1 Prototyping: Weaving Together Conceptual, Empirical, And

Prototyping:

Weaving Together Conceptual, Empirical, and Applied Perspectives

A Proposal to the Design Thinking Research Program

Principal Investigator: Professor Robert I. Sutton Department of Management Science & Engineering Stanford University [email protected]

Co-Investigator: Debra L. Dunn Consulting Associate Professor Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford [email protected] Stanford University

Co-Investigator: Jeffrey Pfeffer Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior Graduate School of Business Stanford University [email protected]

July, 2008

Abstract

This proposed stream of research will focus on developing a conceptual perspective on prototyping, which is intended to be both empirically grounded and practical. This stream of research will begin with efforts by Scott Klemmer, Jeffrey, Pfeffer, and Robert Sutton to develop a working framework that specifies the process and effects of rapid prototyping; this framework will be grounded in diverse theory and research from the behavioral sciences and engineering. The ideas from this framework will be further developed, tested, and revised on the basis of quantitative and qualitative evidence generated through a year-long d.school “lab” or “learning community” of 8 to 12 organizations that will focus on prototyping potentially better ways of designing and using employee performance evaluations. This set of pilot studies and experiments will focus on using a “bottoms-up” and human-centered approach to reinventing performance evaluation systems and experiences. Debra Dunn, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Robert Sutton will take the primary leadership roles in developing, guiding, and evaluating the prototypes designed and implemented by this learning community. Finally, we will use our work on this conceptual framework, evidence from the learning community, and input from design classes and faculty (at both Stanford and Potsdam) to generate and continuously refine a set of practical and valid guidelines for people and organizations that adopt prototyping mindsets and methods.

Prototyping:

Weaving Together Conceptual, Empirical, and Applied Perspectives

The aim of this proposed stream of research is to develop an integrated conceptual perspective on prototyping. If we are successful, this perspective will be grounded in the best and most pertinent theory and research in the behavioral sciences and engineering, and continue to evolve as we gather and analyze original evidence about prototyping. This perspective will also be used to generate evidence-based guidelines for leaders and knowledge workers about how and when to use rapid prototyping to develop products, software, services, organizational practices, and business strategies.

This is a tall order. But we believe substantial progress can be made by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of researchers, d.school teaching faculty, and practicing executives to participate in this journey. The researchers will include Scott Klemmer from Computer Science and Jeffrey Pfeffer from the Stanford Business School, along with doctoral students. The d.school teaching faculty will include former Hewlett-Packard EVP Debra Dunn, former eBay EVP Michael Dearing, Timbuk2 CEO Perry Klebhan, and IDEO Partner Diego Rodriguez. The executives will include Mozilla CEO John Lilly and Procter & Gamble’s VP of Design Claudia Kotchka. In particular, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Debra Dunn, and I will take leadership roles in this project.

The efforts of this team will focus on three intertwined activities (some of which have already started), and that will persist through at least the 2008-2009 academic year. These are: 1. developing a working theory on the process and impact of prototyping; 2. conducting experiments and pilot studies of prototyping in real organizations; and 3. developing and spreading a set of evidence-based guidelines for leaders and knowledge workers who engage in rapid prototyping. I explain each in turn.

Developing a Working Theory on the Process and Impact of Prototyping

Prototyping is one of the hallmarks of design thinking. It is both a set of methods and a way of seeing the world. The underlying notion is that -- rather than talking and arguing about whether an idea is any good – more can be learned by getting a half-baked idea out into the world quickly, trying to use it and break it, watching how others react when they see it or try to use it, and then quickly revising the idea based on what is learned along the way (or quickly abandoning the idea altogether). And then going through this process often, and going through it quickly, again and again.

This simple and powerful idea is applied throughout the Stanford d.school and used (or suggested) by design consultancies of all kinds. Design firms like IDEO, Frog, and Design Continuum originally applied rapid prototyping to products, but now apply it to everything from customer experiences to food to organizational designs. Other consultancies, such as Stone-Yamashita focus on applying the logic and methods of rapid prototyping to business problems. In the three years that the d.school has been teaching classes, our students have applied the logic of rapid prototyping to everything from bike safety on the Stanford campus, to water pumps for third world countries, to spreading the Firefox browser and hip-hop music, to developing radio programs, to developing board games.

