People working in evidence-based management can sometimes feel like they are swimming against the tide. But they are part of something much larger.

In this episode we hear from science journalist Helen Pearson about her new book Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works.

The conversation steps back from evidence-based management to look at the much wider evidence movement that has been unfolding across disciplines over the past few decades. From medicine and social policy to policing, conservation and business, researchers and practitioners have been grappling with the same question: how do we know what really works?

Helen traces the origins of the modern evidence movement, beginning with the pioneers of evidence-based medicine in the late twentieth century, and explains how ideas such as randomized trials and systematic reviews spread across many other fields.

The discussion explores:

• The origins of evidence-based medicine and the role of pioneers like Iain Chalmers and David Sackett
• How ideas from medicine influenced other domains including policy, policing and management
• Why early advocates of evidence often worked in isolation across different disciplines
• Why evidence-based management faces particular challenges in bridging research and practice
• The current “crisis of evidence” and the forces shaping trust in science today
• Why teaching evidence literacy and critical thinking may be one of the most powerful tools for the future

Helen also shares practical advice for anyone wanting to think more critically about claims and evidence in everyday life.

For students and teachers of evidence-based management, the episode offers a reminder that they are part of a much broader international movement seeking to improve decisions through better use of evidence.

Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works will be published in April 2026.

Host:

Karen Plum

Guest:

Helen Pearson, Senior Editor, Nature, Honorary Professor of Practice, UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies

Click here for more details about Helen's book.

Contact:

Eric Barends, Managing Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management

Working with evidence-based management can be uncomfortable. It asks people to sit with uncertainty rather than reach for certainty — something many of us are rewarded for in organisational life.

This conversation explores what that discomfort looks like in practice, and how uncertainty shows up when people engage seriously with evidence — whether they are managers making decisions, students learning to apply evidence, or educators supporting that learning. The discussion ranges across research, teaching, and organisational decision-making, touching on credibility, confidence, risk, and the realities of working with evidence in complex, high-stakes environments.

Rather than offering tools or prescriptions, the episode stays with the experience of uncertainty itself — including where it becomes personally or professionally risky, and where it can open up better questions, more careful judgement, and new possibilities when people are willing to stay with it.

This is not a “how-to” episode. It’s an opportunity to listen in as experienced educators and practitioners think together about uncertainty, without rushing to certainty.

Host:
Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends - Managing Director, Center of Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, USA
• Preston Davis, Clinical Assistant Professor of Management, Coles College, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Contact:

Eric Barends, Managing Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management

This episode was updated in 2025 to reflect changes to the online course relating to how best to aggregate the evidence (via parallel or serial approaches) and the importance of cross-validation with the parties contributing to the evidence.

This episode accompanies Module 12 of the course, which explores how to bring together the various sources of evidence gathered throughout the process. It’s the stage where the question becomes “What does this really tell us?” and where ideas about confidence, belief, and openness to new evidence come to the fore. The episode looks at why existing beliefs can be so sticky, how confidence shifts as new information arrives, and how a little Bayesian thinking can help keep our perspectives flexible.

There are also practical stories from the field, including how asking “How certain are you?” — or even framing a claim as a bet — can reveal far more than expected. The purpose of an evidence-based approach is to reduce uncertainty in decision making by examining likelihoods and probabilities, and this episode explores both how Bayes’ rule can support that and what to do when evidence appears to conflict. Contradictory evidence turns out to be far rarer than many students assume, and the discussion highlights how confidence levels can be surfaced and constructively challenged, and how cross-validation helps build shared understanding and ownership.

Aggregation is reframed not as a technical exercise but as a human one: a process of dialogue, reflection, and sense-making. The episode considers how to handle myths and “zombie ideas,” and how to craft an evidence story that is both accurate and memorable. Above all, the message is to slow down, check assumptions, and involve others — because good decisions depend on understanding the evidence together rather than rushing to action.

Further reading / sources mentioned during the episode:

• Nate Silver - "The Signal and the Noise"

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Additional material with thanks to:

• Julia Galef - President and co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality - YouTube videos

Find out more about the course here: https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode was recorded live with three evidence-based management experts, Denise Rousseau, Rob Briner and Eric Barends, answering and discussing questions sent in by teachers and students of the subject.

