What you get out of an M.B.A. programme, no matter how much experience, is functional tools and understanding in disciplines: you'll understand economics, you'll understand marketing, finance, accounting. That, M.B.A. programmes do very well.

Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense

Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.

To 'turn around' is to end up facing the same way. Maybe that is the problem, all the turning organizations around.

Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.

The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.

Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet