Bad Science

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. - Hippocrates,Greek physician (460 BC - 377 BC)

Last time I went to my doctor (M.B.B.S, M.D, PhD!), he examined me for a while and gave me 2 plastic bottles with green and blue caps and filled with mini white spheres, tasting like sugar (they were sugar globes indeed!). Homeopathy, he said, and gave a set of instructions along with the pills. I dutifully discarded the pills, the instructions and finally the doctor!

In the recent times many forms of alternate medicine has become popular; the most popular of them is probably Homeopathy, so much so that even some general practitioners, like my own doctor, of the so called Allopathy (interestingly the terms Allopathy/ Allopathic medicine were coined by Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy and considered derogative!) today prescribe homeopathic pills. In most of the cities, every street has a homeopathic practitioner and a long line of patients waiting outside, not the least worried about the practitioner’s credentials.

I have always wondered about the effectiveness of alternate medicine and this wonder led me to Ben Goldacre. Ben Goldacre is a doctor by profession from the Oxford and a celebrated journalist. He has a master's degree in philosophy. He writes a weekly column in the guardian titled ‘Bad Science’ and blogs here http://www.badscience.net/. His recent (Sep 2008) block buster book is titled; you would have guessed it by now – Bad Science. He is just 34.

His columns are very critical of the many pseudo science practices that are popular today. The book is a follow up to the columns and continues the scathing yet witty style of writing, but a style that is very thorough. The book covers a lot of things from detoxification myths to media’s role in the health fads and even large evil pharma companies. Since it covers a lot of ground it is a bit laborious at times and that can surely be excused.

Bad Science has a long chapter dedicated to Homeopathy and followed immediately by a chapter on placebo effect. Ben Goldacre completely debunks the practice of Homeo and writes: “Homeopathy is perhaps the paradigmatic example of an alternative therapy: it claims the authority of a rich historical heritage, but its history is routinely rewritten for PR needs of a contemporary market; it has an elaborate sciency sounding framework for how it works , without scientific evidence to demonstrate its veracity; and its proponents are quite clear that the pills will make you better, when in fact they have been thoroughly researched, with innumerable trails, and have been found to perform no better that Placebo.”

The other book that has received great reviews is the wonderfully titled “Trick or Treatment”; co authored by the other popular British author/journalist (pseudo patriots can take pride in his Indian origins!) Simon Singh. This book is all about alternate medicines and goes all out at Homeopathy and criticizes the two pillars of Homeopathy 1. Like cures like and 2. Dilution increases potency – for more details watch this video where Simon Singh talks about his book and Homeopathy in detail (you have to tolerate his weird hairstyle ;-)).

Both the books argue based on meta studies based on rigorous trials and the outcome of these trails have been fairly conclusive in terming homeopathy as no better than Placebo.

If Homeopathy is no better than Placebo, then why is Homeo so popular today? It is a good question, and the answer lies in the power of Placebo and the desperation of people when mainstream medicine (still) has no answer to many of today’s ills (we have to remember that mainstream medicine has only taken off in the last 70 odd years after the start of proper clinical trials and advancement in science - otherwise it was no different from the pseudo medicine and followed practices like bloodletting for cures for more than 2000 years).

Placebo is usually a non medicinal substance (like sugar pill, saline water, etc); that will have no effect on the illness, but administered to the patient. The patient believes that the substance has medical value and at times his condition improves, purely based on psychological stimulus.

Many trials have proved the effectiveness of placebo; especially when the Doctor is confident and sounds very honest and caring. Tests have proved that the color, shape (capsules are more powerful than tablets), the brand (Crocin seems to be more effective even though there are hundred other Paracetamol tablets available in the market). In all this, the elobrate ritual and props are very important.

The power of Placebo effect can be seen in the many other beliefs like: astrology, spiritual gurus, good luck gems, etc. and of course, the biggest of them all – God.

People Leave Managers Not Companies. Really?

