Reviews for Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive the Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Living

The average rating for Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive the Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Living based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-08-27 00:00:00 chris paynter ''Leading the Revolution'', which deals with fostering innovation in business settings, was first published in 2000. Nevertheless, many of the ideas and suggestions that Hamel proposes are still fresh and relevant. Some of the case-studies, however, are a bit dated (the best example of this are the more than 10 pages to praise innovation at Enron). Hamel's basic premise is that innovation goes above and beyond mere product- or service innovation. He argues that true new wealth is created by radically innovative business models. Following this argument, Hamel claims that radical innovation is the ultimate competitive advantage in the 21st century. Hamel starts out by describing how in the last decade and a half or so of the 20th century, the business environment has made a change from an era of incremental progress to one of revolutionary overhauls of many industries. To survive in this new, fast-changing environment, you have to ''lead the revolution'' of innovation. Sitting back and doing business as usual can be fatal, fast. Many companies have difficulty letting go of their ageing business models, even though signs are all around that they are no longer working. Many companies try hard to squeeze the last drops of benefit from their ageing business models by various quality programs and financial engineering. Hamel points out that increased obsession with quality and financial strategies such as share buybacks and even acquisitions can be signs of business models that are (quickly) becoming outdated. After this introduction, Hamel takes the reader through 3 stages: A description of what a business model is, a series of suggestions how an individual can become more open to innovation, and a set of guidelines of how to make a company more innovative. Hamel's framework for a business model contains 4 building blocks: 1. Key Strategy 2. Strategic Resources 3. Customer Relations 4. Value Connections 1. Key Strategy has 3 components: - Mission - Product / Market scope - Basis for Differentiation This overlaps with the OAS strategy statement that Kaplan & Norton mention in ''The Execution Premium'', which states that a good strategy statement should contain an Objective (what you want to do or become), an Advantage (how you want to do it, how you want to differentiate) and Scope (where you want to operate, who is going to be your customer). 2. Strategic Resources has 3 elements: - Core Competencies - Strategic Assets - Key Processes Hamel, a known promoter of Core Competencies, writes that all competitive advantage worthy of that name is based on unique resources, that are specific to a particular company. 3. Customer Relations can be divided in: - Realization and Support - Information and Ideas - Customer Relations Dynamics - Pricing Structure Here, Realization and Support describes how a company is going to market, how it is reaching its customers. This includes distribution channels and customer support. Information and Ideas refers to the information that companies receive from their customers, how they use that information to generate new ideas, and the information that the company provides to its customers. 4. Value Connections are the following: - Suppliers - Complementers - Alliances These 4 building blocks are connected as follows: - Customer Benefits connects Key Strategy and Customer Relations - Configuration connects Key Strategy to Strategic Resources - Company Limits connects Strategic Resources to Value Connections. Company Limits basically deals with the question ''To outsource or not to outsource''. Note that this business model is very similar to the Business Model Canvas: - The Value Proposition is what Hamel describes in Mission, Basis for Differentiation and Customer Benefits - The Customer Segment is Hamel's Product / Market Scope - The Channel is Realization and Support - Customer Relations is Information and Ideas and Customer Relations Dynamics - Revenue Streams corresponds to Pricing Structure - Key Resources are Core Competencies and Strategic Assets - Key Activities are Key Processes - Key Partners are Suppliers, Complementers and Alliances. - Cost Structure doesn't appear in Hamel's framework. On a personal level, Hamel gives several suggestions on how you can become more open to innovation, and who knows, even innovative. Most importantly, he urges us to see things differently, to be different, and to return to the levels of curiosity we had as 5 year olds. He states that to see things differently is often more valuable that mere intellectual power. Some more specific suggestions are the following: - Look for new ways to see things - Find ways to continually be surprised - Where are others not looking? - What is the big picture? - What is nobody talking about? - Investigate, dig deeper - Go from analysis to experience: Don't just read about discontinuities, but experience them - Travel! Travelling allows you to discover the new, meet new people, have new conversations. - If you can't travel, read! But not the same newspaper you are always reading, not the same newspaper that everybody is reading. Conclusion: Don't underestimate the importance of curiosity. On a company level, Hamel gives some guidelines of how a company can become more innovative. Several of these guidelines have to do with adapting (some of ) the methodologies of Silicon Valley in a company. - Set unreasonable expectations. This is similar to Porras' and Collins' advice to set BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Hamel states that only when people are faced with unreasonable expectations will they start to look for breakthrough new ideas. Without unreasonable expectations, most people will focus on incremental improvements of the current business model without ever finding completely new ways of doing business. - Elastic definition of the company. This is similar to the old saying about the first wave of telegraph companies. Those companies that defined themselves as telegraph companies have long ago gone bankrupt, but those that defined themselves as telecommunication companies are still around. Tip: Look beyond the borders of your company, look beyond the borders of your sector of industry. - A cause, not a business. As Daniel Pink mentioned in ''Drive'', people are really motivated if they have a purpose. Robert Grant mentions in ''Contemporary Strategy Analysis'' that ''the world's most consistently successful companies in terms of profits and shareholder value tend to be those that are motivated by factors other than profit''. ''Entrepreneurs are generally driven less by the promise of riches as by the desire to create''. - New voices: In many companies, strategy formulation is the exclusive task of the top of the hierarchy, where the same 10 people year in year out talk to each other, and who can all finish each other's sentences. This is not likely to lead to new, fresh ideas. Hamel suggests that you listen to the young employees, those who work in the periphery of the company and the new arrivals. - Create internal markets for talent, capital and ideas. Basically, bring Silicon Valley into your company. - Do small, low-scale experiments to test new business models - Reward the revolutionaries inside your company, compensate the in-company entrepreneurs as if they were working in Silicon Valley. Hamel's focus on curiosity is not only mentioned explicitly, but also shines through the many questions he asks his readers. Perhaps this approach of continually asking questions has allowed him to come up with some business models that later came to life in Skype and crowd-funding. Hamel states that it is impossible to predict the future, but that it is possible to imagine it. Asking the right questions certainly helps in the process of imagining the future. The right questions may also lead you to new ideas, which are the only way to really create new wealth. The theories and suggestions of this book are mostly still valid. Some of the examples and statements about companies are unfortunately a bit dated (such as Hamel's remark in 2000 that Apple will be not more than a footnote in the history of Information Technology).

Review # 2 was written on 2020-04-26 00:00:00 Teresa Jatropulus Gary Hamel was once considered one of the strategy gurus, but hasn't actually come up with much new in the past twenty years. He seems to have made the choice to follow in the Tom Peters mould of becoming an entertaining speaker and merchant of wow! Rather than concentrating on supported academic research, which he is quick to belittle as for a minority readership with no links to action. Having said that there was much good stuff in this book, although his time really hasn't changed much right up to the present day. Basically suggests that old models of strategy led to incrementalism, and what the world needed was greater creativity and business system innovation.