When many of the most renowned practioners of design-thinking are asked how they “know” that rapid prototyping is effective, they often tell stories about their personal successes with prototyping and the successes of others. And when student teams at the d.school get stuck, they often tell those students that they just need to have faith in the power of the process and all will come it OK in the end (I plead guilty here too). In this vein, I once heard a renowned product designer proclaim that “rapid prototyping is my religion.” Certainly, self-confidence is important for success in any endeavor, and indeed, research on the self-fulfilling prophecy (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978) suggests that such faith also likely increases the odds of success -- although other research also suggests that such faith will also lead people to engage in escalating commitment to a failing course of action as well (Staw, 1981). But design thinking needs to be more than a faith-based process if it is to have the desired impact on organizations and society, and if it is to be improved as more and better knowledge accumulates.

This lack of attention to systematic evidence does not mean, however, that there is a complete absence of theory and research on the topic. On the contrary, there are literatures where the efficacy of rapid prototyping is discussed and studied explicitly, such as in the conference papers and journals in the field of human-computer interaction (See, for example, Brandt, Guo, Lewenstein, and Klemmer, 2008; Hartmann, Klemmer, Bernstein, Abdulla, Burr, Robinson-Mosher, and Gee, 2006). Moreover, my recent conversations with Scott Klemmer, as well as my writings with Jeffery Pfeffer on evidence-based management (see Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006), suggest that studies explicitly using the terms “prototyping” or “rapid prototyping” only begin to scratch the surface of what is already known about the value – and limits – of processes that entail getting ideas out there quickly, failing a lot, failing fast, and updating quickly. Pertinent basic work in the behavioral sciences research, for example, includes studies of the conditions under which people learn best from failure (e.g., Ellis and Davidi, 2005) and on the hazards and opportunities of admitting failure (e.g., Lee, Peterson, and Tiedens, 2004). And perhaps the most pertinent work is on wisdom (Sternberg, 1990), especially research on the differences between smart people (who say smart things and can rapidly give correct answers to many questions) versus wise people (who know the limits of their knowledge, ask good questions, and listen well). Traditional education focuses on the former, while the prototyping mindset is about the latter.

There are also pertinent studies on more applied topics across the behavioral sciences that consider the implications of in-depth study and analysis before taking action, versus acting quickly on more meager information and updating on the basis on what is learned along the way. For example, Eisenhardt’s (1989) classic study of high-technology start-ups found that the most effective top management teams analyzed new information very quickly and, when they decided that a new course of action was necessary, they implemented a new strategic direction rapidly and more completely than their less successful competitors (which were led by teams that took far longer to make new decisions and were less likely to update their cognitive models and strategic direction when new information came along). In design thinking language, the leaders of more effective start-ups applied the logic of rapid prototyping to their business strategies. And Simonton’s (1995) historical research on creative geniuses shows that the most creative people in a host of fields – composers, authors, scientists, artists, and many others -- have failure rates that are just as high as their more ordinary counterparts; they just try a lot more things – a perspective quite consistent with the design thinking mantra “fail early, fail often.”

As Scott Klemmer and I began talking about all the different places where the logic and assumptions behind rapid prototyping have been discussed, and the huge pile of evidence that already exists about so many aspects of prototyping (albeit often under different labels such as “learning,” “wisdom,” ”decision-making,” “leadership,” “data mining,” and “emergent organizational strategies), we realized

that an important first step for our individual research, and for the new Design Thinking Research Program as a whole, was to review and categorize the disparate theory and evidence across engineering and the behavioral sciences that is related to rapid prototyping. And then, after reviewing this literature, our aim is to develop an integrated conceptual perspective, including specific and testable hypotheses, about the prototyping process.

