The research-practice link

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Craig Crossley on September 3, 2008 at 10:40pm

WANTED: An academic researcher to administer multiple lengthy surveys containing personally invasive questions to my current employees. We will be happy to handle any administrative costs, legwork, and logistical issues, such as emailing survey links and reminders and gaining firewall clearance so employees can access your small-print multi-page surveys. We only ask that you provide a brief summary of your findings within 10 months or so after surveys are complete (and results may remain marginally useful and of questionable validity for employees who haven't left yet). Boilerplate ideas of how findings may help the company would be appreciated, along with some generic ideas on how to implement these findings.

Interested? So why aren't companies?

Having lived in both worlds, I have a much greater appreciation for the challenges and the opportunities for collaborative work. While I recognize the difficulties, I have also been fortunate to witness the payoff.

My goal for the PDW session was to explore ideas and to generate a tool-box of tips, ideas, and shared wisdom that wil take us from chattering about collaborations to actually engaging in meaningful partnerships that bridge research and practice.

From my vantage point, the opportunities have never been so ripe. HR functions in companies are being asked to PROVE their value with numbers, estimates, and ROI. What better opportunity for a group of PhDs trained in research and measurement? Any leadership researchers out there? It seems one of the biggest challenges facing training functions is proving the impact of their leadership development programs.

So please, join the conversation, share your tips, insights, or frustrations, and let's see if together we can leverage this social network to generate a paradigm shift toward relevant research AND evidence based management. Set your sails - from my vantage point there is nothing but blue ocean (just look out for the occasional reef, shark, or iceberg).

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Craig Crossley on September 3, 2008 at 11:21pm

TIP #1: Demonstrate how you will help execute corporate strategy.

After a fairly long courtship, I had managed to partner with a federal agency that provided leadership training for state departments of corrections (i.e., prisons). The director of the federal outfit had put me in contact with the director of a large state department, who agreed to the idea of incorporating measurement into an upcoming training program (aka research study integrated into the training curriculum).

Recognizing the need to work within their systems to get paper surveys distributed, completed, and returned, I began reaching out to the director of the state department. However, as a dedicated leader, this person was very busy running a state department and didn't seem to have the time to return phone calls or emails on the topic of surveys. I was finally able to sit in on a call between the federal and state directors as they laid out logistics for the training sessions.

Learning from a great mentor (Bruce Avolio) I used my 15 minutes to ask the state director - what are the critical issues for execs, for middle management, and finally for line-workers. From somewhere the inspiration came to ask if they had a strategic plan that they could share with me. Fortunately they did - and it was still too new to have been abandoned or lost (i.e., they still cared about it).

The next stroke of inspiration - integrate the things they really cared about - which were spelled out directly in their strategic plan into the 'model' as outcomes. In other words, demonstrate how leadership skills and behaviors (the things they were trying to improve with training) could reduce turnover and increase safety.

Like magic he became very interested and immediately returned emails and phone calls, and gave me his administrative assistant's contact info and cell phone number. Why? Because I was helping him do his job and providing evidence (ie. numbers) that demonstrated his progress toward the strategic plan.

Further, because what we measure sends signals about what is important, "what is measured tends to improve." Finally, some of this measurement was incorporated into the training itself and leaders were able to see how they were viewed by others and how this related to others motivation and behavior - increasing teh effectiveness of the training, as well as their personal efforts to encourage their employees to participate. (I've got another story that demonstrates the importance of this, and underscores the gap between corporate decision makers and line-employees who would just as soon eat your survey - except the nice 6% that actually responded - but that's another day).

Bottom line: Find out what matters to them and help them achieve it. This helps lubricate the system for the extra work you will add.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by James Hayton on September 4, 2008 at 12:10pm

Craig, you had me at 'hello' ;-)
I am sure a number of us can relate to this scenario. As we plan our research studies, with all the investment and overhead, it is so hard to avoid the 'one more measure' syndrome (or, let's add a couple more validity checks).

I wonder if this gets better or worse as we move into the more predominant digital media for delivering surveys? After all, attention span has not exactly increased with the advent of the web. Does this mean that we have to be even more parsimonious with our surveys?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cam Caldwell on September 17, 2008 at 8:48am

I am currently involved with two companies in Southwest Louisiana, where I teach. I am conducting a PHR training course for fourteen HR professionals working at the L'Auberge property, a resort with a casino in Lake Charles. I am also involved in two projects with Stines Lumber company. One study is a turnover project. The other is a project involved with staffing four key positions in a new store to be built in Baton Rouge. The HR Director for Stines is currently attending two classes I teach and is working closely with the students to coordinate these projects.

