The Managers Quest

This book contains a little known secret. Research at Harvard University that started over forty years ago and continued by the authors to the present, has consistently shown that certain business practices that offer the greatest opportunities to businesses and organisations...are consistently missed or even ignored. An organisation's managers should be the people who create most value by working collaboratively together, with and through the people they manage - and yet so few are equipped by their employers to do so. Instead of motivated people working enthusiastically to contribute to the achievement of common goals we often see miscommunication, conflict and inefficiency. At worst we see open dissent, massive waste, continual changes of direction and sinking profit margins. So where does it all go wrong, and what is the solution? Few people turn up at work with the intention of doing a poor job, least of all managers. They do their best with the resources and abilities they have and yet somehow it seems that so much more should be possible. Costly interventions may be provided, but the organisation still goes on as before. The research shows the best performing companies do a much better job - but how? What is different about them? In this book we explain and answer these questions; where it all goes wrong; how to solve these problems and what is different in the best performing companies. The answers unsurprisingly are not quick fixes, but the solutions are straightforward, achievable and are being successfully deployed right now, globally, in organisations where there is vision and commitment to equipping their managers to make the difference.