What Matters Now

by Gary Hamel

About the book

This isn't a book about a single topic. It isn't a 250-page thesis on leadership, teamwork, or inspiration. Instead, it's a plan for creating companies that can thrive in a world of dwindling expectations, constant change, and fierce competition.

This isn't a book about getting great at something. It's not a book for folks who like to tinker around the edges. Instead, it's an urgent call to reassess our fundamental beliefs about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work—to reinvent management as we know it.

 

Today's leaders face a world where the unexpected is the standard. The exceptional and extraordinary can be found everywhere:

• Newspapers in the business world are bemoaning the plight of capitalism.
• Companies that were once cutting-edge are now striving to avoid senescence.
• Next-generation workers are eschewing blue-chip companies in favor of social start-ups.
• Corporate scumbags are being chastised in the blogosphere.
• In what were previously oligopolistic strongholds, entry barriers are collapsing.
• Business concepts that have been around for a century are being rendered obsolete suddenly.
• New businesses can crowdsource their most innovative ideas.
• National governments are on the verge of collapse.
• Angry investors confront greedy CEOs and complacent boards of directors.
• Customers who have recently become omnipotent are eager to use their newfound power.
• The way people connect, learn, and collaborate has changed tremendously as a result of social media.

 

Obviously, a lot of things are important right now. In a world of shattered certainty and shattered trust, however, certain things are more important than others. Organizational challenges are boundless, but leadership bandwidth isn't. 

That is why you must be clear about what is most important right now. What are the critical, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your company succeeds or fails in the next years? Values, creativity, adaptation, passion, and ideology are the five most important concerns, according to Hamel. As a result, he lays out a critical agenda for leaders around the world who want to...

• Transitioning from defense to offensive
• Fight bureaucracy and astound their customers by reversing the tide of commoditization
• Encourage exceptional contribution
• Outrun change by capturing the moral high ground
• Establish a firm that is genuinely future-ready

The book will encourage you to rethink your business, your company, and how you lead since it is concise and to the point.

About the Author

Gary Hamel is a co-founder of the Management Lab, an organization that develops technology and tools to assist breakthrough management innovation. He is a member of the London Business School faculty. Professor Hamel's groundbreaking works have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and he has been hailed as the world's most important business thinker by the Wall Street Journal. The Future of Management and What Matters Now are two of them. Visit GaryHamel.com for more information, and Humanocracy.com for information on Gary's newest book.

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