your clients, can be used to suggest and implement evidence based solutions.
o As a client: ask for evidence