I haven’t read any research or evidence demonstrating one leadership style is better than another. My intuitions and other people’s anecdotes that I’ve heard tell me that certain behaviors are more likely or less likely to lead to success, but I haven’t got anything more solid to go on that that at the moment.
Similarly, I haven’t read any research showing (in a fairly statistically rigorous way) that lean, or agile, or the Toyota Production System, or other similar concepts are effective. Anecdote tells me that they are, and the reasoning for why they work makes sense to me, but I haven’t seen anything more rigorous.
Nicholas Bloom’s research is great, and I am glad to see his study of consulting in India referenced on the EA forum. I would love to see more research measuring impacts of particular management practices, and if I was filthy rich that is probably one of the things that I would fund.
I’m assuming that there are studies about smaller-level actions/behaviors, but it is a lot easier to A-B test what color a button on a homepage should be than to A-B test having a cooperative work culture or a competitive work culture.
I think of the the tricky things is how context matters to much. Just because practice A is more effective than practice B in a particular culture/industry/function, doesn’t mean it will apply to all situations. As a very simplistic example, rapid iteration is great for a website’s design, but imagine how horrible it would be for payroll policy.
I’m curious if you have evidence-based answers to Ben West’s question here.
I haven’t read any research or evidence demonstrating one leadership style is better than another. My intuitions and other people’s anecdotes that I’ve heard tell me that certain behaviors are more likely or less likely to lead to success, but I haven’t got anything more solid to go on that that at the moment.
Similarly, I haven’t read any research showing (in a fairly statistically rigorous way) that lean, or agile, or the Toyota Production System, or other similar concepts are effective. Anecdote tells me that they are, and the reasoning for why they work makes sense to me, but I haven’t seen anything more rigorous.
Nicholas Bloom’s research is great, and I am glad to see his study of consulting in India referenced on the EA forum. I would love to see more research measuring impacts of particular management practices, and if I was filthy rich that is probably one of the things that I would fund.
I’m assuming that there are studies about smaller-level actions/behaviors, but it is a lot easier to A-B test what color a button on a homepage should be than to A-B test having a cooperative work culture or a competitive work culture.
I think of the the tricky things is how context matters to much. Just because practice A is more effective than practice B in a particular culture/industry/function, doesn’t mean it will apply to all situations. As a very simplistic example, rapid iteration is great for a website’s design, but imagine how horrible it would be for payroll policy.