Seeking Firm Info Hypocrisy Examples
Arnold Kling:
[James] Manzi is a fan of randomized controlled experiments in business and public policy (in the latter, examples include the Rand health care study and the Wisconsin income-maintenance studies). I believe that decision-makers will resist this approach, for the same reason that they resist Robin Hanson’s suggestion to use prediction markets. That is, decisions are not necessarily about achieving results. They are often about establishing the status of the decision-maker. For a decision-maker to conduct experiments or to employ prediction markets is to admit ignorance and doubt, which lowers the decision-maker’s status. (more)
The examples of disinterest in random trials and prediction markets both help convince me that management is often less interested in information that it pretends to be. But since I’m giving a talk on the subject soon, I’d like other examples. So I ask you, dear readers: what common patterns of manager behavior suggests they are less (or more) interested in info than they let on?
I suspect that the function of the CEO and other high executives is primarily to arbitrate disputes between lower ranking members of the firm. Two upper-mid-level managers can argue forever about what to do, but the CEO can simply tell them who's "right" and they have to shut up and listen.
Speaking as consultant with one of the top firms, I more than once (in fact, I am going to do it starting next week) wheeled out scarily big guns to disprove pre-existing hockey sticks as the bullshit they are (it usually takes all of 15 minutes to figure that out and then weeks of nasty analyses to prove it beyond doubt).