Becoming A Better Boss: Why Good Management is So Difficult

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Why Management Matters

One of the motivations in writing this book was to tackle the following puzzle:

• Do we know how to generate sustainably high performance in companies? Yes we do.
• Do companies consistently follow this established formula? No they don't.

On the face of it, this seems strange. Surely human nature compels us to seek out better ways of doing things? Surely competition between companies creates a survival-of-the-fittest push for constant improvement? Well, yes it does, but there are also many other forces at work that can frustrate our ability to do what we know to be right. Sometimes these forces prevail, leaving everyone stuck with an inferior model.

The established “formula” for delivering high performance is what I call ...