A Bias for Action

by Heike Bruch, Sumantra Ghoshal

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 exclusive 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.

Genres: Business, Management, Leadership, Nonfiction, Unfinished, Psychology, Self Help

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was part of my MBA curriculum and surprisingly good for business lit

[Vince · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book begins in an almost Evangelistic vein. The authors posit that managers must move beyond motivation to willpower, which can only be engaged by experience a conversion-like experience of commitment to the role/task. While this didn't strike me as a particularly auspicious beginning, the book quickly proved its value.

Bruch and Ghoshal analyze causes of manager inaction, manager development needed to break the traps of inaction, tactics for motivating company-wide engagement, and steps leadership can/must take to empower effective management.

I'll be revisiting this in the future, along with Mintzberg's Managing. I enjoyed it enough to pick up a good, used copy after having read the local library's copy. Definitely recommended.

[Abe · Rating 4 out of 5]

links action psychology (willpower, implementation intentions) to personal effectiveness in managerial/professional work

[Allen Speer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started this book with a curiosity to find out how to have more bias for action. What I found out is there is much deeper concentrated reasons for why I sometimes wait to take action. It was refreshing, encouraging, and illuminating on my own personal bias for actions and the bias of others. If you want to lead a team with people that take action. Grab this book.

I would re-read later and keep for a refresher and references. I would also suggest it to others.