What Monkeys Do

#21 How to make Better Decisions using the Evidence-based Practice w/Rob Briner

May 06, 2021 Morten Kamp Andersen Episode 21
What Monkeys Do
#21 How to make Better Decisions using the Evidence-based Practice w/Rob Briner
Show Notes Transcript

We have access to more information than ever. Yet, we still base most of our decisions on guesses, gut feelings, outdated information. Why? Because we do not take our time to gather and understand the evidence behind. The gap between available information and the decisions we take is simply too wide - in our private lives, as well as in organisations. But, if we change that, we will make better informed decisions with better outcomes.

 So, how do you make better decisions? The best way is to start using an evidence-based approach. Evidence-based practice does not mean reading a lot of boring research. That means to take a structured approach to your decision making, use several sources, and critically judge the quality of the information. My guest today, Rob Briner, is a front person in the evidence-based practice movement. He is a professor in organisational psychology at Queen Mary University in London and Scientific Director in the Centre for Evidence-based Management. He will help you make better decisions.  

 ROB TALKS ABOUT

  • Why we see a big gap between evidence and practice
  • A clear guide as to how you make a more informed decision
  • Why Google Scholar is your new best friend
  • How you can use the evidence-based practice to make better decisions for your organisation 
Morten Andersen:

Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My name is Morten Kamp Andersen. And this is a podcast about what it takes to make a change and make it stick. This podcast is about change. And today we'll talk about how to use an evidence-based approach to make our decisions. Because before we make a change, before we make any change, you first have to decide what to change, and importantly, how to change and the 'how' is important. Let me take an example. Let's say that you suffer from a mild depression. So on a scale from minus 10, to plus 10, you are, let's say a minus two or minus three. Now, there are many things that you can potentially do, you can go to therapy, and there are many therapeutic directions. So cognitive behavioral therapy, psycho analysis, emotional therapy, relational therapy, act, and 10s of others of therapy directions, you can also take medicine, or you can force yourself to be socially active, you know, meet people, you know, or you can read a self help book and follow the instructions in that one, or you can do exercise, there are many things you can do. And because we're complex humans, there is not one recipe for what is certain to work. But a few of those that I just mentioned, are more likely to work for you than the others. We simply have evidence which suggest some things will work better for you, if you have a mild depression, and some things, that does not work. And that is also the case with changes at work. Maybe people do not have a high level of job satisfaction in the team that you work in. Is that a problem? Can you do something about it? And if you do want to do something about it, what? What is the most effective way to build satisfaction at work? Well, that's actually also something we know something about. And when we look at the evidence, we often find that we are basing many of our decisions on myth or incorrect facts, so to speak. So the interesting thing is how can we make better decisions using the evidence which we have at hand. My guest today is a front person in the evidence-based practice movement. He is a professor in organizational psychology at Queen Mary University in London. And he's also the founder and scientific director of the Center for Evidence-based Management. Welcome to you, Rob Briner.

Rob Briner:

Thank you very much, Morten, thank you for inviting me on your podcast.

Morten Andersen:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So in this episode, we'll talk about how to make better decisions using evidence-based practice. And you've spent many years focusing on exactly that. Can you tell us what evidence practice is and how it's different from how we normally make decisions?

Rob Briner:

