Assume for a moment that it’s your first day in an introductory physics class. Your instructor asks you to take out a piece of paper and “describe Newton’s second law of motion.” How would you react? We think that you, like most students, would respond with something like “How would I know? That’s why I’m taking this course!”

Now let’s change the situation to the first day in an introductory management class. Your instructor asks you to write an answer to the question: “What traits does one need to be an effective leader?” When we’ve done this on the first day, we find that students always have an answer. Everyone seems to think they know what makes a good leader.

This example illustrates a popular myth about the study of management: It’s just common sense. Well, we can assure you . . . it’s not! When it comes to managing, much of what passes for common sense is just plain misguided or even wrong. You might be surprised to know that the academic study of management is filled with insights, based on extensive research, which often run counter to what seems to be common sense. That’s why we decided to tackle head-on this common-sense perception by opening each chapter with a particular “management myth” and then “debunking” this myth by explaining how it is just a common-sense myth.

Take a minute to re-look at this chapter’s “management myth” and “management myth debunked.” This “debunked” myth often surprises students majoring in subjects like accounting, finance, statistics, information technology, or advertising. Since they don’t expect to be managers, they see spending a semester studying management as a waste of time and irrelevant to their career goals. Later in this chapter, we’ll explain why the study of management is valuable to every student, no matter what you’re majoring in or whether you are a manager or aspire to be a manager.

Although we’d like to think that all managers are good at what they do, you may have discovered through jobs you’ve had that managers can be good at what they do or maybe not so good, or even good one day and not so good the next! One thing you need to understand is that all managers—good or not so good—have important jobs to do. And this book is about the work managers do. In this chapter, we introduce you to managers and management: who they are, where they work, what management is, what they do, and why you should spend your time studying management, including how you can develop important employability skills. Finally, we’ll wrap up the chapter by looking at some key factors reshaping and redefining organizations and the way managers manage.