A common trait among successful business executives is a bias for action. Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal co-authors of "A Bias For Action" describe how effective managers harness their willpower to achieve results.

Harvard Business Press Books, publisher of "A Bias For Action", offers the following review:

Why do most managers work so hard but accomplish so little? We have blamed everything from a lack of motivation, time, and money to the overwhelming amount of work and corporate bureaucracy that managers face. But a new study suggests a different cause: how much willpower managers bring to their jobs. In A Bias for Action, Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch show that managers often confuse action with accomplishment and motivation with leading. Their research reveals that 90% of managers spin their wheels by procrastinating, detaching emotionally, and distracting themselves with busywork--whereas only 10% act purposefully to get truly important work done. Based on exclusive research across several industries, and illustrated through stirring personal stories, A Bias for Action shows that great managers produce results not by motivating others, but by engaging their own willpower through a powerful combination of energy and focus. Bruch and Ghoshal provide simple strategies for bolstering your own willpower and action-taking abilities and explore ways to marshal the willpower of others to encourage collective action. Heike Bruch is a professor of Leadership at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). Sumantra Ghoshal is professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School and co-author of Managing Across Borders (HBS Press, 1998)."

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive