Managing for Success

The damage that incompetent managers do is incalculable. Every year they wipe tens of billions off the value of companies around the world. But routinely incompetent behaviour is covered up, incompetent managers paid off and causes swept under the carpet. Yet there is a great deal to be learned from failure. This book will help managers and leaders at all levels to not only identify and weed out incompetence, but avoid it altogether. Morgen Witzel tackles the problem of incompetence in the round by exploring the political, cultural, psychological and personal factors that lead to incompetency at the top, including arrogance, excessive reliance on formal plans and metrics, lack of professional pride and poor and misguided business education and training. 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.