From evidence-based management to management of non-knowledge ΠEmergence: Complexity and Organization

Leadership and management are increasingly expected to base themselves on evidence, i.e. knowledge. This article does not disagree that knowledge may be beneficial. Yet, based on sociological insights on the complex relation between knowledge and ignorance, the article argues that more knowledge does not lead to less ignorance or non-knowledge. Building on Luhmann’s systems-theoretical concept of knowledge as selecting structures which reduce complexity, the article outlines a different approach to ignorance in management and leadership. It raises the question what an intelligent approach to ignorance looks like. Inspired by Foucault’s historical analysis of the emergence of liberal ideas of government, the article argues that managerial self-limitation is crucial in the development of a ‘management of non-knowledge’ to complement evidence based management. Introduction Today, evidence is considered a critical management concept. Inspired by evidence-based medicine,1,2 the concept of evidence-based management (or synonyms like evidence-based practice or evidence-based policy) has spread to a number of public areas, from social programs, municipal preventative programs, pedagogy and education to law enforcement. Also in direct relation to management and management development the concept of evidence-based management has found resonance 3,4,5. Evidence-based management ideals have become institutionalized in worldwide evidence producing organizations, like for instance the Cochrane Collaboration within health care and Campbell Collaboration within education. To this a long line of national evidence-producing organizations can be added6,7. In different ways, both central and decentralized government agencies have sought to institutionalize evidence-based initiatives by implementing project days, knowledge memorandums and other similar initiatives. Furthermore, educational institutions have begun to offer training in evidence-based work. Evidence-based initiatives have developed into a central aspect in the struggle for professional legitimacy and resources. However, it has also become a critical aspect of the management of public organizations, because it creates access to forms of knowledge, which previously were a privilege belonging to the professions8. At the same time, however, the specific nature of evidence-based efforts is not self-evident. Evidence is not an unambiguous concept, and we can observe a number of ongoing struggles to define its content and boundaries9,10. People often associate evidence-based practices with its ability to increase efficiency in the public sector, because evidence helps establish “best practice” in a given field. Thus, the evidence-based trend is also fueled by the desire to know what is being done and the effects those actions have. The notions of evidence and knowledge generate a sense of security and stability. We might not know exactly what we are doing right now, but the concept of evidence is linked to the hope that we will at some point be able to master the effects of our actions. In response to evidence-focused management, I want to promote the development of a particular form of non-knowledge management. Only the most ignorant or inexperienced among us cannot cite examples of organizational initiatives marked by ignorance or perhaps even stupidity. As an example, a colleague of mine recently found herself in a battle with the Office of the Registrar. The office had made a scheduling mistake, which caused it to decide to postpone an exam by three weeks – three days before the exam was scheduled to take place. The stupidity was not so much the fact that a mistake had been made, but the fact that the office did not understand that it would be a problem for the students that the exam they were preparing for had been moved. Only following several phone calls from weeping students and with the threat of the case finding its way into the local newspaper did the Registrar’s Office find the additional exam supervisor required for the exam to take place as planned. We often perceive this kind of stupidity as signs of moral failure: as if the reason for people making stupid choices has to do with flawed moral judgment. They should have thought it through. However, we might also see such choices as a sign of ignorance: the Registrar’s Office does not know what it is like to be a student and to study for an exam (while working part time and attending classes at other institutions). We see a lot of this kind of ignorance—and I doubt that any amount of evidence-based examination planning will help the issue. Clearly, it is better to know what one is doing rather than acting blindly. However, knowledge, often makes us realize how much we do not know. The relationship between knowledge and ignorance is not a zero sum game whereby our ignorance decreases 1 Emergence: Complexity and Organization in accordance with the amount of knowledge we acquire. In fact, the opposite might be true: the more we know, the more we realize that which we do not know. And the more others know, the more there is for me to not know. Thus, it is important to directly address this ignorance rather than pretend and hope that acquiring still more knowledge will eliminate ignorance. The article is structured as follows: In the first two sections I present a set of fundamental reasons why I am convinced that producing more knowledge does not eliminate ignorance. Then I shall mention some prominent examples of analyses of ignorance. These examples raises the question what an intelligent approach to ignorance looks like. In order to answer that question I first present a systems-theoretical concept of non-knowledge. Secondly and inspired by Foucault’s analyses of the emergence of liberalism I argue that a core ingredient in management of non-knowledge is self-limitation. Weber, science and demons Although the evidence-based trend accentuates knowledge and new forms of knowledge-based practices, the ambition to base practice on knowledge is not new. The evidence-based trend can be seen as the latest development of a long process, which in sociology has been defined as rationalization or disenchantment. Max Weber’s lecture titles “Science as a Vocation” from 1917 contains one of the most often quoted passages describing the disenchantment of the world: The increasing intellectualization and rationalization do not, therefore, indicate an increased and general knowledge of the conditions under which one lives. It means something else, namely, the knowledge or belief that if one but wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted11. This quote expresses the spirit of today’s focus on evidence: the belief that if one wants to, one can use knowledge to calculate and thus master the effects of one’s efforts. Weber’s lecture discusses the limits of rationalization. His central point is that science can support the realization of factual relations, but it cannot decide how something ought to be or whether or not something has value. In the same way, professors are not football masters in the vital problems of life, as Weber puts it. Weber does not directly reject the potential of rationalization and the disenchantment of the world. And yet his text is tricky, because it describes the practices of rationalization and scientific knowledge in a way that suggests that they themselves are not rational and, therefore, calculable. He writes: The mathematical imagination of a Weierstrass is naturally quite differently oriented in meaning and result than is the imagination of an artist, and differs basically in quality. But the psychological processes do not differ. Both are frenzy (in the sense of Plato’s ’mania’) and ’inspiration.’ Now, whether we have scientific inspiration depends upon destinies that are hidden from us, and besides upon ’gifts’11. According to Weber, the processes of intellectualization and rationalization through science rely on the knowledge or belief that “principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces” (139), but at the same time Weber’s own text contains a number of mysterious forces in his description of science. Weber’s text incorporates a series of concepts, which point to the non-scientific foundation of science. Moreover, these concepts generally refer to something unknown, incalculable—something whose origins are uncertain and beyond our control. “Fate,” “gift,” “inspiration,” “imagination,” “intoxication” are words that refer to something we cannot control or calculate. Rather than pointing to specific meaning, they all reference a form of conceptual embarrassment by hinting at something unknown. They suggest that what cannot be observed is constitutive for what can be observed. Knowledge depends on non-knowledge. Secrets and incalculable elements undergird science, Or in other words: science is not disenchanted and cannot be mastered by means of calculation. And if disenchantment does not even apply to scientific knowledge, it more than likely does not describe the rest of the world. Why knowledge is never complete 2 Emergence: Complexity and Organization Theoretical arguments as well as empirical studies support Weber’s critique of the possibility of achieving complete mastery of the world through knowledge. Good evidence, as it turns out, can be defined in many different ways. The relationship between meaning and knowledge is not unambiguous, not even within the natural sciences. As an example, one medical study has discovered 121 different ways to evaluate the quality of individual studies. This clearly indicates the uncertainty pertaining to what is considered knowledge and what is not12. In other words, the answer to the question of what counts as knowledge and what does not is not self-evident. The concept of evidence-based hierarchies renders this fundamental uncertainty invisible by replacing the notion of uncertainty as a basic condition with a discussion of levels of uncertainty. Similarly, empirical studies point to disagreement about how to translate scientific results into guidelines designed to provide information about—or master—practice. One such example is a study of the relationship between guidelines and the evidence behind them, which shows that doctors—even within the same specialty field—perceive that relationship differently. Some doctors believed that the scientific literature supported the guidelines while others disagreed13. Similarly, when it comes to the practical implementation of knowledge, Weber’s demons lurk in the shadows. On one hand, the patient (the student, the client, the situation) or the case can be characterized on the basis