Insightful Quality

Abstract

In the U.S….we are addicted to simple solutions and silver bullets.

—Shirley Ann Jackson

President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Warren Bennis said that management is about doing things right while leadership is about doing the right things.1 Of course organizations need both good management and good leadership—they need to do the right things right, but Bennis contended that modern organizations are often under-led and over-managed. It is organizational leadership that is essential to attaining and maintaining market leadership over time, and accomplishing this cannot be done with simple solutions or silver bullets.

Continuous improvement—optimizing processes, reducing costs, eliminating defects—is about doing things right and ...