The book is a must read for all existing and aspiring leaders, general managers, and CEOs who want to increase their chances of leading successful and valuable businesses.

In everyday language, ‘winging it’ refers to the act of attempting to achieve a goal with minimal preparation or knowledge, making it up, or figuring it out on the fly. While this approach can be valuable in some situations requiring quick reactions and fast thinking, it will more often than not result in decisions and actions that are suboptimal and not as well thought out as they should be. The phenomenon of ‘winging it’ is widespread in the business world leading, inevitably, to higher risk and uncertainty.

In this seminal book, Jeremy Masding and Emil Ivanov provide a practitioners’ guide to leading a business that significantly reduces the number of times one has to wing it. This book shows aspiring CEOs and general managers how to maximise the sustainable value of their business by realising the full potential of good people, good thinking and good doing.

Building on many years of creating value, Masding and Ivanov offer a system for running any enterprise in a way that will capture both ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’. Using a logical construct based on both rational and emotional foundations, the authors offer ways of working for senior leaders that are easy to understand and very implementable.

Masding and Ivanov make a compelling case for focusing on value creation at every level of an organisation but are pragmatic in how this should be implemented to ensure full buy-in around this objective. They are candid in the use of examples, both good and bad, to illustrate the concepts and provide an objective view of the principles and tools therein.

The book is structured around a set of thirty recurring or ‘timeless’ questions, which everyone who has accepted the challenge of leading is likely to encounter over the course of their career. Whilst the book can be read as a reference guide to help with a particular topical question, its real strength is displayed fully when it is read and applied as a comprehensive management system.

As with all successful partnerships, we are two very different people. It is those differences that have enabled us to debate, to disagree, to agree and, ultimately, to develop a partnership that brings out the best in us both. We have worked together for over 25 years with a shared passion for learning, developing, and creating value for the organisations that we’ve worked in.

Jeremy Masding is forthright, demanding, and driven with a deep passion for leading, winning and making a difference whilst wanting to work (and develop) good people to be the best they can be. 

He is motivated by the difficult job, the impossible task, or the broken business that needs mending. He does not enjoy ‘business as usual’. Jeremy wants to work with good people to fix, to build and to embed the highest standards of thinking and doing. He takes enormous pride in building something sustainable, greater than the sum of its parts and that has real impact. 

In addition, Jeremy is a passionate believer in the power of management science and disciplined approaches to work. He believes that ‘shoddy thinking leads to shoddy doing’ and expects a lot from the people that work with him. At the same time, he does this in a way that allows colleagues to develop and live up to their fullest potential.

When reflecting on his motivations behind the book, Jeremy observed: 

“I understand there are many different definitions of leadership. However, the one I use the most is that ‘leadership is giving your colleagues a choice about whether to be part of the business or not’. As such, I wanted to be wholly transparent (and grounded) in explaining our core beliefs and being clear about how we would run a business.

I wanted to give something back and offer a clear, practical, and actionable toolkit to help leaders of all experience levels to be the best they can. I want the book to offer a different perspective, a modern view of shareholder capitalism, that protects the primacy of equity capital whilst thinking deeply about how it should work in practice without widespread collateral damage. If this book challenges people to think or questions the emerging status quo, then mission accomplished”. 

Emil Ivanov is reflective, thoughtful, inquisitive, caring, and smart. He is comfortable strategising, building, implementing, influencing, and subtly making a key difference in business context. Emil has an academic mind and is constantly thinking about and testing new ideas and concepts. He has always been deeply interested in management science, i.e., how companies work and how business people behave – covering the complete spectrum from the rational to the emotional side of business and from visions to management systems. Emil understands clearly how the rational and emotional interconnect and is skilled in developing and embedding the required toolkits that enable other people to think and do better. 

He is a deep thinker who thrives on detail, insight and solving problems. Emil’s active intellect is accompanied by creativity and action. He can mix ‘thinking and doing’ in equal measure – this is a rare superpower in this day and age.  In addition, Emil is a keen student of human – with a strong ability to identify narcissistic and self-defeating behaviour. Emil is motivated by collaboration and teamwork that is underpinned by a robust management system.

When reflecting on his motivations behind the co-authoring this book, Emil observed:

“I have always been driven by understanding the inner workings of business, leading, managing, and interacting with people. I wanted to share my learnings and experiences in the simplest of terms – the big leadership issues, the principles to be applied in solving the issues, the positive actions that can be taken towards that end, and the pitfalls to be avoided.

If this book helps people make better decisions, take the right actions, and, critically, do so in a way that is underpinned by personal integrity, compassionate candour and without a blinding ego, then we have achieved successfully what we set out to do.”