Sumantra Ghoshal on Management: A Force for Good

Chapter 13. Beware the busy manager

<authorgroup>Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal</authorgroup>

This is the first of many papers co-authored by Sumantra and Heike Bruch. Here Heike and Sumantra ask, why do some managers exhibit “purposeful action-taking” while others do not? They show that purposeful action-taking is a combination of two traits – energy and focus. While 10% of the managers in their research had high energy and high focus, the remaining 90% suffered from a lack of one or the other, or both. And the most dangerous condition was busyness – high energy but low focus. Many managers suffer from low energy and lack of focus – Sumantra and Heike explain what firms can do to generate purposeful action-taking in all their managers.

If you ...