Real-World Management is a United Kingdom blog about the practical day-to-day issues facing managers. It provides commentary about, and a forum to discuss, a range of current management issues. It is concerned with management in both public services and the private sector.

It is founded on beliefs that:

• Managers have a complex and demanding job
• The status of their role should be higher than it often is
• The need for a broad professional skill set for managers is not sufficiently recognised
• Management theory sometimes has to be modified so as to have direct operational application
• Operational excellence and implementation capability are as important as strategy development
• Managers need to see the development of effective and dynamic processes as an exciting challenge that is central to efficiency
• The limitations of human-relations approaches have not been fully recognised. Management requires a balanced assessment of the competences and behavioural characteristics of staff
• Operational targets can have value when used appropriately but can cause major dysfunction when misused
• League tables of the performance of different work groups are always a bad idea
• Effective training and personal development of staff are central to organisational success
• The effectiveness of managers can be context specific. Managers can be successful is some situations and less successful in others