Cover -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Dedication -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter One: What Is Value? -- We Want Our Stuff -- Centuries of Subsistence -- A Matter of Power -- The Rise of the Consumer -- Chapter Two: The Global Capital Market -- How Capital Markets Help Us Get Our Stuff -- Making Balance of Lopsidedness -- But Who Decides Which Projects See the Light of Day? -- The Downside: Agency Costs -- In the Best Systems, No One is in Charge -- The Relationship Problem -- Bacteria, Crowds, and the Markets -- Chapter Three: The Opportunity Cost of Capital -- Fooling Nature -- So How Do We Make the Right Guesses in the World of Business? -- A Matter of Risk -- The Premium -- Summary -- The Mathematics of the Opportunity Cost of Capital -- How Do I Calculate the Opportunity Cost of Capital for the Investment My Company is Considering? -- So Why isn't the Opportunity Cost of Capital Zero? -- Chapter Four: The Expected Future Free Cash Flows -- It isn't Price -- Getting at an Idea of Value -- Free Cash Flow -- Net Present Value: Discounting the Expected Future Free Cash Flows at the Opportunity Cost of Capital -- Getting the Right Cash Flows: Modigliani and Miller -- What about Weighted-Average Cost of Capital? -- Chapter Five: Blue Line Management -- Value Creation and the Blue Line -- Seeing the Blue Line -- The Curse of the Red Line -- The Problem with Indicators -- A Blue Line Approach to Key Performance Indicators -- Getting Indicators and Value Drivers Straight -- When Red is Blue -- Chapter Six: Shifting to Blue -- The Indicator Illusion -- Goodhart's Law -- What Gets Measured Gets Managed (1) -- What Gets Measured Gets Managed (2) -- What Gets Measured Gets Managed (3) -- What Gets Measured Gets Managed (4) -- Chapter Seven: The Hazard of Growth -- Competitive Advantage -- Growth Versus Value.

Value-Destroying Growth: A Cautionary Tale -- If Growth is So Bad, Why are Companies Obsessed with It? -- The Problem with Executive Pay -- Chapter Eight: Creating a Blue Line Culture -- The Three Pillars -- Fair Process -- The Perils of Opinion -- Visions, Missions, and the Blue Line -- Chapter Nine: Trust and Hierarchy in Blue Line Management -- Why Trust Matters -- Fairness, Trust, and Information Flow -- Getting the Right Information to the Right People, Fast: The Case of Alcoa -- Hierarchies and Information Flows -- Trust Leads to Quicker Decision-Making and Happier Customers -- The Future of Hierarchy -- Chapter Ten: Value and Decision-Making -- Value and Physics -- Indicators, Data, and the Blue Line Firm -- Value-Based Decision-Making in Action -- A Brief Digression Regarding Management Consultants -- Chapter Eleven: Getting Net Present Value Right -- Mechanics and the Definition of Free Cash Flow -- The Mechanics of Estimating an Appropriate Discount Rate -- Chapter Twelve: Becoming a Blue Line Manager -- How can I Become More of a Blue Line Manager? -- Design Your Own Blue Line Questions -- Identify the Key Value Drivers for Your Business Unit or Department -- Always Promote Honesty in the Measurement of Key Performance Indicators -- If You're Senior Enough, Try to Get Rid of Key Performance Indicator-Driven Pay -- Set the Example -- Develop Templates and Spreadsheet Skills that Allow You to Assess the Value Impact of Proposed Actions -- Sketch Out Your Value Chain, Reaching Downstream to Your Customers and Upstream to Your Suppliers -- Describe How Success is Measured in the Business - Or at Least in the Area You're Responsible For -- Conduct a Value Audit -- A Final Word -- Appendix: Blue Line Questions -- Index.