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1 1 The Importance of Management 1.1 WE DO NOT NEED FEWER MANAGERS WE NEED MORE EXCELLENT MANAGERS! For quite some time now, it has been fashion to complain about managers, that is, to state that they are an evil for modern organizations and that we all would be better off without them. For instance, in a recent article titled “Managing? What Nonsense!” the writer states that management positions should be eliminated as quickly as possible during the next round of (finan- cial) cuts because they are totally useless and “a waste of money.” This is an interesting sentiment, as much of the scientific literature shows exactly the opposite from what the aforementioned writer claimed: managers are actu- ally one of the main reasons why organizations are successful!1 Frame: Why Managers Are Important An overview of the recent scientific literature on management produced the following data on the importance of management: • The outcome of a longitudinal study of fifteen years into the effects of competent management on operational excellence showed, based on research done all over the world, that gaps in managerial practices were associated with large differences in organizational performance. In other words, the better the managers were able