The Knowing-Doing Gap

Why organizations so often fail to act on what they already know, and what the rare firms that turn knowledge into action do differently.

Drawing on four years of qualitative and quantitative research across dozens of companies, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton identify the 'knowing-doing gap'—the pervasive failure of firms to implement knowledge they already possess about how to enhance performance. The book argues that competitive advantage comes not from knowing the right thing but from the far harder task of actually doing it. Through vivid cases (Southwest, SAS Institute, The Men's Wearhouse, AES, British Petroleum, Barclays Global Investors, Saturn, GM, Xerox, Sunbeam), the authors diagnose five recurring internal barriers—talk substituting for action, memory substituting for thinking, fear, dysfunctional measurement, and internal competition—and show how the best firms overcome them by grounding action in philosophy, learning by doing, driving out fear, measuring what matters, and fostering cooperation. It is a practical, evidence-based guide for leaders frustrated that their smart organizations keep doing things they know are wrong.

The model it argues

A causal model in which organizational design levers and contextual conditions shape psychological and behavioral states that either widen or close the gap between what an organization knows and what it does, ultimately affecting the implementation of performance knowledge and organizational performance.

Key ideas

Guiding Philosophy and Values: A clear, shared underlying philosophy, business model, and set of core values that explains why the firm operates as it does and guides action across contexts.
Learning by Doing and Teaching: The organizational practice of acquiring and transferring knowledge through actual performance of work, apprenticeship, coaching, and teaching rather than through classroom instruction or codified documents alone.
Action Orientation vs. Talk Substitution: The extent to which an organization ensures that talk, plans, and decisions lead to implementation, rather than allowing meetings, presentations, and mission statements to substitute for doing.
Mindless Reliance on Precedent: The organizational tendency to use history, standard operating procedures, and unexamined assumptions as automatic substitutes for fresh thinking, resisting new knowledge and change.
Fear and Distrust: The prevalence of fear, distrust, and threat of punishment that causes employees to hide bad news, avoid risk, focus on short-term self-preservation, and repeat past behavior.
Quality of Measurement Practices: The degree to which the firm's measurement system is simple, process-focused, aggregate, and aligned with its business model, versus overly complex, short-term, outcome-only, individually focused, and accounting-driven.
Internal Competition: The degree to which management practices create zero-sum contests among individuals and units—forced rankings, individual bonuses, status contests—that undermine cooperation and knowledge sharing.
Cooperation and Knowledge Sharing: The extent to which people and units help one another, share information, transfer best practices, and identify with the whole organization rather than hoarding knowledge or protecting status.