Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear-firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place.
The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton Close The Knowing-Doing Gap and Win Management General's Management "Book Of The Year" for 2000
The Knowing-Doing Gap shows how insincere talk, faulty memory, irrational fear, misguided measurement, and errant internal competition can block companies from taking good things they already know and converting them into things they can do-now! The book is brash, fiery in its opinions and phrasings, willing to impose "tough love" on managers who may be too easily content with high-gloss yet merely cosmetic fads. Pfeffer and Sutton close the knowing-doing gap; open their book and you can too!"
—Management General, December 2000
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