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Managing Performing Living is a classic in the field of management. Fredmund Malik reveals everything that all executives and experts in leading positions need to know, anytime and anywhere. He provides readers with the universal principles, tasks and tools of effective management and self-management.

His book ranks among the 100 best business books of all times. The new, completely revised and updated edition is tailored to a new generation of managers, to whom effectiveness is the key to success. It shows the way to turn knowledge, personal strengths, talent, creativity and innovative thinking into results. Managing Performing Living helps readers to cope with the "Great Transformation21", as Malik calls the ongoing centennial change in business and society. It is a book on how to create functioning organizations in a viable society.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE TO THE NEW 2014 EDITION 10

Right Thinking-Right Management14

The Key to Success 14

The Great Transformation 21 18

How Effective Management Systems Are Built 24

What Right Management Can Accomplish 26

PART I

PROFESSIONALISM29

1. The Ideal Manager-a Wrong Question 31

The Universal Genius-A Stumbling Block 31

The Effective Person 33

No Accordance in Personalities 34

What Counts Is What You Do, Not What You Are Like 35

Misleading Surveys 36

2. False Theories, Errors, and Misconceptions 39

The Pursuit-of-Happiness Approach 39

Leadership and the Great Man Theory 41

Errors and Misconceptions 44

3. Management as a Profession 49

Constitutional Thinking 49

Professionalism Can Be Learnt 51

The Most Important Profession in a Modern Society 53

The Most Important Mass Profession 56

Elements of Effective Management 59

Sound Training Is Possible for Everyone 62

PART II

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT 65

Introduction 67

Simple but Not Easy 67

Useful in Difficult Situations 68

Not Inborn-Must Be Learnt 69

Ideals and Compromises 70

What Type as Role Model? 71

1. Focusing on Results 73

A Self-Evident Fact? 73

Misconceptions 75

What If People Cannot Accept This? 77

Pleasure or Result? 78

2. Contribution to the Whole 85

Position or Contribution? 86

Specialist or Generalist? 88

Wholistic Thinking 89

Contribution and Motivation 91

Contribution Instead of Title 92

The Consequence of Organization 93

3. Concentration on a Few Things 96

The Key to Results 96

Rejection Without Reason 98

Application Examples101

4. Utilizing Strengths 107

Fixation on Weaknesses 108

Matching Tasks with Strengths 109

Should Weaknesses Be Ignored? 111

No Personality Reform 113

Why Focus on Weaknesses? 114

Learning from the Greats 115

How Can We Recognize Strengths? 117

Types of Weaknesses 119

Two Sources of Peak Performance 121

5. Trust 123

Creating a Robust Management Situation 124

How Can We Build Trust? 125

6. Positive Thinking 138

Opportunities Instead of Problems 138

From Motivation to Self-Motivation 139

Positive Thinking-Inborn or Acquired? 140

Freeing Oneself of Dependencies 144

Doing One´s Best 146

7. Synopsis: Quality of Management148

PART III

TASKS OF EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT 151

Preliminary Remarks 153

1. Providing Objectives 156

No Systems Bureaucracy 157

Personal Annual Objectives 157

The General Direction 158

Basic Rules for Management by Objectives 159

2. Organizing 171

Beware of "Organizitis" 171

There Is No Such Thing as a "Good Organization" 172

The Three Basic Issues of Organizing 174

Symptoms of Bad Organization 175

3. Making Decisions 180

Wrong Opinions and Illusions 180

The Decision-Making Process 188

4. Supervising 202

Supervision Is Indispensable202

Trust as the Foundation 203

How Should We Supervise? 204

Measuring and Judging 211

5. Developing and Promoting People 215

People Instead of Employees 216

Individuals Instead of Abstractions 216

What Is Often Forgotten 224

6. Synopsis: What About all the Other Tasks? 229

PART IV

TOOLS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT239

Instruments, Devices, Tools 241

1. Meetings 244

Reduce the Number of Meetings-Preferably to Zero 244

Crucial for Success: Preparation and Follow-Up 246

Chairing Meetings Is Hard Work 249

Types of Meetings 249

Meetings Are Not Social Events 252

Types of Items on the Agenda 253

No Item Without Action 255

Striving for Consensus 255

Are Meeting Minutes Necessary? 256

Meetings Without an Agenda257

The Key: Implementation and Continuous Follow-Up 259

2. Reports 260

The Small Step to Effectiveness 261

Clear Language, Logic, and Precision 262

Bad Habits and Impositions 264

3. Job Design and Assignment Control 267

Six Mistakes in Job Design 268

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