of rather general categories (e.g. ADHD), but retain, on the other hand, unique and singular characteristics as well. We can always trace a level of tension between the unique case and the law, rule or evidence (as described by Derrida in his analysis of the relationship between the law and the just decision14. The two never fully coincide. Different students take something different away from the same lesson. This is true even in the field of medicine, which helps to explain the increased focus on individualized medicine, where medical studies seek to incorporate the fact that different patients respond differently to the same medical treatment. While it is true that any unique case always contains elements that fail to match generalized knowledge or established standards, we can also note the opposite tendency for broader connections to break down when we seek to establish evidence based on specific effects. As Lukács notes, the relationship is between the rationality of the detail and the irrationality of the whole15. Rationalization requires the dissolution of any complexity into its composite parts. The separation of analysis/design and execution means that the analysis breaks down the subject into increasingly smaller sub-functions, which can then be optimized. However, this creates an inherent problem: the optimization of sub-functions makes it exceedingly difficult to reassemble that which has been separated. Let us once again use the Registrar’s Office as an example. As an organizational unit, it represents the result of a desire to centralize certain administrative functions, which were previously relegated to individual departments. Such centralization has made it possible to standardize and rationalize the examination schedule down to the smallest detail. However, it has simultaneously led to what Lukács refers to as “the disregard of the concrete aspects of the subject matter”,15 that is, a form of ignorance with respect to what it means to prepare for an exam and, in a broader sense, what it means to be a student, including a multiplicity of complex expectations, activities, considerations, etc. associated with student life. We might expand upon Weber’s and Lukács’ critique of the possibility of complete knowledge and rationality by incorporating Niklas Luhmann and his theory about functional differentiation16. According to Luhmann, modern societies are differentiated in accordance with a number of systems (politics, economy, science, education, religions, law, etc.), which observe the world differently and contain different measures of relevance. What counts as important knowledge to one system may be seen as pure noise to another. Similarly, the ‘same’ scientific knowledge can mean fundamentally different things in different functional systems. If, for instance, we look at a hospital as a whole, it includes today care and treatment but also economy, production, service, quality, etc. Hospital administration systems contain a number of sub-systems, which are sought optimized individually but which do not make up a totality. The hospital looks different depending on whether one observes it from the perspective of medicine, organizational concerns, legal aspects or economic growth. Economic, quality-based, professional and other aspects do not merge into a united whole, but rather pull the organization in different directions. This is a reflection of the reality that it is not possible today to consider all aspects of a case or a field. This reality is what the term complexity refers to. In today’s society, social problems are so complex that one cannot approach them from a single vantage point. Or, to put it differently: ignorance is a basic condition. The acquisition of knowledge about certain general relations leads not only to ignorance of those concrete aspects of a singular situation that escape generalized knowledge but also broader connections across systems. For instance, psychiatry knows about the connection between a given medication and its specific effects. However, it does not know how a specific patient will respond to the medication in the same way that is also does not know how this knowledge will be observed from the perspective of the political system: perhaps it will be used as an argument to legitimize cutbacks of funding for psychiatric approaches based on talk therapy? In organizational studies, the attention to the limits of reason is a similarly traditional concern. A common topic in decision theory is the fact that blindness (i.e. the limited inclusion of information) is the norm rather than the exception in decision-making processes—since the opposite would lead to endless meandering and exploration of possible outcomes, which makes reaching a decision almost impossible17,18,19,20. Thus, Simon has introduced the concept of ‘bounded rationality’ as suggestive of an actor’s limited ability to make rational decisions because of insufficient time, information and information processing capacity21. So far, I have outlined some of the reasons why ignorance is the obvious result of the limits of rational knowledge. I will now go on to comment upon some critical approaches to ignorance. Ultimately, ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge; it relies on certain conditions, functions and effects—and these can be analyzed. 3 Emergence: Complexity and Organization