People Leave Managers Not Companies. This is the statement that Marcus B is making in the book; ‘first, break all the rules’. This is also the philosophy that Gallup is pushing around. This statement is being applauded, quoted and communicated by many HR professionals. This is just another management jargon, one that is very convenient for the HR team in any organization. Bring on any ‘employee friendly’ policy, reorg experiments, compensation confusions and layer upon layer of abstractions in the HR processes and when attrition increases can blame (or at least share the blame) the managers. ‘Managers’ is a faceless entity when it is abstracted at the organization level, so you are blaming a faceless, generic group, rather than being specific and taking the bottom-line for the many failed initiatives -rather convenient isn't it?

This statement could possibly (only ever so slightly) be true if the lower requirements as indicated by the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs get fulfilled. This maturity can only come in a developed job market where the national GDP is stable and salary for similar roles are fairly equal across organizations. In a developing country; where the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid are unfulfilled, the National GDP keeps fluctuating, salary levels uneven across organizations for similar roles, the reasons for people to leave an organization would be salary, position and location and in an organization of mostly freshers it could be even higher studies. Moreover the culture across these markets are radically different, people needs are very different.

Yes, it is a tough challenge if you get a really bad manager who is unreasonable, bad mouthed or unconcerned about the team and primarily after his own visibility. It is very frustrating to compete with your own manager. The only option would be to quit and move on. But concluding bad managers as the only or primary reason for people quitting organization is pushing the generalization a bit too far. It is sheer desperation and passing on the buck to faceless group of people or merely a matter of convenience.

Truth is, manager is just another cog in the organization wheel; larger the wheel (organization) smaller the cog (manager) becomes. With many standardized and normalization processes the role of a manager is becoming smaller and smaller; one has to just feed in the list and rest taken care by the xls (or an application if your organization has mature people practices :-)).

PS: Abraham Maslow's book ‘Motivation and Personality’, published in 1954 introduced the Hierarchy of Needs, which states that Human motivation moves up a pyramid as each level gets fulfilled and this is a concept that every MBA student is very much familiar with and used for various subjects, like psychology, HR, marketing, etc.

first, break all the rules

Started this book with great hesitation and without much expectation (This book was first recommended by a trainer from our leadership center, any recommendation from the leadership center or from HR has to be approached with caution :-)), "First, Break All The Rules", is written by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, both seasoned Gallop employees (I guess Marcus is not with Gallup anymore, but that is not important, atleast not for us ;-)) and hence I expected this book to be in some way a marketing material for Gallup – it is that and a bit more.

That 'bit more' is what is interesting (obviously!). The core of the first part is: "we can’t change basic traits of people by a day’s training” this is something I very strongly believe in and hence I started reading with some genuine interest.

Yes we can’t, we can’t change the basic nature of a person so easily. This concept is something we have seen in the previous posts on “Personality”, A person’s trait is 50% genetic and rest 50% is molded thru early life experiences (‘parents have no role’ – I can’t get over this point!) and it is nearly, as they say, cast in stone. It is Fairly impossible to change; unless the individual takes an extraordinary effort to change (after realizing his basic traits -which, by itself, is a big challenge). So, the book begs managers not to waste time focusing on talents that people don’t possess, but accept and nurture the talents that they possess.

The book says:
People don't change that much.
Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out.
Try to draw out what was left in.
That is hard enough.

I have different team leads, one of them is always in the thick of the things, pretty vocal, an extrovert by nature. The other leader is calm, keeps to himself and communicates in a limited but effective manner. Bottom line is, they get things done and their respective teams are happy to work with them. I admire them both. I cannot search of the absent qualities in them and ignore their strengths. Each one is different and this difference is the strength of my team.
Net-net; Conducting half a day 'Assertiveness' session is not going to make a person any more assertive than what he was before the session.

Okay, we saw the point that i agree with the authors whole heartedly; there is also a point in the book that i am really appalled at; more about it in the next post.

Note: Since 1997, Gallup has polled some 3 million individuals across 80 thousand units. Gallup uses 12 questions to measure the engagement of employees. The result of these surveys is extensively used in this book.