My reading list turned up an interesting article about "trephination," an ancient practice of deliberately cutting holes in the skulls of humans.  Stone age people were especially fond of exercising this technique, for no apparent reason.  The practice appears to be a historical mystery.  "It was a delicate procedure, with stone tools used to carefully scrape away and remove the bone without damaging the tissue underneath."  The good news is that the survival rate for this operation was over 90%.  The bad news is that it was absolutely unnecessary. 

Usually these kinds of practices make their advance in medical history after someone experimented with a medically or mentally ill person, and the person miraculously recovered, at which point the procedure is seen as the cause of the healing.  The next thing you know, everyone is getting holes cut out of their heads.  In learning theory, psychologists call this "superstitious behavior," meaning that we tend to repeat behaviors that we believe have caused a specific outcome, regardless of their power to actually do so. 

Baseball players are famous for this.  They might go 4 for 4 in hitting one night and attribute their improved hitting to the fact that they tried a new bat size that evening.  That same player will tend to continue hitting that new bat size the remainder of the season, despite the fact that their batting average actually dropped subsequent to the change.  

So, what behaviors could be considered your organizations "trephination?" 

The only way you could possibly discover these is to examine behaviors and tasks, measure, and report them.  You've heard the old saying… "What you don't measure, you can't manage."  It could also be true that "What you don't measure, may be a hole in the head!"

We have the advantage of peering into many organizations.  Some measure tasks and outcomes, and some do not.  Most of our clients like measuring tasks, and being able to predict outcomes on past measurements.  Others sort of wing it.  The ones that resist us asking measurement related questions are typically the ones who have become attached to certain ways of doing business, defensively holding on to them, despite little evidence to do so.  Then there are companies who do indeed measure, but blame their result differences on factors beyond their control.  Whether it's getting stuck, "only hiring experienced agents" or "interviewing the same way I always have," behaviors might exist that once worked with some people at some point in time, that no longer are effective with most people at this point in time. 

Psychologically, organizations that measure and are open to others' interpretation of the results, tend to invite questions, and sometimes even scrutiny, about how they do things and the results they produce.  In contrast, organizations that don't measure tend to become uncomfortable around questions pertaining to tasks and outcomes.  I imagine that managers of single offices vary in a similar way, even within the same organization. 

Clearly, if you want to extinguish practices that don't get results, and increase tasks that do, everyone has to get on the measurement bandwagon, and be open to acknowledging the holes you might be pointlessly boring into heads. 

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.