— THE BOOK —
The business doctrine we inherited — and what it’s costing us.
— THE CANON TAX —
After two decades of working inside companies of every size and industry, the same problems kept appearing.
Not similar problems. The same ones.
Different logos. Different industries. Different leaders. But underneath the surface, the same structural flaws kept producing the same costly outcomes.
That pattern is not coincidence. It is the result of a shared set of business practices, beliefs, assumptions, and habits that nearly every company inherits.
A common doctrine. A business canon.
Most companies do not question that canon because it feels like normal business. It is taught in schools, repeated by experts, embedded in systems, and passed from one generation of leaders to the next.
But when the canon is flawed, companies pay for it every day. It’s embedded in the common practices that most companies perform and never question because that’s just how business is done.
Broken Canon is a diagnosis of that inherited doctrine — the hidden assumptions making companies harder to run, harder to improve, and more costly than they need to be.
— WHY THIS BOOK ? —
It is not a marketing piece.
It is not a framework.
It is not a list of principles to memorize.
It is what I would tell you if we sat down and looked at why your company is harder to run than it should be.
— A PARADOX, REALLY ? —
The reason productivity has inched up at 2% per year for decades may not be a paradox at all.
It may be what happens when companies layer powerful new tools onto a business doctrine that was never redesigned. The flaws get automated. The waste gets scaled.
That result is the Canon Tax — the ongoing price companies pay for following inherited practices that don’t serve them.
Companies feel it. They pay it. But they can’t name it.
— THE HIDDEN COSTS —
The book examines the canon — one inherited practice at a time.
Why your financial reports are not designed to manage your business.
01
Why you’re focusing on the lever that provides the lower return.
02
Why your functions are managed as costs, not investments.
03
Why your most valuable asset is not being valued.
04
Why your mission doesn’t guide the work — and conflicts with it.
05
Why your organization can’t truly function as a team.
06
Why the machine never runs as smoothly as it should.
07
And more. This book exposes the flaws in more than 20 common practices and their high cost.
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None of these practices are unusual.
That’s the problem.
— BEGIN THE DIAGNOSIS —