During the disucssion, we touched on many aspects of evidence-based management, including:

• Starting with basic principles rather than complex frameworks makes evidence-based management accessible to busy professionals
• Problem identification is the most critical and often overlooked step in the evidence-based management process
• AI tools can support evidence-based decisions but require specific prompting and critical evaluation of outputs
• Evidence-based management works best as a team sport where colleagues help identify each other's blind spots - including biases
• Rather than trying to build a whole evidence-based culture, start with your sphere of influence and share evidence supportively
• Building evidence-based practices requires social networks of support within and outside organizations

If you have questions about evidence-based management that you'd like addressed in future episodes, please send them to us. We're planning to make "Ask the experts" a regular feature of the podcast.

Host:
Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends - Managing Director, Center of Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, USA
• Rob Briner, Professor of Organisational Psychology, Queen Mary University of London; Associate Research Director at Corporate Research Forum

Contact:

Eric Barends, Managing Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management

This episode was updated in 2025 to reflect the use of AI tools such as Consensus and Google Scholar for searching academic databases.

This episode accompanies Module 5 of the course, which focuses on gathering evidence from the scientific literature (academic studies) that will help us address the question we are trying to answer. This module aligns to chapter 6 of the Evidence-Based Management book.

Modules 5, 6 and 7 all focus on the scientific literature, so when you listen to their corresponding podcast episodes, the picture will hopefully become more complete.

In this episode we discuss the process of searching for academic studies; the difference between everyday / managerial terms and academic constructs; how to find the right terms to search for; the importance of obtaining studies from the right sources, most especially peer reviewed academic journals; the difference between journals and “magazines”; and the importance of documenting the process you followed to identify your evidence base.

We also explore how the peer review process and the meta-analysis help us get to the best available evidence.

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Barbara Janssen, Fellow of the Center for Evidence-Based Management

Find out more about the course here: https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies the last module of the course – module 15, which is all about building an evidence-based management capacity in organisations.

There are 3 levels – you as an evidence-based manager; your colleagues who you can influence and guide in evidence based approaches; and the skills, practices and processes in your organisation.

We hear from several experts about ways to build on what you’ve learned, and how others have approached the development of evidence-based practices in their organisations, including the CIPD, the professional HR body, about how it promotes this practice among its membership.

And you’re never alone, there are always others forging a path in evidence-based management who you can reach out to, learn from and share with.

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jonny Gifford, Senior Researcher, CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development with a worldwide community of 160k members
• David Creelman, CEO of Creelman Research and an expert of HR strategy, analytics and learning
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group
• Steven ten Have, Partner TEN HAVE Change Management & Professor of Strategy and Change at VU University Amsterdam

Find out more about the course here: https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 14 of the course, which is about evaluating the outcome of the decision we’ve taken or the solution we implemented. This is the last stage of our evidence-based management process and is vital to ensuring that we learn from what we’ve done.

Assessing outcomes is vital, because otherwise, how do we know if what we did was effective, and how can we learn and develop our approach to decision making? Did we capture a baseline before the decision was implemented? And was the decision implemented as planned? If we assess outcomes without these two, then conclusions could be very suspect.

We continue our case study of the large trial at pharmaceutical organization Sandoz (part of Novartis Group), and find out how the D&I interventions were assessed.

Denise Rousseau's 2020 paper: Making Evidence based organisational decisions in an uncertain world

After action review paper: https://www.cebma.org/wp-content/uploads/Guide-to-the-after_action_review.pdf

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group

Additional speaker, courtesy of CIPD: Niamh McNamara, Global Head of People & Organisation, Novartis

Find out more about the course here: https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/

This episode accompanies Module 13 of the course, which is about incorporating evidence into the decision making process.

Is the evidence appropriate for our situation (is it generalizable). Can we (and should we) action the evidence? And what are the practical aspects associated with using the evidence that we’ve gathered? The real world is messy and complex, so there are many things to take into consideration.

We share real world examples from professional HR body CIPD, Creelman Research and a large trial at pharmaceutical organization Sandoz (part of Novartis Group), which shows not only the power of capturing stakeholder experiences, but the value of keeping interventions simple and practical.

Host: Karen Plum

Guests:

• Eric Barends, Managing Director, Center for Evidence-Based Management
• Denise Rousseau, H J Heinz University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jonny Gifford, Senior Researcher, CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development with a worldwide community of 160k members
• David Creelman, CEO of Creelman Research and an expert of HR strategy, analytics and learning
• Stefanie Nickel, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz, part of the Novartis Group

Find out more about the course here: https://cebma.org/resources-and-tools/course-modules/