My friend Robert Smith and I used to work together at a large, privately held company here in Minneapolis. Almost daily, we held fascinating discussions on all things workplace. (hmm…that should be a blog name!). Our conversations ranged from organizational development topics, his specialty in PhD studies at the University of Minnesota, to employee engagement to the difference between leadership and management. Our usual point of contention was my view that academic study without practical application was nice, but not useful to a business practitioner. His view is that without the many studies, research, books, journal articles, and workshops, there would be nothing practical TO apply. As you can imagine, our discourse was rife with creative tension (and quite fun)! After some of our “library lunches” we joked that we learned more in our lunch conversations by accident than other places by design.

The Issue

Which is more important to the success of your business? Theory or practice? Yes, you might answer both: on a Saturday afternoon, relaxing in your favorite chair or at a company ‘offsite’. Reality is, what we use every day, what we focus on, is what we find important. As long as academics and business managers have existed, there has been a tension between disciplines.

Managers want help and practical application RIGHT NOW. They have customers, bosses, shareholders, direct reports: everyone wanting everything right now. No time to review trends, ‘best practices’, or platitudes from a star CEO or ‘academic’. They would have to attempt to synthesize the myriad generalities and all the while their inbox and voicemail are f-u-l-l.

Academics want to study trends, long term views, and discrete data. They need to ‘publish or perish’ and tend to apply their work wherever it will be read versus where it could be applied outside academia.

Recently, Robert brought to my attention a phenomenal book titled
“Engaged Scholarship” by Andrew Van de Ven.

ESBook

Let’s see what it is all about.

Are Our Worlds Really So Different?

Managers, for all their comments about wanting practical applications RIGHT NOW, sure do buy a lot of business books. Few of these books give practical, prescriptive ways to handle daily business issues. There appears to be a craving for knowledge, but little attempt (abilitiy?) to synthesize and apply the theories.

In their rush to bring in the quarter, to raise revenue and cut expenses, managers are taught to practice with a short-term focus. This creates a divide between theory and practice since most research has a high-level, longer term view.

Academics, for all their comments about wanting to be taken seriously by the real world, sure spend a lot of time studying esoteric, long-term trends, theories, and hypotheses instead of speaking to practicing managers. There seems to be a craving for real world experimentation and seeing theories come alive, but little attempt. In a “publish or perish” world, professors are putting their best efforts towards what gets published, not what may be directly applicable to any real world situation.

According to Van de Ven, ““Because such research is not grounded in reality…it often results in trivial advancements to science and contributes to widening the gap between theory and practice.”

Engaged Scholarship

Managers need to see the forest for the trees. Academics need to spend a bit more time walking amongst the trees in the forest. How can you help? As a manager, try speaking at a local university class. Engage a professor when you do strategic planning. As a professor, study more in the field. Many companies would welcome the opportunity to have you as a resource. Ask!

Van de Ven writes, “By involving others and leveraging their different kinds of knowledge, engaged scholarship can produce knowledge that is more penetrating and insightful than when scholars or practitioners work on the problem alone.”

Our debates will continue - therein lies the opportunity for us to grow, learn, and challenge long-held beliefs. What do YOU think about all this? What could you do to narrow the gap between theory and practice?
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Want more information? Check HERE for a great summary of the book by Katy Holmgren. Robert Smith would also love to get your views: you may reach him at: smit2018@umn.edu .

Joe Raasch :: Nov.13.2007 :: Leadership, Organizational Development :: 6 Comments »