The Knowing-Doing Gap

Preface

WE WROTE THIS BOOK because we wanted to understand why so many managers know so much about organizational performance, say so many smart things about how to achieve performance, and work so hard, yet are trapped in firms that do so many things they know will undermine performance. This book was inspired by several intertwined events. After the publication of two books on how to manage people for enhanced organizational performance, Jeffrey Pfeffer was intrigued and puzzled to find that, over and over again, on this topic and many others, people obviously knew what to do, but didn’t do it. Pfeffer also noticed that many of his colleagues at Stanford Business School almost invariably didn’t do anything remotely related to what they taught ...