The Breakthrough Imperative

Two long-time directors of consulting giant Bain & Company and former line general managers themselves, distill the results of their 20-year study of successful managers into the essential four laws of managerial success.


Stemming originally from an influential Harvard Business Review article by author Mark Gottfredson, The Breakthrough Imperative is based on Gottfredson and Schaubert's more than 25 years of experience at Bain and on a quantitative study of over 1,500 companies over a 20-year period. Based on this study, they'e distilled the science of management down to four key principles that managers at any level can use, indeed MUST use, if they're to succeed. While most managers may be intuitively familiar with some of these ideas, very few managers manage to strategically employ them in order to grow their business:
1. Costs & prices always decline
2. Market position dictates strategy
3. Profit pools don't stand still
4. Simplicity gets results
New managers have a very short and measured amount of time to get results, about 18 months at the latest. And they don't come into an organization that's standing still, in the language of physics, the organization has mass, velocity, and acceleration (or deceleration); in the language of business, it has existing strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities. A manager who fails to properly assess the organization's existing situation (point of departure) and desired goals (point of arrival) will inevitably fail to reach their mark. Gottfredson and Schaubert show how these ideas, relentlessly applied, will allow any manager, regardless of their individual strengths and weaknesses, to develop a framework for action, a road that will take them from departure to arrival.
Supported by Gottfredson and Schaubert's own decades of experience as managers and then consultants, THE BREAKTHROUGH IMPERATIVE is that rare business book that's rigorous yet accessible, authoritative yet instantly compelling.