Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life

by Gary Hamel

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of the world's preeminent business thinkers and co-author of the bestseller, Competing for the Future , Gary Hamel has helped set the management agenda for three decades.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452283248
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Plume
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Expanding Opportunities from Using More Imagination!

I found this book very exciting to read and think about.Leading the Revolution is an important book of business scholarship and practice imporvement. Professor Hamel proposes a higher standard for companies: Constantly establishing and superbly implementing improved business models for customer interfaces, core strategy, using strategic resources, and value networks. Further, it integrates the arguments of many leading thinkers about improvement methods into one set of procedures for making faster business progress. The book also makes an excellent case for this higher standard already being in operation in companies like Enron, GE Capital, Cisco Systems, Nokia and Charles Schwab. To those who have already are familiar with the literature of developing new business models (such as Digital Capital), little in this book will be new. For those who are very focused on gradual improvement, the arguments here will be foreign and puzzling. Because of Professor Hamel's stature, many will read this book and begin to grasp the changed nature of the leadership and management challenges of the 21st century. Because of ways the argument is articulated and illustrated, many more will miss the point. That's too bad.Basically, Professor Hamel is arguing that the kinds of large changes that most people think of as revolutionary need to become everyday occurrences. This observation is based on an accelerating rate of uncontrollable change and resulting opportunities for innovation; an economic environment where fewer companies prosper while more become mediocre or below average; more pressure for performance from investors; rapidly developing business skills in business process, product, market and model innovation; broad human potential to imagine more and make it happen; and potential for improved communication and application of innovation. As a strategist, he does an excellent job of outlining the key issues of these factors, and how to organize an enterprise to accomplish more with these opportunities. By providing an analytical context for understanding the phenomena, he helps others understand what he describing intellectually. For those who have not had these experiences, the descriptions will seem to be alien emotionally. The book is designed in appearance and tone to be a clone of Tom Peters' more flamboyantly-conceived works like The Circle of Innovation. The language is extreme, often bordering on being vulgar, and will make many people uncomfortable. That appears to be Professor Hamel's purpose. The pages are laid out in vivid colors, photographs and graphics making it seem unlike most business books you have read before. This will make the book seem even stranger to many. That also appears to be Professor Hamel's purpose. The downside of this approach is that many will simply reject the message along with the way it is presented. That's a missed opportunity on Hamel's part and on the reader's part. The message is more important and serious than the p

The best business book yet?

Professor Hamel's lucid and engaging treatise on "radical innovation" is one of the best business books of the past decade or two. Like "In Search of Excellence," it is rich with inspiring and practical examples. Like "Re-engineering the Corporation," it addresses squarely the challenge of changing large, complex organizations. And like "Competing for the Future," (Hamel's earlier book with CK Prahalad), it is visionary and forceful. What appealed to me most about "Leading the Revolution" is that it treats the problem of innovation in an entirely scaleable way--from how you, as an individual, become a radical innovator, to how you turn an entire company into a habitual innovator. Hamel has managed to do the seemingly impossible--to write a book that is relevant for both a first line supervisor and a corporate chieftain.The book is organized into three broad sections. The first section deals with the challenge of revolutionary innovation. Any one of the first three chapters is worth the price of the book alone. What I found most intriguing about Chapter 1 was not the dichotomy between incrementalism and radical innovation, but the idea that competition, at its core, is between different wealth-creating regimes--and that the new regime will require every company to build a systemic capacity for radical business innovation, just like every large company had to build a capacity for industrial R & D in years past. Chapter 2 will make uncomfortable reading for any CFO who has been "squeezing the inefficiency lemon" rather than creating new wealth. I believe Chapter 2 will be useful for any investor who is anxious to know just how much life is left in a company's strategy.Chapter 3 is an eminently practical guide to business concept innovation. It is a comprehensive and usable guide that could be plugged into just about any strategic planning process, or used as a brainstorming tool in just about any setting.The second section of the book speaks to the individual who is anxious to "punch more than their weight." I found it an almost irresistible counterpoint to the kind of Dilbert cynicism which has been in vogue for the past few years. Chapter 4 provides a wide range of techniques for discovering opportunities for radical innovation. (Again, Hamel blends the practical with the inspirational). Chapter 5 outlines the stories of several activists who succeeded in revectoring large companies despite having little formal political power. Chapter 6 is a step-by-step guide to getting heard and making a difference. If you're still stuck in your cubicle after Chapter 6 you have no one but yourself to blame.The last three chapters deal with the challenge of building an innovation-friendly company. It is, essentially, a blueprint for making innovation as ubiquitous a capability as quality or customer service.The book is visually stunning, without being cutesy or slick. I believe it will be on the best seller lists for a l

A radical new business model.

"This is a book about innovation-not in the usual sense of new products and new technologies, but in the sense of radical new business models. It begins by laying out the revolutionary imperative: we've reached the end of incrementalism, and only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will prosper in the new economy. It then provides a detailed blue print of what you can do to get the revolution started in your own company. Finally, it describes in detail an agenda for making innovation as ubiquitous a capability as quality or customer service. Indeed, my central argument is that radical innovation is the competitive advantage for the new millennium"(from the Preface).Within this general framework, in Chapter 3, Gary Hamel writes, "In the new economy, the unit of analysis for innovation is not a product or a technology-it's a business concept...I doubt you can find a dozen individuals in your company who share a common definition of your company's existing business concept. How could they if they can't even identify the elements of a business concept? Though consultants talk incessantly about 'business models,' I've never met one who has a coherent definition of what a business model actually is. It's hard to invent a new business concept if you can't agree on its components...To be an industry revolutionary, you must develop an instinctive capacity to think about business models in their entirety." Then, Hamel describes his business concept that comprises four major components and several subcomponents:I- Core Strategy: It is the essence of how the firm chooses to compete. 1. Business Mission: This captures the overall 'objective' of the strategy-what the business model is designed to accomplish or deliver.2. Product / Market Scope: This captures the essence of 'where' the firm competes-which customers, which geographies, and what product segments-and where, by implication, it doesn't compete.3. Basis for Differentiation: This captures the essence of 'how' the firm competes and, in particular, how it competes 'differently' than its competitors.II- Strategic Resources: These are unique firm-specific resources.1. Core Competencies: This is what the firm 'knows.' (skills and unique capabilities)2. Strategis Assets: They are what the firm owns such as brands, patents, infrastructure, proprietary standards, customer data, and anything else that is both rare and valuable.3. Core Processes: This is what people in the firm actually 'do.' (activities)III- Customer Interface1. Fulfillment and Support: This refers to the way the firm 'goes to market,' how it actually 'reaches' customers-which channels it uses, what kind of customer support it offers, and what level of service it provides.2. Information and Insight: This refers to all the knowledge that is collected from and utilized on behalf of customers.3. Relationship Dynamics: This refers to the nature of the 'interaction' between the

Extending to the Limits of Imagination!

Leading the Revolution is an important book of business scholarship. It proposes a higher standard for companies: Constantly establishing and superbly implementing improved business models for customer interfaces, core strategy, using strategic resources, and value networks. Further, it integrates the arguments of many leading thinkers about improvement methods into one set of procedures for making faster business progress. The book also makes an excellent case for this higher standard already being in operation in companies like Enron, GE Capital, Cisco Systems, Nokia and Charles Schwab. To those who have already are familiar with the literature of developing new business models (such as Digital Capital), little in this book will be new. For those who are very focused on gradual improvement, the arguments here will be foreign and puzzling. Because of Gary Hamel's stature, many will read this book and begin to grasp the changed nature of the leadership and management challenges of the 21st century. Because of ways the argument is articulated and illustrated, many more will miss the point. That's too bad.Basically, Hamel is arguing that the kinds of changes that most people think of as revolutionary need to become everyday occurrences. This observation is based on an accelerating rate of uncontrollable change and resulting opportunities for innovation; an economic environment where fewer companies prosper while more become mediocre or below average; more pressure for performance from investors; rapidly developing business skills in business process, product, market and model innovation; broad human potential to imagine more and make it happen; and potential for improved communication and application of innovation. As a strategist, he does an excellent job of outlining the key issues of these factors, and how to organize an enterprise to accomplish more with these opportunities. By providing an analytical context for understanding the phenomena, he helps others understand what he describing intellectually. For those who have not had these experiences, the descriptions will seem to be alien emotionally. The book is designed to be a clone of Tom Peters' more flamboyantly-conceived works like The Circle of Innovation. The language is extreme, often bordering on being vulgar, and will make many people uncomfortable. That appears to be Hamel's purpose. The pages are laid out in vivid colors, photographs and graphics making it seem unlike most business books you have read before. This will make the book seem even stranger to many. That also appears to be Hamel's purpose. The downside of this approach is that many will simply reject the message along with the way it is presented. That's a missed opportunity on Hamel's part and on the reader's part. The message is more important and serious than the presentation.On the other hand, I would like to give the editors at Harvard Business School

THE "How To Manifesto" for Innovative Growth

Just about every CEO believes their own company is innovative, by listening to the customer and/or building new products and services to meet customer needs. Hamel doesn't only reject that notion outright, he "changes the game" and instead says that most companies are stuck in the outdated paradigms of innovation that existed in the "age of progress," which is now dead. The age of progress lasted about 500 years, but has now been replaced by the "age of revolution" where progress is no longer linear, but discontinuous and abrupt... blink and you miss. In the age of revolution, we are only limited by our imagination, and never before in history has the gap between imagination and what can be done ever been smaller. Today, billion dollar businesses are created overnight in the blink of an eye. In the historic age of progress, innovation consisted of new products and technology, best practices, continuous improvement, six sigma, and reengineering. While still important, the incremental nature of further gains from these strategies will be relatively minor. Today, only radical business concept innovation (BCI) will propell a company to spectactular shareholder return. Radical new ideas are now the fuel propelling the rocket, not new products and technology by themselves. Ideas are now the currency of success in the age of revolution. Radical new business models that change industries (or society) do not come from executive management, R & D, strategy groups, OR outside consultants. Instead, radical new ideas usually come from the rebel activist, the malcontent, the smart-alec, or diot-savant who is not constrained by existing mental models, but instead leap-frogs over these mental constraints. The only way to create and tap into radical new ideas is to engage your whole company by teaching everyone about the existing business model (which Hamel lays out in detail), and then asking them to challenge the model by becoming dreamers again. In other words, you need to bring the dynamic idea conception ability, and enthusiasm, of Silicon Valley into your own company by breaking down the walls of existing management heirarchy that stagnate new ideas and growth. Hamel's book is a manifesto blue print on the details of HOW to do this, including how to break down the existing cliques that control strategy making.... which is the highest hurdle to establishing radical innovation as an embedded core competency in your company. If top executives ignore the advice provided in this book, and/or reject those who rebel against the existing strategy making processes, then your competitors (or others) who do accept this advice will have an extrordinary advantage in competing against your company.