The Art of Action

The Art of Action is a business book that draws parallels between the competitive nature of business and combat. Stephen Bungay offers a counter-intuitive yet common-sense solution to the perennial management issue of turning planning into execution and execution into results. Drawing on his experience as a consultant, senior manager, and military historian, Bungay examines how the initiative of highly empowered junior officers in the nineteenth-century Prussian Army built its agility, and how today's business leaders can apply the "mission command" approach in their own organizations. This thought-provoking and fresh book is engaging and pragmatic, combining theoretical frameworks tested in practice with surprising common sense.