The courage of the practioner

Amy C. Emondson, best known for her pioneering work on psychological safety, has recently published on Linkedin a post "Today's leaders must think like scientists".

She states, “thinking like a scientist means understanding that your job is to navigate uncertainty with curiosity and passion – so as to engage others in the inherently collaborative process of progress and discovery through which today’s knowledge work gets done.”

Bringing questions rather than pretending to know everything, experimentation (yes, all in for that, remember Ericsson on the Move and the Appreciative Inquiry), empowering others, foster creativity, all great aspects. But …

This is only part of scientific thinking, so it feels a bit like cherry picking. I have no problem to subscribe to the statements above, yet I would like to shout a big “No” to the general statement that leaders should think like a scientist.

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Centuries of enlightenment have equipped academia with scientific rigor.?

A mathematical theorem is not a mathematical theorem, it is not even there, until it is proven. No one is getting published in a paper being 90% sure about a theorem.??

You can speculate a lot about the past, but unless you have archeological, genetic, or other proof, it is just this speculation, not history, and in science and academia there is no journal of speculation. Science and academia can afford scientific rigor, since they have the luxury to operate outside of the pressures of time.

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Practitioners operate within the pressures of time.

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This has consequences on the decision making within uncertainty. There is a good reason for the Ericsson on the Move Focus Area: Fact-based and courageous decisions. The problem is a generic one and widespread, by no means it is limited to the example from my home turf:

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I often do analytics, and that includes that I am showing graphs of correlations to audiences. Usually there is at least one person pointing out that “correlation is not causality”.? This is true, nothing to argue with it.? However, I disapprove what happens next: Instead of reacting on the indications of the correlation and including the additional data points in the decision-making process, everything is discarded as “no causality is proven”, and no action is taken. You can see the pride and complacency in the eyes because the method of science has been applied, and who can argue with science.

But you know saying: “taking no decision is also a decision.” So instead of enhancing our chances of improving, as there is still uncertainty, we prefer not to act.

In summary, while in academia the scientific method applies for good reasons, practitioners operate in an environment, where there are often costs allocated to not knowing, respectively not deciding. Thus, the practitioner needs to assess the costs of not taking a decision and compare to the risk with decision making in uncertainty. In such an environment, indications that do not comply to scientific rigor still may increase the chances of making an educated decision.

Let’s play a game:

Every week you must take a decision. There are always 3 choices, when you do the right choice, you are gaining 1M, with both other choices you are losing 1M. Since you don’t have any information about which is the right choice, we are living in a world of uncertainty, every choice has got the probability of 1/3 to be the good choice. Doing the math, you are likely to lose every week 0.33M. (1M*0.33+ (-1)M*0.33+ (-1)M*033= -0.33M).

Now you get a hint, that improves you changes to get the right choice from 0.33 to 0.4. Doing the math you realize that now you are likely to lose every week only 0.2M (1M*0.4+(-1)M*0.3+(-1)M*0.3= -0.2M)

Now the scientist would argue: the outcome is negative; you shouldn’t play until we have a higher probability to make the right choice.

However, if the practice forces us to take a decision every week, what would you do as a practitioner? Would you take the hint, or would you ignore it, because there is a considerable likelihood that the hint is wrong? Would you go for losing every week 0.33M or only 0.2M?

That is the fate of the practitioner, operating in the pressure of time, very often we are forced to take decisions in uncertainty, practitioners are doomed to do fact-based and courageous decisions.

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*Appendix:

1 I am happy that some people still remember from their Statistics classes

2 I am frustrated, because of course I also know this, and I would like to prove causality, 10 years in academia has done some irreparable mental damages, but usually I don’t have the resources to do so