1. What Not To Do

Before describing sensible approaches to cost cutting, let's first examine what doesn't work. The next two chapters describe two all-too-familiar approaches and the damage they do.

Please don't be offended if I criticize what your company has done in the past. These two approaches are so common that they're considered by some to be "best practices," or at least to be necessary evils.

But that doesn't make them right.

Chapters 2 and 3 will explore the adverse consequences of two common but misguided approaches to cost cutting.

Chapter 4 illuminates the common thread -- the erroneous assumption that underlies both these common approaches.

The alternative, a strategy-driven approach to cost-cutting, is described in Chapters 5 and beyond.