Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense
by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, 
Book Review 
by Rolf Crocker

In April of 2007, I reviewed a book with one of the more interesting titles you will hear: "The 'No Asshole' Rule".  In that review, I mentioned that the author was the Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford based on an article written for the Harvard Business Review (not that I'm name-dropping - it's not like I know this guy).  Now comes a book co-written by that author and the Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and published by Harvard Business School Press.  Why this set-up?  Because the book by them I am about to review takes much of what you here from the fancy schools and those who attend them - fads, trends, gurus and so forth - and kicks them all to the curb.  Too often, we get word of "the latest thing" to help us run better companies, retain happy staff, have 100% Customer Satisfaction, lose half one's body weight in two weeks (ok - I threw that last one in myself), all to find out that it doesn't work the way the book or the consultant said it would.  Has that ever happened to you?  If so, this book will help you sort out truth from half-truth, evidence from anecdotal and knowledge from nonsense.

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton (©2006, Harvard Business School Press).   I have to say - I really like this book.  Being a student of Business, I see a dearth of books, all purporting to be 'the secret' or 'the magic bullet' or '10 easy steps to (fill in subject here)'.  They can't all be right, can they?  Or, as the old proverb goes, is there in fact 'no new thing under the sun?'

This is not just a de-bunking or clarification book.  Authors Pfeffer and Sutton seek to distill fact from fiction and ask the reader to examine the actual evidence of success.  The sub-title of the book is "Profiting from Evidence-Based Management," which is a concept that has taken hold in Medicine that the authors are applying to Management.  'Evidence-Based' Management holds that what's true is more important that what's new, and the truth or proof of a concept needs to be looked at based on data and evidence, not just because someone says it worked at GE, Motorola or Disney.  The authors take on the primary claims from the top books and gurus (yes - they name names!), weigh out those concepts based upon the success and failure of actual companies who have attempted to implement those concepts and lay out what worked - and what didn't.  Concepts covered are:

---Is Work Fundamentally Different from the Rest of Life and Should It Be?
---Do the Best Organizations Have the Best People?
---Do Financial Incentives Drive Company Performance?
---Strategy is Destiny?
---Change or Die?
---Are Great Leaders in Control of Their Companies?

Some of these sound familiar?  They then offer up what they term as 'evidence-based' concepts - usually a distillation of what works from these concepts - and add back into it the empirical data supporting their view.  They also apply their years to behavioral research to the mix to demonstrate, among other things, how people react to the 'next new thing,' or conversely, why business leaders hold to their views, even when the evidence is contrary to their view.

You would think that a book from a couple of Stanford Professors would be pretty technical and difficult to read, but this book is not.  It's straight-forward, relevant and humorous as well.  I have to admit - this has tempered my own views on certain styles on concepts.  Very worth-while, highly recommended.  5 Stars

Rolf Crocker