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/

UPDATED EPISODES

In 2025 we updated two episodes to reflect changes in CEBMa's online Evidence-Based Management course:

• Episode 5 - acquiring evidence from the scientific literature (updated in June 2025); and
• Episode 12 - aggregating the evidence sources (updated in December 2025)

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

In 2025 we updated two episodes to reflect changes in CEBMa's online Evidence-Based Management course:

• Episode 5 - acquiring evidence from the scientific literature (updated in June 2025); and
• Episode 12 - aggregating the evidence sources (updated in December 2025)

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/

UPDATED EPISODES

In 2025 we updated two episodes to reflect changes in CEBMa's online Evidence-Based Management course:

• Episode 5 - acquiring evidence from the scientific literature (updated in June 2025); and
• Episode 12 - aggregating the evidence sources (updated in December 2025)