Yeah, sure. That's a very important question. So it's an evidence-based practice is really about making more informed decisions. And actually, both now I think, historically, the whole term evidence-based is a little bit It's either off putting to people or it make these people very particular impression about what we mean by evidence, it is important to think about what are the differences between what we seem to normally do and an evidence-based practice approach, and I think there are three main differences. The first, I guess, is the broad approach to thinking and acting around evidence. And the traditional definition for medicine is conscientious, explicit. And judicious. So conscientious means you make lots of effort around gathering evidence, explicit means you share it, you'd say what evidence and information and data we're using judicious is judging the quality of that information. So it's almost like a whole general approach. So for example, if you take the judicious bit an important part of evidence-based practice, is not the use of all the evidence, use the best available evidence on the set a lot of information data we've got, it's very unreliable, we probably shouldn't even really look at it. But without looking at it, we can't start to judge its quality. So the first is this general conscientious, explicit and judicious approach, or say the second main difference is the use of multiple sources of data. So for example, in HR and organizations and other contexts has a lot of emphasis on data analytics, but typically that that's only actually using one source of data, which is often organizational data, or data from employees, and that's fine. But the idea of using multiple sources is for two reasons. I think one is this idea of triangulation, you cross check and you compare, which is pretty important. The second reason for doing it is to contextualize data. So for example, you mentioned your introduction around depression, you might look at the scientific evidence around for example, treating mild depression, but actually you need to know all about the person, individual situation. Other things about them before we can say does this scientific evidence apply to this person does exactly the same organizations, does the scientific evidence, for example about job satisfaction? Again, you mentioned there's quite a lot of that, does it apply in this situation to these people to this organization right now, it may do it may not, without looking across multiple sources, you just don't know. So I think it's so multiple sources is to contextualize and cross check and triangulate. I think the third main difference is taking a structured and step approach. Of course, everybody always uses evidence and information and data in their decision making, you can't make a decision without doing it. But typically, since people don't follow a structured process, so they will jump in, for example, to a solution, and then try and justify the solution, or they'll dig around and not really be too clear about what the problem is. But once act anyway, so the point about having structure is to help us stick to a process for making a more informed decision. Because the seems to be seems to be the case, it's really difficult for people to use evidence and use data and use information not because it's because it's technically difficult. You don't have to be a geek or Brainiac. It's because many, many things get in the way, which I think we're gonna come on to rate. Three main differences. We always use evidence, but it's this approach, conscientious, explicit and judicious. It's about multiple sources to try and guide and cross check. It's also taking a structured approach, which has mentioned helps us stick on track, but also, in a sense forces us to think about the problem or opportunity first, before we go into solution mode. In a way, they sound like simple differences. But in other way, they're quite important differences.

Morten Andersen:

If I look at sort of the history of evidence-based approaches, it originates from medicine, I think it was back in the late 80s or early 90s. I remember reading and wondering why there is such a big gap between what we know works and what people are applying. And I remember, as I studied psychology, I was struck by that same gap that in psychology, we also have some evidence about, you know, which directions to look at and which not to look at, and then what is being applied. And in your writing, You have also shown how that is true for management and leadership and HR and management consultants, etc. Why do you think there is such a big gap? Is that a resistance towards looking at evidence? Is it just you know, we do it how we normally do it? Or what is the explanation?

Rob Briner:

That's a great question. And in my experience, or thinking about this for a long time, it's extremely complicated. There's many things going on. But if you wanted to pick one or two reasons why evidence isn't better used. I think, at the moment, at least my current thinking today or this morning, is that it's because practitioners, including me, as an academic are incentivized not necessarily to tackle the most important problems, opportunities, are incentivized to not necessarily do what's most effective. crudely speaking, most of us are incentivized to do stuff, whether you're a surgeon, police officer, an academic researcher, or consultant, your incentives are to do stuff, because that's what will get you rewards and recognitions. And if you don't do stuff, you may well get punished for it as well. So that's the issue. So if people can't see a reason to use evidence, and to take more informed decisions, really simple, they won't do it, they see any possible benefit.

Morten Andersen:

So we are more incentivized to do something rather than do nothing. And we're more incentivized to do something rather than do the right thing. And because doing the right thing probably involves more work or a lead time, or we may not even know whether it is going to be right. Therefore, doing things is actually what we're just going to do.

Rob Briner:

Yeah. And also because if you think about many and you know, in your context of change is particularly true, but in many organizations, interventions and HR and elsewhere, as you know, they typically not not evaluated only am I paid to do stuff to do it fast to get things done. actually doesn't matter unless it unless it's a disaster. And very few things are complete disaster. I'll get away with it in the sense of it just doesn't matter. Here's a new training program here, the high talent management program, whatever it is, let's just roll it out, bring it in, do the stuff. People become happy. And if they're not, that's okay. We'll do something else in two years time. It's pot it is tempting sometimes to blame individual decision makers and managers. But increasingly, I think it's a contextual issue. Of course that makes it as it were a wicked problem is quite hard to tackle.

Morten Andersen:

Yes. Interestingly enough, there's actually more and more studies being made but also more and more studies being made to and shown to the general public. So if I just look at my Facebook feed, I will see or newspaper I will see many headlines like study shows that coffee is good for your weight loss or study shows that you're talking to a mother can prolong your life or studies shows that having children makes you unhappy or things like that. And then there'll be a link to some study, most of those studies actually not very good to be quite frank, you, it's very hard to read behind them. But if you can, it's based on a very little population and poor quality. But on the other hand, there are more sort of studies that people can see now. And that's also why I suppose why having multiple sources is very important. Because otherwise you can always find research to support your way of thinking, so to speak.

