I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company

Table Of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Why I Blame Management Consultants
About this book

Chapter 1. Strategic Planning can't Predict the Future: Strategy Development is a Vision Quest
The downside of having a strategy is missed opportunities
Managing by the numbers only manages the numbers
Predicting the future is risky business
Planning for the future and predicting the future are not the same thing

Chapter 2. Make Sure You Reengineer the People, too: Optimized Processes only Look Good on Paper
Having people to rely on for improvements is all you really need
People should manage the methods and not the methods manage the people
In a human-created world, most of the problems are created by humans
It’s hard to optimize a person 36

Chapter 3. Metrics Are the Means, not the Ends: Numerical Targets are Measure-mental
Everything gets measured all the time
It’s funny how the targets are always met
Measures create conflict where there normally is none
Take a goal you want and turn it into something you don’t

Chapter 4. Standardized Asset Management is a SHAM: How Performance Management Demoralizes the Performers
Performance management systems only enforce the strategic objective of implementing performance management systems
There’s so much effort to ensure fairness in a process that is inherently unfair
Let me tell you what I like and don’t like about you
We’re not only in it for the money

Chapter 5. I am a Manager, and So Can You: Why is the Manager's Handbook is 609 Pages Long?
There’s no shortage of management models and techniques
How I inadvertently managed to manage
Being a good manager isn’t all that different from being a good person

Chapter 6. Stop Perpetrating Talent Management on People: Albert Einstein Was NOT an A-player
Sorting out the A, B, Cs
Performance is situational
The problem with labels is that labels stick
Sometimes the A players are alienated by this system, too
The Peter Principle is not a joke
We are pushing people toward mediocrity
Fit the jobs to the people, not the people to the boxes

Chapter 7. Great Leaders Don't Fit the Models: Steve Jobs Failed My Leadership Competencies
The ongoing debate: What traits make a leader?
If traits don’t make a leader, what are leadership assessments assessing?
We use teams because one person can’t be good at everything
Trying to be good at everything is the way to achieve mediocrity
There is no recipe or checklist for self-actualization

Chapter 8: Out of the boxes, charts, and spreadsheets: How to think without consultants
Management is not a science
How to think better
How to think about working with consultants
Conclusion
Resources
a. A Measure of Truth
b. The Method of Truth
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author