As an organizational psychologist, I tend to rely more heavily on traditional behavioral science research, especially those published in peer reviewed journals in psychology, sociology, and the administrative sciences. Scott, as a computer scientist and one the leading young researchers in human computer interaction, draws on different literatures and scholars, as his work is more clearly centered in engineering. As such, I believe that we are well-suited to take an interdisciplinary approach to this challenge. Moreover, Jeffrey Pfeffer is also interested in working on this challenge as well, and in doing so, we can draw on some of our earlier writing on wisdom and treating organizations as unfinished prototypes.

We expect to produce a working conceptual framework from this literature review and integration. Our expectation, however, is that this framework will, itself, be treated as a prototype. We hope that it will serve as a useful guide to the empirical work done by us and other researchers, and that as new and better evidence are produced, it will continue to be updated.

Conducting Experiments and Pilot studies of Prototyping

The second major element of this prototyping project will be a “lab” or “learning community” that Debra Dunn, Jeff Pfeffer, and I have started putting together on applying the assumptions and logic of prototyping to organizations. As I have already mention, the notion of treating an organization as an unfinished prototype is one the central ideas in the work that Pfeffer and I have done on evidence-based management. This proposed lab will draw on the conceptual work that Klemmer and I will do on prototyping, as well as related writings that Pfeffer and I have already produced (e.g., Pfeffer and Sutton, 2000; Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006; Sutton, 2002), along with lessons that Debra Dunn and I have learned teaching d.school classes that use design thinking methods (including prototyping).

The impetus for this lab was sparked last winter quarter when Debra Dunn (former SVP of Strategy at HP and now an Associate Consulting Professor at the d.school) and I taught a d.school class called Business Practices Innovation. We had student groups treat organizational practices as prototypes. We were surprised by how much success the students had changing (not just suggesting changes) in customer experiences at a major airline, the company-wide meeting at Timbuk2 (an article was written for BusinessWeek online about this last intervention; see Scanlon, 2008) , and the employee orientation process at a professional services firm.

These projects went well, but as we starting talking with people in these and other companies, we kept hearing that perhaps the most vexing problem they faced was how to evaluate employees in ways that motivated the “right” behaviors, treated people fairly, and that left them feeling better rather than worse about their organizations. As one CEO out it “It is a really lousy experience here and every other place I’ve ever been.” I also talked with some of my tenure-track colleagues like Jeffrey Pfeffer and Huggy Rao at the GSB, and Pamela Hinds in MS&E, who reminded me that the performance management problem was among the most challenging for academic researchers (Jeff Pfeffer and I have written about the challenges quite a bit, especially in Hard Facts and The Knowing-Doing Gap). And we

also started talking with other managers in more depth about this challenge, and we were taken with how widespread the dissatisfaction is with these systems and how much interest there is re-inventing how these systems are designed and used.

These conversations, and my knowledge of existing writings and research, reminded me that these systems are so flawed, in part, because they are so often based on suspect assumptions about human behavior, reflect practices that – although debunked by research – are still passed from one organization to another, and reflect arbitrary traditions within organizations (i.e., practices are used simply because things have always used in the past, and no one has applied the blend of energy and power required to change the system). On top of that, remarkably few organizations provide sufficient information to their people about how such systems operate, fewer provide any explanation about why the system is designed as it is, and still fewer provide people with adequate training about how to use such systems in the most effective ways. Also, putting on my design thinking hat, I realized that such systems are nearly always designed from the top down, with little concern or attention focused on the human experience involved with giving or receiving a performance evaluation – which goes a long way to explain why they seem to create such lousy human experiences.

The upshot of all this is that this d.school lab will focus on building a network of 8 to 12 organizations that are committed to reinventing the performance evaluation process from the bottom-up; they will start with redesigning the human experience of getting and giving a performance evaluation, and then turn to developing a system that improves that experience, while also satisfying other goals such as motivating employees and following employment law. Participating companies will commit to:

1. Experimenting with large and small aspects of performance evaluation process (everything from making changes in how conversations happen, to changes in forms and materials, to changes in incentive systems).

2. Sharing what they have learned – and the challenges they face – with other organizations, as well as Stanford faculty and students, involved in the network. We are thinking that a phone call every two weeks and perhaps three face-to-face meetings over the course of the year would be about right.

