What Matters Now

This is not a book about one thing. It's not a 250-page dissertation on leadership, teams or motivation. Instead, it's an agenda for building organizations that can flourish in a world of diminished hopes, relentless change and ferocious competition.

This is not a book about doing better. It's not a manual for people who want to tinker at the margins. Instead, it's an impassioned plea to reinvent management as we know it—to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work.

Leaders today confront a world where the unprecedented is the norm. Wherever one looks, one sees the exceptional and the extraordinary:

• Business newspapers decrying the state of capitalism.
• Once-innovative companies struggling to save off senescence.
• Next gen employees shunning blue chips for social start-ups.
• Corporate miscreants getting pilloried in the blogosphere.
• Entry barriers tumbling in what were once oligopolistic strongholds.
• Hundred year-old business models being rendered irrelevant overnight.
• Newbie organizations crowdsourcing their most creative work.
• National governments lurching towards bankruptcy.
• Investors angrily confronting greedy CEOs and complacent boards.
• Newly omnipotent customers eagerly wielding their power.
• Social media dramatically transforming the way human beings connect, learn and collaborate.

Obviously, there are lots of things that matter now. But in a world of fractured certainties and battered trust, some things matter more than others. While the challenges facing organizations are limitless; leadership bandwidth isn't. That's why you have to be clear about what really matters now. What are the fundamental, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead? Hamel identifies five issues are that are paramount: values, innovation, adaptability, passion and ideology. In doing so he presents an essential agenda for leaders everywhere who are eager to...

• move from defense to offense
• reverse the tide of commoditization
• defeat bureaucracy
• astonish their customers
• foster extraordinary contribution
• capture the moral high ground
• outrun change
• build a company that's truly fit for the future

Concise and to the point, the book will inspire you to rethink your business, your company and how you lead.

Preface ix

Section 1: Values Matter Now 1

1.1 Putting First Things First 3

1.2 Learning from the Crucible of Crisis 9

1.3 Rediscovering Farmer Values 25

1.4 Renouncing Capitalism’s Dangerous Conceits 29

1.5 Reclaiming the Noble 35

Section 2: Innovation Matters Now 39

2.1 Defending Innovation 41

2.2 Cataloging the World’s Greatest Innovators 45

2.3 Inspiring Great Design 55

2.4 Turning Innovation Duffers into Pros 61

2.5 Deconstructing Apple 73

Section 3: Adaptability Matters Now 83

3.1 Changing How We Change 85

3.2 Becoming an Enemy of Entropy 91

3.3 Diagnosing Decline 103

3.4 Mourning Corporate Failure 111

3.5 Future-Proofing Your Company 119

Section 4: Passion Matters Now 135

4.1 Exposing Management’s Dirty Little Secret 137

4.2 Putting Individuals Ahead of Institutions 145

4.3 Building Communities of Passion 153

4.4 Reversing the Ratchet of Control 163

4.5 Reinventing Management for the Facebook Generation 171

Section 5: Ideology Matters Now 179

5.1 Challenging the Ideology of Management 181

5.2 Managing Without Hierarchy 193

5.3 Escaping the Management Tax 207

5.4 Inverting the Pyramid 233

5.5 Aiming Higher 243

Appendix: The Half Moon Bay ‘‘Renegade Brigade’’ 259

Notes 261

Acknowledgments 267

About the Author 269

Index 271

"Probably one of the most important books you could read this year... an invitation to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism." (Leadership Now, May 2012)

"The book is bang up to date... highlights recent crises and what we can learn from them." (CPO Agenda, April 2012)

"A thought provoking and relevant book for our time that should inspire change, even if it doesn't prescribe it." (economia.com, April 2012)

"An interesting and thought provoking read for HR and finance directors." (HR Magazine, April 2012)

"Plenty to feed those with an appetite for change." (CA Magazine, April 2012)

"A rarity among business books, What Matters Now has an entertaining, anecdotal style that does nothing to diminish the visionary authority with which Hamel speaks." (I: Global Intelligence for the CIO, April 2012)

"The book is bang up to date... highlights recent crises and what we can learn from them." (CPO Agenda, April 2012)

"An impassioned plea to reinvent management as we know it." (innovationexcellence.com, March 2012)

Noted business thinker and strategist Gary Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School for nearly thirty years. He is the founder of the California-based think-tank The Management Lab. His most recent initiative is The Management Innovation eXchange (www.managementexchange.com), a pioneering effort aimed at reinventing management by harnessing the power of open innovation. Hamel is the author of five books and numerous articles for the Harvard Business Review as well as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and the Financial Times. He consults widely and has led change initiatives in some of the world’s most prominent companies.

What Matters Now is Gary Hamel’s impassioned plea to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about management, the meaning of work, and organizational life. He asks, “What are the fundamental, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead?” The answer is found in five paramount issues: values, innovation, adaptability, passion, and ideology.

Values: With trust in large organizations at an all time low, there is an urgent need to rebuild the ethical foundations of capitalism. What’s required is nothing less than a moral renaissance in business.

Innovation: Innovation is the only defense against margin-crushing competition, and the only way to outgrow a dismal economy. In too many companies, innovation is still a buzzword, rather than the responsibility of every single individual. This must change.

Adaptability: In a world of accelerating change, every company must build an evolutionary advantage. The forces of inertia must be vanquished. The ultimate prize: an organization that is as nimble as change itself.

Passion: In business as in life, the difference between “insipid” and “inspired” is passion. With mediocrity fast becoming a competitive liability, success depends on finding new ways to rouse the human spirit at work.

Ideology: Today, businesses need more than better practices; they need better principles. Bureaucracy and control have had their day. It’s time for a new ideology based on freedom and self-determination.

“Gary Hamel has crafted a challenging book that starts with values, celebrates innovation, and concludes by opening up the hierarchies of large companies to unleash the true human potential of the people who work there. This is a book to return to again and again as managers everywhere confront the challenges of orthodoxy, management lethargy, and overly-rigid company processes.”
—Henry Chesbrough, author, Open Innovation; professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

“What Matters Now lets you in on the five things that will transform your organization—or sink it. It’s your choice—put Gary Hamel’s book at the top of your to-do list or procrastinate and risk falling farther behind.”
—Charlene Li, author, Open Leadership; founder of Altimeter Group