Michael J. Mol is a visiting researcher at London Business School and a senior lecturer in strategic management at the University of Reading. His work focuses on management innovation and outsourcing. His articles have appeared in Sloan Management Review and Research Policy, and elsewhere, and he is the author of a number of books, including Outsourcing: Design, Process, and Performance (Cambridge University Press).

Julian Birkinshaw is Professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School. He is a Senior Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research and one of the founders of London Business School’s pioneering Management Innovation Lab.

Julian’s books include Sumantra Ghoshal on Management: a Force for Good (edited with Gita Piramal, 2005); Inventuring (2003); Leadership the Sven Goran Eriksson Way (2002); and Entrepreneurship and the Global Firm (2000).

From the Back Cover

Succinctly but completely describing 50 of the most important management innovations in the past 150 years, Mol and Birkinshaw educate us on where and how managerial innovations arise. An amazing overview of the management practice landscape, Giant Steps in Management provides invaluable insights for organizations seeking better performance.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

‘Never has it been more important for managers to innovate the way they manage. As this book so powerfully shows – management innovation – advances in how we manage – is a secret weapon in the search for competitive advantage. With a fantastic compendium of the 50 most crucial management innovations – this book will surprise, inform and inspire any manager who believes that they need to innovate the way they manage.

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School

Author of Hot Spots; why some teams, workplaces and organisations buzz with energy – and other’s don’t.

"This book might be called 'Everything you wanted to know about management, but were afraid to ask'. It's an invaluable quick guide to the entire arsenal of techniques and models, and I recommend it to anyone who takes the job of management seriously. It is typcial of the authors work, in that it is clear, crisp, and useful."

Tim Brooks, Managing Director, Guardian News & Media Limited

INNOVATION IS AT THE HEART OF GREAT MANAGEMENT

How do you manage? What skills, ideas, tools and techniques do you use? Have you always used them? Think about it: how we manage organisations – and ourselves – is in a constant state of evolution. Nothing about the way you work today is forever. Managers are always trying new things, different approaches. There are management innovations underway all the time in large organisations. Many fail. Some work. A few make history. The most valuable ones are picked up and absorbed across entire industries and countries. These are the ones this book will tell you about.

Giant Steps in Managementpresents a thought provoking selection of the 50 most important management innovations of the last 150 years and describes the impact they have on management today. Some of the innovations will be familiar to you; others will be new, different, surprising. Together, they form a fascinating compendium of the ideas, techniques and practices that have rocked the world of management.

If you want to be on the right side of innovation, keep this book to hand.