3. Playing a role in at least one d.school classes that will focus, at least in part, on redesigning the performance evaluation experience. This could range from serving as coaches, to sharing their experiences in class, to bringing student teams to develop and implement prototypes for their performance management systems, such as experimenting with new experiences, forms, or metrics.

4. Working with members of the research team to gather and report rigorous quantitative and qualitative evidence about the effects of these pilot studies and experiments.

5. Providing financial support to the network.

Note that we just started working on this project over the past couple months. Thus far, we’ve had strong expressions of interest from executives at Timbuk2, Mozilla, and JetBlue about being involved as partners (Note that the CEO of Timbuk2, Perry Klebhan, also teaches at the d.school and so he is an easy

target.) We have also started conversations with executives at P&G, Google, and Fidelity about being involved, and will approach Intuit and SAP in the coming weeks. We have developed a long list of other potential candidates that might be interested. I am also working to weave this project into the General Motors Work Systems lab, which has supported a substantial amount of my research in recent years (and research by others in the Center for Work, Technology and Organization), as it fits well with the lab’s goal.

This lab, or learning network, will be centerpieces of this stream of research on prototyping in several ways. First, it will provide a series of ongoing pilot studies and experiments where we can develop and test our hypotheses about the power of prototyping, how to implement it, and the conditions under which it is well-suited versus badly suited for solving problems. Second, the results will provide ongoing fodder for updating our conceptual framework on prototyping, as well as providing data for more specific work on treating organizations as prototypes and on the performance evaluation process.

Developing Prototyping Guidelines

Finally, this research on performance evaluations, along with research conducted by others in the Design Thinking Research Program and the lessons that we learn from reviewing existing theory and evidence, will help us develop a set of useful guidelines for leaders and knowledge workers who wish to apply the logic, language, and assumptions of rapid prototyping to a host of challenges. Our aim is to develop and maintain a set of 10 to 12 basic principles that are both evidence-based, easy to understand, and that have been used to good effect in settings including organizations, classrooms, and research laboratories. We will constantly subject these principles to empirical scrutiny as our framework develops and to practical scrutiny as students and faculty in design classes attempt to apply them, as well as people we work with in other settings, including the members of the performance evaluation learning network.

Summary

In short, our aim is to draw on diverse academic research to develop the best working theory we can about the process and effects of prototyping, to develop a learning network of research partners that can help us test and modify this emerging perspective, and to link the lessons we learn to help people and organizations to better apply the logic and methods of prototyping. In doing so, we hope that this stream of research can test, develop, and spread knowledge about prototyping, which is one of the pillars of design thinking.

Budget

The budget for the proposed project includes one month of summer salary (plus benefits) of summer support and a 10% salary offset for Robert Sutton who will lead this project. It also includes a honorarium for Professor Jeffery Pfeffer, who will play an active role in all facets of the project and support for Debra Dunn, an Associate Consulting Professor at the Stanford d.school and experienced executive, who will play a central role in managing the relationships with the companies that will be doing pilot studies and experiments and in developing the prototyping guidelines. I realize that it is unusual to involve a former executive and consulting professor in a research role, but Dunn’s efforts will be critical to supporting and guiding the activities in the learning network, so I believe that support for her efforts are well-justified. The budget also includes support for a PhD student (plus benefits and tuition) who will serve as a research assistant on this project throughout 2008 and 2009. We are also asking for funds to support miscellaneous travel and research expenses. Finally, although we will be working with Scott Klemmer on the conceptual piece of this project, I am not including a budget item for him as he is submitting a separate proposal.

10% salary offset for Robert Sutton, for the 2008-2009 academic year ($15,600 for offset plus $4758 for benefits) = $20358

One month of summer support for Robert Sutton for the 2008- 2009 academic year. ($17160 for one month of salary, plus $5234 for benefits) = $22394

Honorarium for Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Graduate School of Business = $20,000

Debra Dunn, Associate Consulting Professor at Stanford d.school, for the 2008-2009 academic year ($10,000 per quarter) = $30,000

Research assistant for the 2008-2009 academic year for a .50 appointment for non-TGR student (each term costs $7350 in salary, $294 in benefits, and $5408 in tuition) = $39,156

Miscellaneous expenses (travel, transcription costs, equipment) = $5,000

Total Budget = $136,908

Project Schedule and Milestones

NOTE: This schedule and these proposed deliverables represent my best estimate of how the three main elements of this stream of work will unfold. But please note that as we are in the early stages of an effort that will entail coordinating the actions of many people inside and outside of Stanford, and that is a new process as well, the schedule below will almost certainly change as the project unfolds.