Rob Briner:

Yeah, multiple sources. And as you imply critical appraisal, which means judging the quality of it, and this obviously, huge paradox, it's a kind of signal and noise problem. At the moment, probably most organizations, decision makers and other decision makers have access to more information than probably ever, but it doesn't, I don't think it means they're making better informed decisions. And I think, again, as you now think, like Facebook, or LinkedIn, or lots of sources, the most readily available information in my experience is typically the worst quality. And this odd sort of paradox of being more and more and more news data Information Studies, which is you say, often a quite poor quality, and actually wading through that, to get to the signal behind it is actually quite effortful. Which is exactly why, for example, in medicine, there's been a huge institutional effort globally, for decades now, in the context, in the case, particularly of scientific evidence, to try and summarize it to try and do systematic reviews. So people aren't bombarded with one study here one study there, can we have an overview, as of now of the best available evidence, and what generally seems to be telling us,

Morten Andersen:

there's been a lot of focus on our biases, then economists work, of course, have been very influential in that sense. I wonder if evidence-based approaches is a way to overcome some of those influences of bias?

Rob Briner:

I think it is a way. And I think in that sense, I think you can never overcome bias I noticed on LinkedIn and elsewhere, people talking about in the context of diversity and inclusion, the idea of removing bias or crushing bias, anyone with even a basic psychology education that you can't remove bias. But as you said, maybe there's ways of trying to reduce it control. I think the evidence-based practice approach is one potential way of doing now called politics and power is always there, it's always within you can't ignore it. But at least if you're taking this idea of a conscientious, explicit and judicious approach, if you're following steps, if you're looking across multiple sources, if we're involving groups in decision making, it seems to me, all those steps make it more likely you address some of the biases that economists and others have been writing about, again, for decades and decades, such as confirmation bias. So in a context of evidence-based practice decision, one of the things you train people do to be aware of some of these biases. So people go out searching for evidence that already confirms our existing beliefs. The idea is everyone would see that and be aware of it. And of course, at the point that often other people, and this is where I think the social element, or the shared cognition element of evidence-based practice is important. Other people can see our bias is probably much better than weekend. So if I Morton was presenting information to you about, oh, this is why I want to do this organizational change. I've just come across this thing. It's really cool. Microsoft, do it, Google, do it, whatever, whatever. You'd say, hold on a minute, Rob, I can see you love this idea. But come on, let's think about what's behind it. So the social element of it, the shared decision making element of it is also I think, another way in which it helps deal to some extent with some of these biases. Yeah,

Morten Andersen:

I think that's actually really, really important. Because also, as you mentioned, you know, your your three, your three elements of what is evidence-based approach, one of them is to, to make it contextual. And contextual, can also be a way to say, well, this study doesn't apply here because of things. And then you make excuses for why you want to use a particular intervention, so to speak.

Rob Briner:

That's right. And that's almost the opposite of our people. The older, every organization is so special and unique. Nothing anyone else does can possibly work here. And again, there's a real paradox, because on the one hand, organizations do say that, on the other hand, organizations will also leap onto ideas, for example, uses the Google do there's nothing to do with their organization. People don't like something, they'll say, well, it just won't work here. If people do like something that ignore the fact they're nothing whatsoever like Google. So why would that work for you? So you get these two again, it's just another way I suppose of, of either doing something you want to not do something you don't want, by drawing in not a very effective way on different sources of evidence and information.

Morten Andersen:

Evidence-based approach is essentially trying to take the best available knowledge that we have in order to make better decisions. In order to get that we basically have to change the way we approach this. So we basically have to make our decision process explicit. We also have to judge it much better. We have to look at multiple sources and we have to use a structured approach and if we Apply this evidence-based practice, then our decision making and ultimately, our outcomes will be much better.

Rob Briner:

Exactly, as you said right at the beginning with your depression examples. It's not about having a solution. And this is something that drives me and I'm sure others a bit crazy when it comes to a lot of management practice. It's both marketed as and I think sometimes thought of as an answer. The whole point about evidence-based practice isn't about having an answer. We're not dealing with an equation, we're not dealing with a math problem, we're dealing with usually quite a complicated situation. And there's many things we can do. And what we're looking to do is do the thing that is most likely to work and it may turn out three things that equally most likely work, and that's fine. So we're not looking for a single answer, we're looking at in terms of probability, the more likely course of action leading to the outcome we want.

