Stop Spending, Start Managing

.

CHAPTER 1

How Spending Substitutes for Managing

For the past year, Sandeep had been leading what he called “a team in name only.”¹ At this point, he felt down for the count. He took a moment to consider how things had gotten so dysfunctional, and at what cost.

As a senior executive at a multinational software company, Sandeep was tasked with developing a strategic vision and getting buy-in from the high-level players on his cross-functional team. Facing new competitors in an already crowded market, he had little room for error. But even before he took over, the odds were against him. His two predecessors had spent upward of $5 million on surveys, focus groups, ethnographies, and market analyses. In the end, they failed to implement a functional ...