Why do we undervalue competent management? Neither great leadership nor brilliant strategy matters without operational excellence

Conventional wisdom among corporate strategists is that better management processes are not a basis for competitive advantage. There are three key problems with this line of thought. First, little evidence exists that effective processes can be copied successfully. Second, variations in process quality will persist over time. Third, best-quality management processes correlate significantly with strategic success measurements. Core processes include operations management such as lean techniques; performance monitoring such as discussion of results; target setting such as level of challenge and time horizon; and talent management, such as stretch goals and employee value propositions.