Managing for Success: Spotting Danger Signals - And Fixing Problems Before They Happen (Criminal Practice Series)

The damage that incompetent managers do is incalculable. Every year they wipe tens of billions off the value of companies around the world. But the routinely incompetent behaviour that leads to failure is often covered up, incompetent managers are paid off and the causes of failure are swept under the carpet. Yet, most of these failures could have been avoided if only we knew how to spot the signs of incompetence in advance, and take steps to prevent it happening. Prevention is always better, and cheaper, than cure.

Morgen Witzel tackles the problem of incompetence in the round by exploring the political, cultural, psychological and personal factors that lead to incompetency at every level of business. Arrogance, excessive reliance on formal plans and metrics, lack of professional pride, and poor and misguided business education and training are among the problems that drag businesses down.

Using international case studies from Ford Motor Company, Royal Ahold and Lehman Brothers, practical solutions are provided for avoiding incompetence by changing the culture within organizations and the ways in which managers are trained and developed to truly manage for success and minimise failure.

Morgen Witzel is a Fellow of the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter Business School and is a popular guest lecturer/teacher. He is the author of more than 20 books including the bestsellers Tata: The Evolution of a Corporate Brand and Doing Business in China. His books have been translated into 11 languages, and his articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail, The Smart Manager, Financial World, and many more. He has written a regular column for The Smart Manager for over a decade and has been the editor of Corporate Finance Review since 1999. His most recent book, Management from the Masters: from Confucius to Warren Buffet was published by Bloomsbury in 2014.