#304: Run your business like a science experiment

The biggest hangup for leaders that stifles their ability to think and build strong workplaces

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Adam Grant, a professor of organizational psychology at the Wharton School of Business, answered this question:

What do you find is the biggest hangup for leaders that stifles their ability to think and build strong workplaces? 

There is a failure to understand that you can actually run an organization thinking like a scientist. And by that I mean, just recognizing that every opinion you hold at work is a hypothesis waiting to be tested. And every decision you make is an experiment waiting to be run.

So many leaders just implement decisions. It is like life is an A/B test, but they just ran with the A, and didn’t even realize that there was a possible B, C, D, and E. Too many leaders feel like their decisions are permanent. As opposed to saying, “We’re going to test and learn.”  

Back in the winter of 2018, I pitched a bunch of CEOs on doing a remote-Friday experiment. I said, “Let’s just give people one day a week to work from anywhere, and we can test the impact.” Every single leader I pitched balked at the idea: “Oh no. If I let it out of the bag, I’ll never be able to put it back in.” What a missed opportunity. It is living in fear of opening Pandora’s box. 

You can listen to a podcast version of this post by CLICKING HERE

There is an awful lot to unpack with this quote. What we all want to focus on is, running your business, department, or whatever you are in charge of, like a science experiment. If you have forgotten your 10th-grade biology class, here is a quick summary of the Scientific Method:

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