It’s an age-old problem that simply won’t go away. Why does it seem to be that people in organisations, particularly senior managers who should know better, are prepared to make important decisions on the basis of not much?

You know the sort of decision I’m talking about. Maybe you’ve made one just like it or, more likely, you’ve seen someone else making one. It’s a decision to introduce an expensive new thing: the sort of thing that makes an appearance in “best HR practice” lists and that makes you feel bad for not having one in beat-yourself-up benchmarking exercises. The sort of brand-new expensive, shiny thing that other, much better organisations already have and make you feel behind the curve and dull and useless. So you decide, or someone else decides, that you’ve just got to have one too. Then you’ll be as good as them. Right?