Evidence-Based Management, Shmevidence Shmased Shmanagement

During the decade I spent toiling in the land of Dilbert, I used to muse about how to evaluate employees--and how to be evaluated. To my dismay, results rarely seemed to be rewarded by promotion and acclaim. Getting shit done certainly helped you rise up initially, but staying afloat depended on how hard you played the office game. When I was laid off and sent to a retraining program to learn how to get another job, a test revealed that I lacked the gene required for making inane decisions rapidly. While I harbor no executive ambitions, it had never occurred to me that key to becoming an executive, according to this diagnostic tool, was the ability to quickly choose a crappy course of action and cling to it. Analysis paralysis was bad, I was always the first to agree, but I had thought leaping without looking was bad too. Not so, experts have found.

My point? Read this article by Jane Smiley (I think my dad sent it to me, thanks), "The CEO President."