Morten Andersen:

Great. So I'm really interested in how to use evidence-based practice in in real life. So let's use an example. A team in an organization is not performing well. They say themselves that the team dynamics are not very good. People are not very engaged, they don't work well together, and maybe some that don't even like each other that much. So they call HR to make an intervention, make the team work well, again, so to speak. How can the HR person use the evidence-based approach in such a such a situation?

Rob Briner:

Sure. So I think there's a couple of things, I think the first thing is that it's about multiple sources. And we haven't yet said what those sources are. So we talked about scientific literature a bit. But of course, when we're talking about organizational data a bit, but only to have four, ideally, four sources would use would also talk to stakeholders in the context of your team example, it would, of course, be the team members, but they may also need the team's clients and customers, they may also be other teams, it may also be the team's manager or team leader. That's the third sort of stakeholders. And the fourth is practitioners own expertise. So again, an example you've given, that will be the expertise of the HR practitioner, the HR team in dealing with these kinds of issues. So the first thing is the multiple sources. The second thing is, is really, of course, trying to understand what the problem or opportunity is, for everything you mentioned, people not getting on people not liking each other people are feeling engaged. The question is, of course, why is that a problem? So what, you know, that's life, right? People don't like each other. So what we have to be quite careful about leaping on to what we think is a problem because we've already sort of a solution. So in the case of this example, it may be a what we need is a team level and a group intervention are going to give everybody no Belbin team roles are going to give them this thing, because you've left on this thing to be the problem. Now, in and of itself, I think people not getting on. And I, you know, why is that? So what? Not being engaged, sort of so what it's almost like, when presenting this problem, were almost implying in diagnosing the problem. We already know what the solution is. Yeah. So it should increase or help people not not not being conflict anymore. And just an example, team conflict. You know, as you know, there's a sense of team conflict is not actually a bad thing. So if you remove team conflict, is that good and good for what? So very often, I think, in this initial these initial problems that presented what isn't done so much is asking, why is this a problem? And is there actually a more fundamental problem or set of problems or opportunities there that we haven't really discussed yet? Because we're dealing the kind of surface level of people saying I don't like things I'm not gay. So I think there's one of multiple sorts and the first thing is to spend quite a lot of time in what is the issue? What is the problem? What is the opportunity? And it's interesting that when we do training with this, even if it's only a day or half a day, with a particular organization, we quite often say, let's just spend, say, the morning or the first hour just thinking about, what is the problem? What are the opportunity, and what nearly always happens is within minutes, within 10 minutes, five minutes, people are right on to the solution. And I think again, going back to your question about why is this difficult? I think one of the reasons it's difficult, is because people quite enjoy talking about solutions. They love chatting about, you know what they can do? should do they should do that, how can make it happen? Because in a sense, there's two reasons. One, it's cognitively easier. It's not so much hard work. And secondly, it's less likely to lead to conflict, which people particularly want want to avoid. So spending time think about what is the problem or issue or opportunity? If there's one thing people often say, what's the one thing you could do it that's the one thing you can do. If you want to be spaced, spend more time and that of course that drives some people nuts, because they're thinking that I need to do something, I want to do something stop making me think about the issue. Let's just do something and of course, you can, you can, but the quicker you do it. The more you do without understanding the situation, the less likely it is you found a problem or issue and therefore Most likely is going to work, there's a kind of trade off, almost like speed accuracy, trade off a classic psychological trade off. So think back to your example, I think I've spent a lot of time looking across those four areas, but also really trying to understand sort of what the problems or issues are. First, before we do anything, think about a solution.

Morten Andersen:

And one of the things that often arise when you look at the problem is that you think, is this really a big problem? So for instance, with lack of engagement, there is always a feeling that lack of engagement will lead to people leaving the organization or lower productivity. But when we look at the evidence, sure, there is a positive correlation there, but it's actually a lot lower than people think it is.

Rob Briner:

Yes. And it's like, again, the example you gave with the job satisfaction. Yeah, old fashioned engagement, if you like job satisfaction, performance link or job satisfaction, turnover link is not there is no link, it's that my understanding, broadly speaking, the kind of quite large body of evidence is a link isn't necessarily strong. And you know, some cases, it might be quite small. So if the problem is performance, why would you start with job satisfaction is your solution, because it appears isn't that striking. And again, because interesting to go back to those four sources, it may be that in your organization, for the particular employees you're talking about, maybe there is a really strong link. Again, that's why it's important to look at your organizational data as well as the scientific evidence, because you get that sort of sense of triangulation and contextualization.

