Jean-François Manzoni is currently Associate Professor of Management at INSEAD, where he also directs the INSEAD-PwC Research Initiative on High Performance Organizations. Initially trained as a chartered accountant, Jean-François worked as an auditor and consultant with Ernst & Young before receiving an M.B.A. from McGill University (Canada) and a D.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
His research, teaching and consulting activities are focused on the management of change at the individual and organizational levels. At the organizational level, Jean-François studies the content of change (including the use of levers such as strategy, structure and systems), the management of the change process and the role of leaders therein. Some of this work appeared in Process Re-engineering, Organizational Change and Performance Improvement (McGraw Hill, 1999, with Soumitra Dutta). Other publications in this area include Performance Measurement and Management Control: A Compendium of Research (JAI Press, 2002, with Marc Epstein), and two articles comparing Tableaux de Bord" and Balanced Scorecards and discussing their role in translating strategy into action.
At the individual level, Jean-François studies how leaders can create a high performance climate by supporting learning and encouraging autonomy, and what they can do to modify their leadership style in that direction. Following up on his March-April 1998 Harvard Business Review article, Jean-François recently published The Set-Up to Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (Harvard Business School Press, 2002, with Jean-Louis Barsoux). His latest publication is an article in the September 2002 issue of Harvard Business Review, entitled "A Better Way to Give Bad News".
A three-time winner of the Outstanding Teacher Award in the INSEAD MBA programme, Jean-François has also received awards for his research and case-writing activities, including two European Foundation for Management Development Case of the Year Awards.
He is a frequent keynote speaker at various conferences on leadership and change, and performs training and consulting work for several large international organizations.
The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail