Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons^™

When Normal Is Not Normal: A Theory Of The Non-Linear And Discontinuous Process Of Desired Change And Its Managerial Implications, Richard Boyatzis Dr., Udayan Dhar

Faculty Journal Articles

Desirable change may appear chaotic, slow, or not sustainable. We may expect linear, continuous change, but it eludes us. Measurement and statistical analysis about behavior change often requires data showing continuity and having normal (i.e., Gaussian) distributions. When we encounter phenomenon that does not fit this expectation, we seek to transform the data to render it compatible with our method of analysis. We move from actual behavior to perception of it through surveys or transformations of the data. We believe this ignores “naturally” occurring data and what it says. Such techniques are convenient for statistics but may hide important features …