The Right Fight

The Right Fight
How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive
Performance, Innovation, and Value

Harmony and alignment are not always the best way to get the most out of organizations. Contrary to conventional management wisdom, leaders can unleash creativity, innovation, and the productive potential of their employees by strategically employing “right fights.” The fundamental premise: A certain amount of struggle and stress energizes organizations and individuals, leading to optimal execution.

"Anybody in an organization who has any responsibility must read this book."
Warren Bennis
Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of On Becoming a Leader

Helping leaders to identify good fights from bad ones is The Right Fight: How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive Performance, Innovation, and Value by Booz & Company Senior Fellow Saj-nicole Joni and Senior Executive Adviser Damon Beyer.

Joni and Beyer provide a practical guide to harness the power of tension and achieve results in every organization, industry, and functional area. Their book uses case studies ranging from Campbell Soup, GE, and Broadway’s The Lion King to Dove, Microsoft, and the Reagan Administration in demonstrating how the "right fight" approach benefits people and organizations in three essential ways: lowering risks with an effective system of checks and balances, generating value by sparking real change, and creating better managers for the future.

These ideas are of particular interest to organizations looking to develop strategies to manage global complexity and uncertainty, create broad organizational transformation and turnarounds, and manage seemingly conflicting goals such as fueling future growth during periods of necessary cost reductions.

The book was excerpted in the December 2009 issue of The Harvard Business Review and has recdeived favorable endorsements from leading management thinkers such as Warren Bennis, founding chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.

Saj-nicole Joni, Ph.D., is an internationally known business strategist and adviser to CEOs and top executives. She is the founder and CEO of Cambridge International Group and a Senior Fellow at Booz & Company. View bio >

Damon Beyer is a senior executive adviser to Booz & Company and a founding member of the Katzenbach Center for Organizational Innovation. View bio >

Published by Harper Collins.