September 15, 2008 Review of Pertinent Prototyping Literature Begins

October, 2008 Learning community of 6 to 10 organizations established Initial discussions of employee performance prototypes begins Literature review continues

November, 2008 First face-to face meeting of learning community (Punctuated by all- hands conference calls every two weeks during the academic year 1 or 2 organizations begin implementing early prototypes -- with assistance from research team) Literature review continues

December 2008 Prototypes and experiments continue Website for learning community completed Literature review complete; synthesis and analysis commence Papers with early theory and findings submitted to the Academy of Management and ACM Conferences First iteration of prototyping guidelines developed

January 2009 Prototypes and experiments continue – 4 to 6 in progress and perhaps one complete, with initial findings. Dunn & Sutton’s d.school class on Business Process Innovation develops ideas for employee performance evaluation prototypes Synthesis and analysis for conceptual framework continue Second iteration of prototyping guidelines developed

February 2009 Second face-to face meeting of learning community (Punctuated by all- hands conference calls every two weeks throughout the year) Prototypes and experiments continue – 4 to 8 in progress and at least two complete, with initial findings. Dunn & Sutton’s d.school class on “Business Process Innovation” work with members of the learning community to implement prototype ideas for improving employee performance evaluations.

Synthesis and analysis for conceptual framework near end, as conceptual framework begins to emerge. Second iteration of prototyping guidelines developed.

March 2009 Prototypes and experiments continue – 4 to 8 in progress and perhaps three or four complete, with initial findings. Dunn & Sutton’s d.school class on Business Process Innovation work implement prototype ideas and present initial findings to participating organizations and to members of the learning community. Synthesis and analysis for conceptual framework complete Second iteration of prototyping guidelines developed.

April, 2009 Prototypes and experiments continue – 4 to 8 in progress and perhaps three or four complete, with more detailed findings beginning to emerge. Synthesis and analysis for conceptual framework complete; initial version of the framework is discussed, circulated, and critiqued by faculty at Stanford and Postdam.

May –June 2009 Third face-to face meeting of learning community, which will focus on presentations on the prototypes that we implemented by the 8 to 12 members and what was learned for the processes and the outcomes. Prototypes and experiments continue, 4 in progress and perhaps 6 complete, with initial findings. Dunn & Sutton’s d.school class on Business Process Innovation work Third iteration of prototyping guidelines, revised on the basis of input from research faculty, design teaching faculty, and members of the learning community Writing of conceptual paper on prototyping begins. Planning for 2009-2010 commences

June –September 2009 Prototypes and experiments continue Research team analyzes quantitative and qualitative data from pilot programs and experiments to begin developing a more “human- centered” approach do designing and using employee performance evaluation systems Writing of conceptual paper on prototyping completed and paper submitted to peer-reviewed journal. Planning for 2009-2010 completed.

References

Brandt, J., P. Guo, J. Lewenstein, and S.R. Klemmer. (2008) “Opportunistic Programming: How Rapid Ideation and Prototyping Occur in Practice” Workshop on End-User Software Engineering IV. ICSE 2008: 30th International Conference on Software Engineering.

Eisenhardt, K. 1989. Making fast strategic decisions in high-velocity environments. Academy of Management Journal, 32: 543–576

Ellis, S., & Davidi, I. (2005). After event reviews: Drawing lessons from failed and successful events. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90: 857-871

Hartmann, B., S.R., Klemmer, M. Bernstein, B. Abdulla, B. Brandon, C. Robinson-Mosher, J. Gee. (2006) “Reflective physical prototyping through integrated design, test, and analysis” UIST 2006: ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

Lee, F., Peterson, C., & Tiedens, L.Z. (2004). Mea Culpa: Predicting Stock Prices from Organizational Attributions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30: 1636-1649.

