Fast Company interviewed Tom Peters on the twentieth anniversary of In Search of Excellence. In the interview, Peters casually mentioned that he’d faked his data. And neither he nor anyone else thought anything of it!

Smart managers rely on evidence to evaluate the validity of their ideas but as Peters’ remark illustrates, they face a serious disadvantage when compared to the scientific community. To avoid intellectual relativism — a mindset that considers all ideas equally valid — you need trustworthy evidence. Scientists understand this. It’s why articles submitted to scientific journals receive peer review, and no research is fully accepted until confirmed independently. It’s also why discussions among scientists are blunt, sloppy thinking is publicly derided, and anyone caught faking data is expelled from the profession. Scientists require integrity the way professional golfers require good manners.

The sources business people rely on, external and internal, are intrinsically less reliable than the peer-reviewed journals scientists read, and they’re getting worse as intellectual relativism takes increasing hold. Here’s another example:

In the olden days we had access to independent test labs, and trade publications routinely published product performance comparisons. We no longer do, because technology vendors prohibit publication of performance data in their EULAs. This might be so vendors can control what we’re told about their products. It also might be that vendors are concerned that “independent” testing labs and IT research firms have been paid to reach a predefined conclusion.

The concern isn’t unreasonable. Quite a few vendors have complained to me privately about “shakedowns” by well-known IT research firms. Nobody will go on the record — for fear of retaliation, they say, although sour grapes is another possible explanation. The closest I’ve come to direct evidence is a marketing director who happily burbled, off the record, that in exchange for her buying services from one of them, they would “… help us with our marketing efforts.”

The information these firms sell might very well be excellent, but you have no way to evaluate it, or them. The raw data is confidential, their processes are opaque and un-audited, and potential conflicts of interest are significant.

This is what happens when no culture of honest inquiry exists and no process exists to enforce honest research: You lose your ability to trust the evidence. That’s true when it comes to the big IT research firms. It’s equally true when it comes to the sources of information you rely on inside your company.

In small businesses, much of your information comes from direct observation. You know what happened (although even then, interpreting what you see isn’t always straightforward). The bigger the organization, the more you learn indirectly and in summarized form. In very large companies, figuring out what’s actually going on out there is close to impossible.

Many leaders respond by limiting their information sources. They might trust one or two executives in the chain of command. Their administrative assistants might share what’s in the gossip mill. They might rely on a weekly production report that provides “key performance indicators.” But the number of sources is always small, because every additional source of information adds confusion, not clarity. This is so much a way of life for many executives that they miss the thoroughly obvious implication. Which is:

Every additional source of information should improve your understanding, adding depth, color and detail. If that isn’t the case, your organization is guided, not by a culture of honest inquiry, but by the selling of personal agendas. Managers sift through evidence searching for ammunition, instead of letting the evidence tell the story. It’s a hallmark of intellectual relativism — starting with the “right” position on an issue, then accepting and discarding evidence depending on whether it supports that position.

Fixing a culture like this is neither quick nor easy. To start, broaden your range of sources. Meet with a lot of people. Open your door. Convene “user groups.” Invite groups of employees to luncheon roundtables. Start collecting performance measures (yes, metrics are a listening channel — one way of finding out what’s going on out there among many).

Initially, you will become increasingly confused. Stick with it. As you continue to listen to more and more sources a picture will come into focus.

It comes down to this: Some leaders want to find out what’s really going on out there. They want high-quality evidence that tells an accurate, nuanced (if you’ll forgive the over-used word) story. Other leaders start by telling the story and insist you give them evidence that proves them right.

Both get what they ask for.

I wonder how the guy who said, “There are no problems, only opportunities,” would explain New Orleans.

The combination of tragedy, mind-boggling incompetence, and failure to prepare for a long-predicted preventable catastrophe is a problem. For all of us. If it’s an opportunity, it’s to remind us of a few basic facts effective leaders, including IT leaders, can’t ignore.

Blaming the victim takes less effort and is more satisfying than understanding the situation.

A popular talking point is that “they” don’t deserve sympathy, since “they” built a city five feet below sea level. Let’s not stop there: Nobody gets any help after a disaster unless it couldn’t have happened where they live. A lot of the Netherlands used to be sea bottom. Forget them! Californians? They chose to live near an earthquake fault, as Floridians chose to live in a hurricane zone. As a Minnesotan I think it’s a fair policy, so long as we Midwesterners get help after tornadoes, blizzards and spring floods. We live here to avoid the earthquakes and hurricanes, after all.

Of course, only parts of New Orleans are below sea level, and it’s been sinking at a rate of three feet per century — do the math. When, exactly, was everyone was supposed to pack up and leave?

Lesson for IT: When someone’s PC stops working don’t crab at them and don’t assume they’re morons who went out of their way to annoy you. Help them solve their problem. Uh … opportunity.

Achieving a leadership position bestows neither expertise nor acumen on the ignorant.

Three of the top five executives in FEMA had no experience or training in managing emergencies. Expertise does matter.

Lesson for IT: Some CIOs have no technical background. If you’re one of them, seek out the best engineers in your organization — those with the most knowledge and best judgment. Spend a lot of time listening to them. Doing so isn’t a sign of weakness. Failing to do so is.

This is how you can make sure you get early warnings about problems while they’re still solvable. Don’t rely solely on your chain of command. Develop direct relationships with your experts, too.

Turning your back on a problem doesn’t put the problem behind you.

Politicians of both political parties ignored the clear, loud warnings of scientists and engineers that that the drowning of New Orleans was inevitable. This, for example, appeared in Scientific American in 2001:

A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city.

If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. “As the water recedes,” says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, “we expect to find a lot of dead bodies.”

Mike Parker, former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, showed Mitch Daniels, then Director of the OMB, two pieces of steel. One was new, the other had spent 30 years under water in a Mississippi lock and was completely corroded. Complaining about a 33% budget reduction in 2002, he said, “Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates — either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.” Shortly thereafter, Daniels made sure Parker was fired.

While maintenance funds were being cut, Representative Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) made sure Congress allocated $194 million to increase capacity for barge traffic while barge traffic had been steadily declining and the Army Corps of Engineers had advised against the project. Meanwhile, Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) obtained $230 million to build a bridge connecting a city of 8,000 to an island with 50 inhabitants.

Lesson for IT: Don’t allocate budget to placate political constituencies in your company until after you’ve taken care of business.

An ounce of prevention continues to be less expensive and more convenient than a pound of cure.

Beefing up the levee would have cost less than $30 million. The cost of failing to do so will be at least a thousand times more.

Lesson for IT: It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Last, beat-the-dead-horse word on all of this: Managers deal with financial and political realities. Engineers deal with the reality imposed by the laws of physics.

In the end, engineering does matter.