top of page

Evidence-based practice in decision making

samanthagungaram3
3 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 13 hours ago

As a People development professional, I spent many years using evidence-based practice to support leaders make decisions.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development defines evidence-based practice as, “a particular approach to using evidence to inform judgements”.   

In today’s world of work, this concept presents itself in various areas of business where decision-making is so critical, and more so in high performing, results driven organizations.

Evidence-based practice can, however, be a helpful tool for leaders, providing clarity in a sometimes noisy, information heavy work environment.  

Here are a few simple changes leaders could adopt to become more evidence based.


Critical thinking

The concept of critical thinking was first identified by Socrates 2500 years ago. He developed the process known as ‘’Socratic questioning’’ which implored the use of questions to test information for clarity, logic and to establish consistency.  

Later, the development of ‘’systematic critical thinking’’ was formed to engage a deeper and more considered approach for testing information.

Take for example two colleagues in conflict over a he said, she said altercation.

To mediate this conflict situation, you would first call each aside and find out the facts of the situation. Try to ascertain what information each person had that landed them on the conclusion of aggrievement. And finally with the others permission, call them together, confront their accusations in an open non-judgemental space, and hope to reach an amicable resolution.

If we added a layer of systematic critical thinking to the scenario, the approach would be to test each side’s perception of the situation, by asking a series of reflective type questions, such as;

  • From whom did you hear this information?

  • Is this person considered a reliable source?

  • Were these comments made directly to you or was it indirect?

  • How do you want to proceed from here?

The goal here, would be to engage both side’s ability to seek understanding, clarity and remove bias.


A second important building block of evidence-based practice is identifying credible sources of knowledge.


Research information

Honestly, how often do we as consumers research a product or service using credible sources verses relying on intuition or someone else's opinion?

The challenge for high performing organizations, is to prioritise in-depth research of varied sources from the market, internal customers and stakeholder engagement.

If we look at the recent spate of unethical scandals which have surfaced over the years, there seems to be a trend emerging, less time spent on fact checking and more on output and profitability.


Take the current uptake in datacentre growth across the world. Big-tech organizations were starry-eyed by the idea of being the first to develop the most innovative AI model in the world, they've fallen short of considering the socio and environmental impact these datacentres would have in the medium-long term. And now, communities relying heavily on essential resources like water, electricity and land are paying the price.


This leads me to the final building block, allow time for trial, error and correction.


Tried and tested

In an age of instant gratification, we’ve become obsessed with the, ‘I want it now’ lifestyle; instant food, same day delivery, instant messaging, fast fashion.


What if organizations, before introducing change, improving processes or implementing systems, set aside time for controlled group collaboration and testing, to enable open and constructive dialogue, without fear of retribution.


In our current economic and environmental climate, there needs to be more mechanisms for valid, credible and reliable decision making. Think of the benefits to our teams, organizations and planet if we as leaders began with establishing credibility before outcomes. I’m sure organizations like VW, Meta, BP, Shell and others would be better off had they considered an evidence-based approach in their decision-making strategy.

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page