Accelerating Performance

SECTION IMove Fast or Die Faster

As promised in the Introduction, this section follows the data and fleshes out the core argument of this book: that organizations can generate enormous benefit by taking an empirical approach to management.

In Chapter 1, we set the stage by showing why the current approach to managing institutions isn’t working—and can’t work. At fabled institution after fabled institution—BP, the British Army, Parliament, HSBC, and on and on—major failures have occurred because of dysfunctional cultures. But current approaches to management don’t adequately address the issues that would have prevented those disasters. We’re doomed to repeat them unless we greatly update our thinking, recognizing that the soft stuff really is the hard stuff and taking the series of actions that the data shows will help today’s institutions achieve breakthrough success.

Chapter 2 covers the basics of our META approach, which stands for Mobilize, Execute, and Transform with Agility. We start by showing how two of the mantras among executives today—the need to go faster and the need to look for disruptive business models—can take organizations into blind alleys. Businesses can land in an “acceleration trap,” where they aren’t discriminating enough about their search for speed and actually go more slowly. Our research also found that there is more opportunity for improvement by being more effective in the markets where you already operate rather than by taking the more disruptive ...