Further reading.
The research behind the book, and a few books and studies worth your time if you want to go further.
Research cited in the book
Ronay, R., Oostrom, J. K., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Mayoral, S., & Rusch, H. (2019). Playing the trump card: Why we select overconfident leaders and why it matters. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(6), 101316.
Why confidence so often gets mistaken for competence.
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2019). Promotions and the Peter Principle. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4), 2085–2134.
What happens when the best performer is promoted into a role that needs different skills.
Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040–2068.
Which hiring methods actually predict performance in the role.
Levashina, J., Hartwell, C. J., Morgeson, F. P., & Campion, M. A. (2014). The structured employment interview: Narrative and quantitative review of the research literature. Personnel Psychology, 67(1), 241–293.
Why a structured interview beats a pleasant conversation.
McDaniel, M. A., Whetzel, D. L., Schmidt, F. L., & Maurer, S. D. (1994). The validity of employment interviews: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 599–616.
The research base behind structured interviews.
Gallup. U.S. employee engagement research (2024) and State of the Global Workplace (2023).
Engagement levels, and what favoritism costs in turnover and productivity.
Gallup (2019). Research on the cost of replacing an employee.
Replacing a mid-level employee costs between 50 and 200 percent of their annual salary.
To go further
Some of these were suggested by early readers. They are not cited in the book, but they support its argument.
Felps, W., Mitchell, T. R., & Byington, E. (2006). How, when, and why bad apples spoil the barrel: Negative group members and dysfunctional groups. Research in Organizational Behavior, 27, 175–222.
In this experiment, student teams with one negative member performed 30 to 40 percent worse, and the other members started to copy the behavior.
Rose, T. (2016). The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness. HarperOne.
Why ranking people on a single score hides real talent, and why context shapes behavior.
Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of the Crisis. MIT Press.
The classic case that most performance problems live in the system, not only in the person.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday.
How systems thinking helps leaders see the patterns behind recurring problems.