Morten Andersen:

Many people think that evidence-based approach is really about finding research from academia and so on. But I think you highlighting that there are actually four sources that are equally important. So one is the research, but the other one is speaking with the stakeholders at play, also your own experience, and what works in the organization is really important. And then organizational data. And I guess people struggle a little bit finding good research. We'll talk a little bit about that. But also, many organizations have really bad data. I mean, when you try to find out what is the link between engagement and productivity for this team, nobody knows.

Rob Briner:

Exactly. And that's amazing. Another if you needed another reason for trying to do some, like evidence-based practice. One reason is that it almost accidentally, or as a side effect, acts as a sort of a quality audit of your data. You say, if you go searching for information, you go, Well, it isn't here, or we do have it or it's impossible to get hold of or the data simmer, unreliable? Why are we measuring it like this? That's pretty important, because it tells you there's almost as an organizational development intervention, if you want to make more informed decisions, rather than rushing off and implementing the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, you actually spend some effort and time getting good quality, relevant information to decision makers, because if you don't do that, you'll never be able to be particularly evidence-based because you just don't have access to it.

Morten Andersen:

Yes. Now, one of the important sources you mentioned is the scientific knowledge. How do non academic people get access to that? How can we navigate in that knowledge? Do you have any advice for people in HR or personally?

Rob Briner:

Yeah, I do so so quick, and dirty tips are to go on something like Google Scholar. Because open access is improving all the time, it's getting a bit easier to go on Google Scholar, just start looking around type in the concepts the word you're interested in, as I mentioned, something, I think I mentioned, high performance individuals or talent management or some aspect of telemanagement going to Google Scholar, type in some a couple of words, couple of terms, and then search for things like systematic reviews, or reviews, or meta analyses. And depending on the topic, try and restricted to maybe the last 10 years, and just start to dig around and see what's there. Now again, I think for HR practitioners or managers, they are quite used to having extremely pre digested as it were. otters are sometimes not very good evidence, I guess, the quiet used to, but where's the where's the answer? Where's the where's the sort of heart of this? And of course, it's difficult with academics. To do that. I would say it's also important to manage people's expectations and say, you're pretty unlikely to go on to Google type things and get the answer you're looking for. Because Well, for all kinds of reasons. So but that's okay. And again, in terms of an od development, I'd also say, for any manager or HR practitioner, this is almost like a personal professional development thing. start trying it, you know, go into Google Scholar, the decision you're making next week, just dig out three or four things don't go crazy. Just try read them, they probably won't be very nice to read. They're probably a bit difficulty. That's okay. Have a go read them. And again, it's the whole point, you're more likely to make a better informed decision if you use at least some evidence rather than none or some reasonable quality evidence rather than poor quality.

Morten Andersen:

So it is actually more available now. It used to be Reed Elsevier and a couple of other publications that owned it all. Now it's more open source which is fantastic. But as you say, it is still a little bit hard to get hold of and the meta studies are Really the ones to focus on because they take the most everything else and digest and say, This is what we know.

Rob Briner:

Exactly. Again, I think sometimes people when they read this stuff, they either get angry with academics, which is fine, or they sort of blame themselves for not being smart enough, which is not fine, because of course, they're smart enough. So it's a sort of learning thing exactly like I would do with the students I teach saying, the first time we read one of these papers, you'll think what the hell is this about the second time, it's a bit better 10 times, you know, 20 times it's just practice. The issue, again, about using organizational data unless you start doing this stuff, a lot of the barriers and because you don't have the skills, knowledge and access to information, the more you try to do it, the more you'll build that individual and organizational capacity to do.

Morten Andersen:

Yes. Now, HR is is fairly renowned for using many tools that have no basis in evidence at all almost, and some that are sort of pseudo academic. So for instance, many organizations use subversion of MBTI, as a way to select or recruit or develop. And I know in academia, there's a lot of reservation about that type of personality test, especially when using intellection. Why do you think that HR continue to use tools which academia showed that does not work? Well,

Rob Briner:

