Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense: Why some organisations consistently outperform others

The aim of the book is to encourage managers to reject the fashion for business panaceas and theories that are no more than folk wisdom, and to turn away from slavishly focussing on 'best' practice and so-called strategies that are little more than banal wish lists.

It puts forward the notion that the application of uncommon sense - thinking, doing or behaving differently from other organisations in a way that makes unusual sense - is the secretto competitive success, rather like the way in which asymmetric information (knowing something that someone else does not) can provide an economic advantage. In parallel it argues that to follow what you know makes uncommonly good sense means rejecting the common nonsense - the empty philosophy and meaningless jargon - that so many organisations live their lives by.

The book consists of some 75 short essays and is divided into four winners and losers, strategy and tactics, organisation and management, biases and remedies.Some of the arguments of the book are grounded in recent economic and psychological research, but most of them are the fruit of working with executives who have attended the management development programmes that the authors have designed and run at London Business School over the past 30 years.

This is a book for managers who know that their organisations are stuck in a rut, and who are frustrated and find their work insufficiently engaging. Above all it is a book for those who want to succeed and who dare to be different.

Jules Goddard is a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School, where he has taught competitive strategy and creative marketing for 30 years. He is also a Research Associate of the Management Lab at London Business School and was previously Gresham Professor of Commerce and Mercers Memorial Professor at City University. He was educated at Oxford, the Wharton School, and the University of London, where he received his PhD in economics in 1978. He has worked in New York, London and France and has written widely on strategic and managerial innovation. Tony Eccles is Visiting Professor of Strategic Management at Cass Business School, City University, having previously been Professor of Strategic Management at Glasgow University and London Business School, as well as holding visiting positions at Manchester, Cranfield, and Bath Management Schools. In his career he has consulted with many international organisations, been a television presenter and award winning copywriter. He is theauthor of Under New Management and Succeeding with Change.