Having a team full of eager-to-please employees isn’t always a good thing. Employees who always agree with their bosses may not be as honest or accurate in their reporting, according to a new study.
The study, “The Pitfalls of Project Status Reporting,” identifies five major problems with reporting that could lead to more trouble or project failure.
Business school researchers from Georgia State University, Miami University of Ohio and Wake Forest University wrote the study for the spring 2014 issue of MIT’s Sloan Management Review. The research is based on 15 years of studies that the authors have participated in.
Putting a positive spin on reporting elements was one the “inconvenient truths” mentioned in the study.
In one example, 60 percent of project managers used bias when reporting, giving executives an inaccurate view on how projects were progressing. Employees were also less likely to report bad news.
One of the authors of the study, Ronald L. Thompson, professor of management at the Wake Forest University School of Business, cautions executives to trust their teams but verify information.
“Instead of taking an employee’s status report at face value, an executive should solicit the opinions of others who are close to the project, obtaining views from different levels within the organization,” Thompson said in a press release.
Having persistent audit teams or executives overseeing a project sometimes increased the number of reporting mistakes. The added pressure from senior-level employees often made team members less honest and more likely to report optimistically instead of factually.
Reporting issues were found at all levels of a company, with some problems stemming from executives who ignored bad news instead of acting on it.
The study shows examples of auditors, students and project managers who had executives turn a blind eye to reports that showed project problems.
“We found that the credibility of the bad-news reporter can greatly influence whether the message being conveyed is viewed as relevant, and this in turn influences whether the report will be ignored,” the study said.
Different personality types and company culture are additional factors that contributed to misreporting.
