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Gives an entertaining, authoritative and fascinating look into the myths that dominate popular conceptions of management, providing readers with a compelling, well-researched and practical guide to how they can avoid falling into the trap of misinformed preconceptions and so become better managers.
Is it really true that working longer hours makes you more successful? Do you really need to hide your emotions in order to gain respect as a manager? Does higher pay really always lead to higher performance?
The world of management is blighted by fads, fiction and falsehoods. In Myths of Management, Cary Cooper and Stefan Stern take you on an entertaining journey through the most famous myths surrounding the much-written about topic of management. They debunk false assumptions, inject truth into over-simplifications and tackle damaging habits head-on. Fascinating insights from psychology, leadership theory and organizational behaviour provide you with a compelling and practical guide to avoid falling into the trap of cliché, misinformation and prejudice. This engaging read offers you authentic insights into the reality of work, drawn from extensive research and real-world business examples, to give you the essential knowledge you need to become a better manager.
Whether cheesy, naïve or even destructive, management myths could be holding you back and stifling your team's potential. Myths of Management is the guide you need to become an enlightened manager.
This book is so true, so sensible and so snappily written, I wish I had written it myself. If every business person read it, all managerial stupidity would wither away.
Lucy Kellaway, Financial Times
I consider myself to be reasonably sophisticated, rather subtle in my thinking processes. Hence, I am almost horrified that I can find absolutely nothing in Myths of Management with which I disagree. Sure, I might have said this or that a bit differently, with Ban emphasis on X instead of Y. But in the end, I buy the act. You may well not go 44 for 44 in assessing the authors' arguments, but I do offer a guarantee. You will be challenged 44 times, and it's almost impossible to imagine that you will get anything other than a sky high return on investment from reading-and seriously reflecting-on virtually every page in the book. Bonus: It's fun to read, too. I suspect that you, as I, will chuckle many a time at the degree to which you've fallen into one of the traps Stefan Stern and Cary Cooper expose.
Tom Peters, World's Leading Management Guru
Stefan and Cary have summarised all the daft things I have seen written about management into one place and then dispatched them as myths by providing great common sense insights in plain English which we can understand. For anyone wanting to manage - creating the conditions for others to succeed-this is a must read book
Sir Ian Cheshire, Chairman of Debenhams and Former CEO of Kingfisher PLC
The business of management is crucial - but prone to myth. In this fascinating book Stern & Cooper bring wit and courage to show what it takes to go beyond the hype and to become an insightful - and perhaps even brilliant manager.
Professor Lynda Gratton, London Business School
Reports of the death of management are hugely exaggerated. We still do it - poorly - and we still need better insight how to do it well. Stern and Cooper have exhumed and exorcised some of the deadlier myths still haunting corporate boardrooms and do a terrific job identifying vital ways to do the true hard work of managing.
Margaret Heffernan, Writer, Business Leader and Consultant
If we want to improve the productivity of the economy what happens within organizations is key. Leadership and management are both important. Yet for decades we have worshipped leadership (leading to excessive pay for many CEOs) and have undervalued management. In this brilliant book Stefan Stern and Cary Cooper ?debunk the myths that have encouraged bad practices. As the authors argue, open, humble, inclusive, listening leadership and management are essential - and they can be learned. Read this cracker of a book!
Vicky Pryce, Former Joint Head of the UK Government's Economic Service
Management matters - but is misunderstood. In this book two very experienced observers skilfully take apart common misconceptions about the theory and practice of management. Their clear thinking helps us to discover how good management can positively make organisations more productive and satisfying work places.This is a timely and provocative book-it deserves to be widely read.
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Authors of Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?
Stern and Cooper have written a wonderful book to remind us of the basic, beyond-the-hype, essence of management. Purely and simply, it 's about the people.
Herminia Ibarra
Stefan Stern writes for the Guardian and the FT, where he was the management columnist between 2006 and 2010. He is visiting professor in management practice at Cass Business School and is Director of the High Pay Centre.
Sir Cary Cooper CBE is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. He is President of the CIPD, President of the British Academy of Management and Editor-in-Chief of the Blackwell/Wiley Encyclopedia of Management.
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