I think it's because they are doing different things or asking different questions. So this is MBTI happens to be something I've had a lot of discussions with practitioners about, because occasionally, I mean, I've given completely given up raised a lot of posts on Twitter and LinkedIn about this and got some really, you know, facet, for me really fascinating discussions with people about this. So as an academic is asking the question, is MBTI a valid and reliable measure personality? To which the answer is no, really, a practitioner is saying, What do I feel if I give this to someone and give them feedback on it, where I think it's useful? Well, they think it's useful. Again, talking to some practitioners, they completely accept it's not a valid measure personality, but they think it's a tool for doing something else. There's almost academics and practitioners are coming to the same instrument, asking, the questions are fine, but they're different questions. And indeed, if you look at that second one, the idea that if you give people personality tests, of course, it's not very valid. that's problematic. But that's a different kind of discussion. If you give people feedback from personality tests, the question is, yeah, the person giving the test may enjoy doing it, of course, because they feel the helping someone, the person who receiving it may find it helpful, fine. But the most important question is, is it in fact, the case? that by giving people feedback from a personality test, whatever it is, is it actually developmental? And that's a question which, from my understanding is, at least in the scientific literature, we don't have an answer. We have huge amounts of practitioner experienced practitioner evidence, practitioner expertise that says, yes, it does, fine. But the central that's just one source of evidence. And we need to look at other sources as well. Hmm. Many practitioners in many fields do stuff, because it has an immediate impact. And people like it, when people enjoy it, and they enjoy doing it. And they will just always do it, it doesn't matter what evidence you show them, because they're doing something else, they're doing something they think is valuable, and that's fine. But then you have to pin down you have to drill down to what they say they think it's valuable, what do they really think it's doing? And can we find out if it is doing that thing? They think is an IV might be like a, you know, some medical interventions? Yeah, sure. The patient might love it, the practitioner like might love it. Great. That's one way of thinking about it. But actually, is it curing? is it helping? is it doing what you expect? Which is another kind of question?

Morten Andersen:

Yes. And I guess this is where sort of the four sources you have experience as, as one source and you have scientific research as another here, you can actually have a conflict of those sources, where my experiences it works. When I use this tool on a person they will develop. And we don't really measure before and after, we don't really evaluate, but that is my experience. And scientific research says, Well, if you know, that's not the best measure for measuring a personality trait.

Rob Briner:

Yeah. And I think going back to the idea that spirits get killed by the issue of also say, what's the quality of that evidence? They could say? Yes, for my experience, I believe whenever I do this, I see people develop. And then again, I think it's about drilling down. So okay, so what have you actually observed? How many times you've observed it? have you kept track? How do you know, you know, if you control for biases in some way? Is it possible? got it wrong in some way? Exactly. The same question was asked about a body of scientific evidence because, yeah, sure people can believe it. But the question is, what is that belief based on? Yes, and if based on is quite questionable, and probably not reliable? Sure, we can still have that belief, but I need to separate out I just believe this when it gets to something like faith From actually I also have other kinds of data and evidence that support that belief. So we believe things we can't really support doesn't mean they're wrong or right, it means we can't support them very well. So, again, I think it's not as if I have this belief, I like it. But actually, that's all I've got. Well, that's most.

Morten Andersen:

And in organisations, I guess there are some things that we can measure better than other sorts selection, for instance, is a little bit better to to measure because we can see how many of a cohort is still there after 12 months or after 18 months. And, and I suppose we, we do have some evidence to suggest that semi structured interviews and are very good IQ is actually reasonably good, and, and so on. So we do have some evidence around selection, for instance.

Rob Briner:

Sure, yeah, you're right. I think in some some areas, certainly terms of organizational data and scientific evidence, just the other slightly more amenable some kinds of interventions. And I think that's okay. Because, again, I mean, obviously, your errors, organizational changes, lots of things about that. They're just not very amenable to organization in the sort of investigations or scientific investigations. But I think it's a question of knowledge that we maybe don't know. And that's okay. It's but other than pretending this is going to work. And we know it well. No, we don't really come on maybe got some clues, some hints? And actually, you might not never know, but it's extremely difficult. For this question, this area to actually get data direct the answer that question, let's say, okay, you just don't, is it worth pretend that, you know, you've got this great body of scientific evidence, for example, binds? And

Morten Andersen:

so I think what is, I think what is really fascinating about this is one that you would probably spend more time on the quality of your questioning, and answer the assumptions of your problem questioning. And that will give you a lot of value instead of going straight to solution thinking, and then the multiple sources of of, of data. So you can challenge your biases, so you can understand, you know, what other ways of of intervention? Might there be?

Rob Briner:

Yeah. and the value also, I think, is part, as I mentioned, if you think about it as a professional organizational development intervention, I think it's also to keep doing it. I hear sometimes practitioners say, Well, I tried this once. We didn't get the answer. So forget it. I think it will. It's not, the point is to keep do and also, probably the point is not to do for every decision, just think about big or important ones, and do it and try for those again, you know, I think I was less in favor of this some years ago. But I'm just much more in favor now saying, try it out. Do it as best as you can reflect on it, do it again, do it again, do it again, probably, you will start to say get the data and information you need. But you'll get better at it. And then it was it'll make a lot more sense. Just doing as a one off. I don't think like anything, you can't learn very much.

Morten Andersen:

So many times, we also want to make a change in our personal life. We want to lose weight, we want to reduce our stress level or improve our marriage. I don't know, how can you suggest that we use evidence-based practice in our daily life?

Rob Briner:

So again, in the last few years, I'm kind of coming to the conclusion that what decision makers, of course do is they take the way they make decisions in their personal life into work, because of course, we're human rights, what we do, and always say, well, that's fine, probably for some kinds of personal decisions, but it's not fine. If your decisions as a manager in organization may have impact on hundreds or 1000s of people and an organization and its success. So the way we make decisions individually. And personally. Yeah, it's not great all the time. But that's okay. Because normally consequences aren't great. But I think, to take it into our personal lives is something we can do. And I think it's part of what I was saying right in the beginning, which is about thinking about what is the problem or opportunity. So you gave the example of weight. I mean, weight is a classic example of being something people worry about, I guess, partly because we're bombarded with images of slimness, and so on, and weights associated with all kinds of certainly in our cultural context associated with all kinds of not good things on the whole. And of course, sure, Yes, there is. Other kinds of scientific evidence that suggests that being overweight is not great. Sure. But often we, this manifests itself and maybe anxieties, certain kinds of worries, which then leads to, again, diet, it's a great example of the kind of quick fix, if I do this thing, I can lose whatever, 10 kilos in 10 weeks, whatever wherever crazy thing is. And again, I think it's quite some parallels, particularly the diet industry, and the the consulting industry in that a lot of things that some consultancies sell as quick fixes to complicated problems. Of course, inevitably, they don't work. And so you look for the next thing. The next thing the next thing, I think this is just as fat fashions are thinking in business and HR, the same fads and fashions in diets. And in the end, for both cases, probably what you need to do to effectively bring about change pretty much hasn't changed. Maybe some of these new things make some peripheral difference, but it probably hasn't changed very much. So I think starting on what is the problem, say around weight. And the other thing is very noticeable. Just because I'm pretty often like using when I'm teaching and training is example of kitchen equipment. So Morten, I don't know about your kitchen. But if I think about my kitchen, some of my cupboards in my kitchen is pieces of equipment there like a juicer, or Steam, or a bread maker, whatever it is that when I bought it, it made a lot of sense when I bought out all this juice. So this is going to, it's going to fix some problem. Did I know what the problem is? Not really. But I still kind of solution. This is kind of solutionary, you identify a problem by the absence of the solution. problem in my life, is I don't have enough juice, the problem in my life, is I don't have enough fresh bread and whatever it is, isn't, it probably isn't really a problem. So if you look around, you know, our houses example, personal decision making, we can find this stuff that we bought. In the end, it wasn't for a great reason. We just thought it was cool, it would help with US foreign or everybody else was doing it. So I think there's quite a lot of lessons there. And that for me personally, a bit depressing looking at things on my shelves, I'm looking at your bookcase behind you. Morten seeing it in the video, you know how often we buy books, and they're up there? And are we ever going to read them? And they kind of, or mentors and teasers and go haha, never going to and again, buy this stuff? Because we we imagine, yeah, we want to read it or we're going to read it or not for it's pretty unrealistic. So think, thinking about how can you this approach in our private lives? I think, again, it's the same important thing is a what actually was the problem or issue or opportunity here? We're really you know, spend more time on that and is particularly I think now is the kind of online shopping that was existing anyway, particularly locked down a number of people have just bought stuff that's complete witness. And they'll probably end up having to try and resell it or something else. I think it's it's part of that sense of we feel we can buy stuff to help us ensure or sometimes it might or we feel we can adopt a diet plan to help us ensure sometimes what's missing from those a lot of action in there.

Morten Andersen:

Yes.

Rob Briner:

So I think it kind of provides individual things. But as difficult were just as we are consumers of products and services is it in our personal life, we're consumers of products and services and ideas, I think my professional lives as well. And I think as I say, there's a huge similarity between those two fields.

