The Surprising Truth About Effective Managers

Why do most managers work so hard but accomplish so little? We have blamed everything from a lack of motivation, time, and money to the overwhelming amount of work and corporate bureaucracy that managers face. But a new study suggests a different cause: how much willpower managers bring to their jobs.

In A Bias for Action, Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch show that managers often confuse action with accomplishment, and motivation with leading. Their research has revealed that 90% of managers spin their wheels by procrastinating, detaching emotionally, and distracting themselves with busywork-while only 10% act purposefully to get truly important work done.

Based on research across several industries, and illustrated through stirring personal stories, A Bias for Action shows that great managers produce results not by motivating others, but by engaging their own willpower through a powerful combination of energy and focus. Bruch and Ghoshal provide simple strategies for bolstering your own willpower and action-taking abilities, and explore ways to marshal the willpower of others to encourage collective action.

Upending conventional thinking about the requirements for effective leadership, this book will help CEOs and frontline managers alike to stop simply doing things-and start getting things done.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
PART I:Harnessing Your Willpower to Achieve Results
Chapter 1:Management is the Art of Doing and Getting Done
Chapter 2:Distinguishing Purposeful Action from Active Non-Action
Chapter 3:Marshaling Energy and Developing Focus
Chapter 4:Moving Beyond Motivation to Willpower
Chapter 5:Crossing the Rubicon
Chapter 6: Overcoming the Three Traps of Non-action

PART II:Cultivating a Company of Action-Takers
Chapter 7: Developing Purposeful Managers: The Organization’s Responsibility
Chapter 8:Unleashing Organizational Energy for Collective Action
Chapter 9:Freeing Your People to Act: A Mandate for Leaders

Appendix
Index
About the authors