Management problems often can't be solved by following a process. It's not that the process is just really complicated so we can't be bothered to model it - it's just the the answer will be a factor of the environment. In short, the answer is usually "it depends".

Here's an example. In Jim Collins' book "Good to Great" he talks a lot about how the best leaders are humble people, and not egotists. The tangible evidence is that when the claim successes they say "we" and when they claim failures they say "I". Jim goes on to prove with some statistics or other that there's a correlation between these humble leaders and successes.

In Giuliani's book "Leadership", he clearly takes credit for his successes and isn't shy about highlighting them. In his mind, he's the only man who can solve these problems decisively and fast. So these two things contradict. Who's right? Should leaders be fast and egotistical? Should they be slower and more diplomatic?

It depends.

Can't we just judge by results?

Even worse - looking at results isn't going to help that much, because the correlation between good management and good results actually isn't that strong. We might consider that there are three factors at work:

• Luck
• Management awesomeness
• Environment

That, I think, is in descending order of how much that factor affects the outcome. But if we sat around trying to get lucky in management, that would suck for everyone involved. In fact, managers have a responsibility to do they best they can do - so we need to examine how to maximise management awesomeness.