Morten Andersen:

So I think framing the problem really well. But also looking at the problem from many different angles in our personal life is actually a really, really important thing. And I so for instance, with the with the weight, as you mentioned, so sure, you can see the positive benefits of losing five kilos or something like that. But as you say, there is also a lot of stress related to losing that, anxiety, maybe also, there's a lot of evidence that that weight loss do not work. So you will actually embark on something which has a very slim chance of even working. So having all of that knowledge before you formulate the problem and therefore look at the solutions will actually help you decide maybe this is not worth it anyway, like in organizations where you look at the engagement and engagement has fallen a little bit. And then you look at Well, the consequences is not actually that much. So does it really matter? Should we really make this big intervention to change that. So I think that's a really, really powerful message that spend some more time on the problem and researching it and getting a lot of data to to understand the problem before you look at a solution.

Rob Briner:

Yeah. And also think reframing sometimes those problems, not not in a kind of cheesy positive psychology way but to reframe from those problems as opportunities as in occur when we're not really clear that this is a problem this team not getting on. But is that it? Can we detect an opportunity to do something we think is actually going to be a benefit rather than Can we do something to avoid a negative could do something to enhance the positive? And why is that potentially important? So I think thinking about problems and opportunities maybe occurs to me simultaneously, but thinking what the best way to frame is also quite

Morten Andersen:

so the idea with evidence-based practice and approach is that we will make our decisions and our interventions better. And we will do that by having a different approach to how we make decisions we will have we will use multiple sources to understand the problem and therefore some of the solutions. And we'll use a structured open approach to making decisions and if we do that, we can still rely on our gut feeling our experience we can we just add in scientific research and knowledge from other stakeholders and and maybe organizational data. All of that will basically means that we will make better decisions. And yes, it will take longer time. And yes, it probably will complicate something. But the benefit of this should be that we will have, you know, better interventions and better decisions made. And there might be a lot of things that we thought we would jump straight to and and and make a solution around that we will not do anyway. And that's also a benefit, doing less is actually a big benefit, I think from this. Yeah, definitely. Fantastic. I'm Rob, I want to say thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I think the the evidence-based practice is vastly underused and where, where whether I look at medicine, or psychology, or organizations or even at home, I think we can just benefit from just thinking much smarter about our problems. And it doesn't mean we have to read a lot of academic research, we may have to pick up one or two articles, but it's actually applying a more structured approach to seeking more information and being more critical.

Rob Briner:

That's right. And I think the key thing to take away from this as well as it's not about as you're saying, it's not about making a perfect decision. It's about making a more informed decision. And even if it's a little more informed, just a little bit more informed, you're still more likely to get the outcome you want. By focusing on getting more better quality information to both understand the problem. Let's think about potential interventions. Yeah.

Morten Andersen:

Fantastic. Thank you very much for our conversation.

Rob Briner:

You're very welcome. Morten, than you again for asking me.

Morten Andersen:

Thanks. What a great interview, I took three things away from my talk with Rob one, we can make our decisions better by using an evidence-based approach. making a decision evidence-based means that we must change our approach to decisions. And we do that in three ways. Firstly, we must make a conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence. consensus means that we must try hard and make a real effort to gather and use the best evidence. Explicit means that we must describe the evidence on which we're basing our claims. And judicious use means to critically appraise the quality of the evidence. And then we must use multiple sources so we can triangulate our data. And finally, we must use a structured approach to our decision making. And if we do that, we'll be able to make better informed decision. Two we should spend more time defining our problem. Once we have identified a problem, we often jump straight into solutions. Why? Well, because the fields better and it's more action orientated. But instead Rob suggests that we spent more time on understanding and perhaps reframing the problem. If we see a decline in job satisfaction, is that really a problem? And why is that a problem? Or if we want to lose weight, perhaps understanding some of the potential costs in trying to lose weight before deciding if that five kilos is worth the effort. And three, it is not about reading a lot of boring research. It's about using several sources. There are four sources that we should look at, to make evidence-based decisions, scientific research, speak with relevant stakeholders, use our own experience, and look for organizational data. And only by looking at all sources of data, can we make better informed decisions with better outcomes. Rob's work is important. running faster, improving our productivity working better together, only makes sense if we make good decisions in the first place. Otherwise, we're just climbing faster up the wrong ladder standing against the wrong wall. Until next time, take care