Cam Caldwell
MBA Director
McNeese State University

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Miguel R Olivas-Lujan on September 26, 2008 at 7:51pm

So many events, so little time...

Wow, reading this conversation added another PDW to my "Reasons why I wish the day had 48 hours" list. I also organized a PDW with the intentions of exploring the research-practice gap, and coming up with what we can do to bridge such gap more effectively!

If you're interested, I have posted a web-based summary. The Internet page is:

http://www.drolivas.org/questioningforrelevance

To whet your appetite, several speakers precisely talked about EBMgmt (Evidence-Based Management) as one of the ways to bridge the gap, and we also had presentations on the ways to address non-scientific audiences. I hope we can continue this conversation on this forum -or others! Best regards,

Miguel

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cam Caldwell on October 19, 2008 at 3:30pm

James:

My experience as a practitioner-turned-academic and as a university professor currently consulting with HR practitioners has been that much of the time organizations are legitimately reluctant to partner with academics on projects. Academics need to demonstrate that they have the ability to add value to the practitioner environment that extends beyond "theorizing" or data gathering in search of material for the next publication.

HR professsionals face the difficult task of trying to help their business divisions increase their profitability. They face a recurring pattern of problems:

1) Many HR professionals lack training and academic credentials. A large number of today's HR practitioners have come up through the ranks and know the nuts and bolts -- but lack the big-picture vision of their organization's profit-making and wealth-creation systems. They are not prepared to be business partners. Boot-strapping requires real effort, study time, and commitment.

2) HR professionals rely too heavily on past successes. Those who have been well trained and who are competent rely on past patterns which may no longer be good enough. Collins (2001:1) said it well: "Good is the enemy of great." Past success often breeds future failure. HR professionals must find the time to constantly read and to keep learning in a world where the body of knowledge is doubling every four years.

3) HR professionals misunderstand competitive advantage. Hr professionals who benchmark best practices fall prey to overlooking the reality that practices that are copied cannot possibly lead to a strategic competitive advantage. By definition, a competitive advantage is valuable, difficult to imitate, rare, and organizationally unique. HR professionals must understand how each of their business units maintains its strategic position.

4) HR professionals lack key data and don't know how to generate it. HR professionals find it difficult to document the value of high performance and high trust organizational systems and lack the metrics to convince policy-makers within their own organizations that such systems lead to increased profitability. HR professionals need to demonstrate the ability to generate valid and valuable information for their organizations.

Of course there are many HR professionals who can make their way past these obstacles -- but many HR professionals get mired by one or more of these problems . . . . even in highly regarded organizations that are making reasonable profits in today's marketplace.

Similarly, academics are subject to their own list of problems:

1) Most academics lack real world experience. A PhD is not automatically a ticket into the modern corporation. In fact, many HR professionals feel intimidated by the academic's education level and his/her conceptual approach to practical organizational issues. It is easy for an HR practitioner to hide behind the academic's lack of experience as an excuse for not engaging with the academic in a joint project. Academics must invest in learning about the organizations in the communities where they live and work.

2) Academics rarely know how to "sell" their product or communicate effectively. "Education speak" is a foreign language to most HR practitioners and what is clear to the academic lacks utility and value for many practitioners. Academics need to thoughtfully examine how they can communicate in terms that practitioners understand -- and must recognize that their day-to-day academic language actually can undermine their own credibility.

3) Academics forget that relationship building takes time. There is no "instant pudding" involved in building relationships with practitioners. Creating partnerships between HR professionals and academics is much akin to a courtship relationship. Scholars and academics need to think long-term in building partnerships.

The good news is that some superb partnerships are created between academics and practitioners -- but those partnerships are far too infrequent. We live in a world where complexity and change are factors that make it important for scholars and HR professionals to integrate their efforts. From my perspective in my current seat as a university professor, I think it is far easier for academics to take the first steps to establish a relationship than it is for the HR professional who is often pulled in a dozen different directions.

Both HR professionals and university professors need to look for opportunities to partner together.

Cam Caldwell, PhD & SPHR
McNeese State University

▶ Reply to This