Everyone's had bosses they've either connected or clashed with. But the real world impact of good management can be lost in the sea of people and data at large companies, or is hard to see outside of individual anecdotes.
A massive new study, a collaboration combination between MIT, Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the US Census Bureau, takes a look at management practices around the United States. It's the first-ever large scale study of its kind in America.
The authors surveyed a huge variety of manufacturers to find out if they used the management practices that lead to greater success, like data based monitoring, targets, and incentives, and whether managers and firms use those practices to constantly evaluate and improve how they work.
It covered everything from how bonuses are given to how often performance indicators are tracked. (Find the full survey here)
The plants that had the strongest scores on a scale that combined all of the best practices, outperformed on everything from profits to growth to patents per employee.
It's not enough that companies encourage these practices, they have to have leaders and managers that are actually able to put them into practice, and deliver those performance boosts.
This chart from the paper shows how pronounced and widespread the effect of structured management is. The takeaway? The willingness (and ability) to implement the most intelligent management practices matters. A lot.
Find the full report here