Pfeffer, J. and Sutton, R.I. (2006) Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management. Harvard Business School Press.

Pfeffer, J. and Sutton R.I. (2000) The Knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action. Harvard Business School Press

Rosenthal, R. & D.B. Rubin. (1978): “Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: The First 345 Studies.” The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 3: 377-386

Scanlon, J. (2008) “How to Make Meetings Matter.” BusinessWeek Online. Posted April 28th, 2008. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2008/id20080428_601886.htm?chan=innovation_ innovation+%2B+design_top+stories

Simonton, D. K. (1995) “Creativity as Heroic: Risk, Failure, and Acclaim, in Creative Action in Organizations, ed. C. M. Ford & D. A. Gioia (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage): 88-93

Sternberg, R.J. (1990) Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press

Sutton, R.I. (2002) Weird ideas that work: Practices for promoting, managing, and sustaining innovation. The Free Press, 2002.

Staw, B. M. (1981), “The escalation of commitment to a course of action,” Academy of Management Review, 6: 577-587.

Robert I. Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford. Sutton received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from The University of Michigan and has served on the Stanford faculty since 1983. He has also taught at the Haas Business School and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences during the 1986-87, 1994-95, and 2002-03 academic years. Sutton studies innovation, leadership, evidence-based management, the links between knowledge and organizational action, and most recently, workplace assholes. Sutton works with organizations and managers of all kinds, from People Magazine, to Procter & Gamble, to Premier Healthcare. He has published over 150 articles, in places ranging from peer reviewed journals, to the Harvard Business Review, to Esquire magazine. Sutton’s books include Weird Ideas That Work: 11 ½ Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge into Action (with Jeffrey Pfeffer), and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (also with Jeffrey Pfeffer). His new book is the New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.

His honors include the award for the best paper published in the Academy of Management Journal in 1989, the Eugene L. Grant Award for Excellence in Teaching, selection by Business 2.0 as a leading “management guru” in 2002, and the award for the best article published in the Academy of Management Review in 2005. His latest book, The No Asshole Rule, won the Quill Award for the best business book of 2007. Sutton was recently named as one of 10 “B-School All-Stars” by BusinessWeek in 2007, which they described as “professors who are influencing contemporary business thinking far beyond academia.” Sutton is a Fellow at IDEO and a member of the Institute for the Future’s board of directors. Especially dear to his heart is the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, which everyone calls “the Stanford d.school.” He is a co-founder of this multi-disciplinary program, which teaches, practices, and spreads “design thinking.” His personal blog is Work Matters, at www.bobsutton.net.

Debra L. Dunn is currently working as an Advisor to Social Ventures around the world and an Associate Consulting Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka d.school) at Stanford University.

Debra left HP in June of 2005 after 22 years. For the last 3 years of her HP career Debra was senior vice president of Corporate Affairs and Global Citizenship. Previously, as vice president of strategy and corporate operations, Dunn led corporate strategy, corporate development, corporate communications and brand management, corporate philanthropy and government affairs.

Dunn was elected an HP vice president in November 1999. She was named general manager of HP’s executive committee in 1998 and led the Agilent spin off process as well as HP’s new business creation function. Dunn was named general manager of HP’s Video Communication Division in 1996 after assuming the role of marketing manager in 1993 and manufacturing manager in 1992. Dunn holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative economics from Brown University in Providence, R.I., and a master’s degree in business from Harvard School of Business in Cambridge, MA. She serves on the Boards of the Skoll Foundation, B Lab and Global Giving and the Faculty of Sustainability

JEFFREY PFEFFER is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of twelve books including The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First, Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action, Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People, and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management as well as more than 120 articles and book chapters. In the summer of 2007, Harvard Business School Press published his most recent book, What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management, a collection of 27 essays about management topics. Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Pfeffer has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, and a frequent visitor at IESE in Barcelona.

Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of the for-profit company Audible Magic as well as nonprofits Quantum Leap Healthcare and The San Francisco Playhouse. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream, all human capital software companies, and SonoSite, a company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines. Pfeffer has presented seminars in 33 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.