Customer Reviews

Leading the Revolution

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

While this book is worth reading I have to say I was a little disappointed. For one thing, I had to keep looking at the book jacket to make sure the book was written by Gary Hamel and not Tom Peters. Gary has gone to the mountain top to preach a message that is probably worth repeating but certainly not new. Innovate or die. Revolt or fail. Rebel. Be an activist. Change before it's too late. Like most "mountain-top" books, this one makes a great case for change. It's compelling. It gets you convinced to lead a revolution. In this case toward what Hamel refers to as "business concept innovation" - "the capacity to reconceive existing business models in ways that create new value for customers, rude surprises for competitors and new wealth for investors". Business concept innovation means that wealth-creating champions have unique capabilities, unique assets, unique value propositions, and unique market positioning. Simple product or marketing innovation will not do in the "age of the revolution" according to Hamel. It's a neat concept but this is where the book begins to break down for me. While Hamel claims that radical invention and radical differentiation of the business model is the answer, many of the examples cited in the rest of the book seem to be discrepant with the claim. Hamel cites IBM's Internet undertaking and Sony's PlayStation success as examples. But how could they be considered as examples of creating new business models? Aren't they really just examples of IBM and Sony adapting to clearly established trends? Another example cites (department store) Target's inviting shopping environment but isnt that simply an example of good old-fashioned store merchandising (a.k.a. marketing)? Hamel claims or implies that most companies know how to execute but not how to develop strategy but is this completely true? Sure, GREAT strategy is rare (and difficult to develop for sure) but aren't there also lots of companies that DON'T know how to serve their customers, that don't know how to turn a profit regularly and that can't implement basic systems well? WalMart is another example cited often in the book but isn't their advantage the fact that they are great implementors as well as strategists? And what about the companies over the years that simply create wealth by being great copy-cats and not "revolutionary innovators"? Office Depot, Microsoft, Burger King, ATG, Papa Johns Pizza, Excite, AOL, AMD, Bath and Body Works, E-Trade, etc. etc. etc. etc! Were/are these companies successful because of radical new business models or because of great fundamental execution? Aren't their accomplishments equally commendible if not as admirable? Do we really know? Yea, I get disturbed by all of the "hype-notic" management writing that takes place these days but in the end I'm grateful to read a book and get stimulated. Hamel's book IS STIMULATING and provides much food for thought. A bit overpackaged/overproduced but a worthwhile read anyway. So I give it 4 stars.

If you've followed and loved any of Hamel's previous works, you'll find that "Leading the Revolution" is for you. It's well-written, lovely to look at, and he does two things very well: 1) Takes complicated business issues and packages them clearly and neatly with his own brand of consultant-speak. (e.g., Focusing on "bridge" components to tie all your challenges together.) 2) If you work for Just-Don't-Get-It BiggieCorp, he provides an innovation call-to-arms. You can quote Hamel to scare the bejeebers out of your boss.

But if you want to actually implement any of his ideas, look elsewhere. There is zero help in how to embrace his revolution.

My suggestion is to get two books: This one to whack others upside the head (its weight alone will do the trick) -- and "Simplicity" by Bill Jensen. Simplicity focuses on how to figure out what to do when there are too many revolutions, too much info and too many choices all clamoring for your attention. Combine the two books and you might actually change your world.

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 Press credit for being flexible in working with Hamel to create the presentation of this book.

The book's biggest weakness is in using Revolution as the metaphor. Any student of revolutions will quickly tell you that revolutions usually lead to counter revolutions after a period of maximum turmoil. That's not what Hamel is talking about, so his metaphor will confuse many while annoying others who do not want to turn their organizations into revolutionary bands. He doesn't seem to mean to invoke Revolution in either sense, but he never makes that point clear.

The second biggest weakness is that he presents a new paradigm that is very complex and requires mastering vast quantities of new skills for most people. Many readers will be overwhelmed by the prospect. So if they hear Hamel as a herald, they may be discouraged about following the herald.

The third biggest weakness is drawing major conclusions from very limited data. For example, he asserts that companies that master this new paradigm will eventually end up taking over the assets of companies that do not, after getting their customers and top employees. He cites AOL's merger with Time Warner as his example of an asset takeover. Without going into a full analysis, that example does not fully match this argument. For example, Gerry Levin from Time Warner will be the surviving CEO. And there are few other examples where new model companies end up buying the assets of old model companies.

The fourth weakness is encouraging people to grasp the potential of powerful, underlying trends without giving them much help in understanding how to do this. That is a subject for an entire book, not just a few pages in one.

One surprise for many people will be that the book is aimed more at the rebels at lower levels in a company than at its formal leaders. The rebels will learn a lot about how to become more effective in pushing their new ideas. Those who think like the conventional wisdom will find much less guidance to help them. In fact, Hamel has a side bar about working as a consultant with Royal Dutch/Shell and the difficulties that people there had in coming up with new ideas until the consultants trained them. Conventional wisdom is based on very complicated psychological processes, and changing that conventional wisdom in useful ways is a subject well beyond the scope of a brief chapter.

You should think of this book as introducing the subject of constantly improving business models, and inviting others to follow and flesh it out. I look forward to future books by Gary Hamel and other leading thinkers in further developing the questions posed here.

While you contemplate an expanded purpose for business enterprises, you should also consider what other purposes should be added that Hamel has not addressed. Hamel's having posed such an important question should not stop us from trying to build even better ones.

While many of Hamel's writings delivered solid business roadmaps, in this book he appears to have "crossed over" into a world of subjectivity and exageration. This book has many "if you don't reinvent yourself everyday" urban myths. To read this you'd think that huge companies are becoming obsolete and going bankrupt daily. Published at the beginning of the year 2000, the book is almost obsolete by November. The idea of business concept innovation is the main theme of the book and the reader can tell that Hamel, now working in California, bought the whole dot.com story about making everyone else's business model obsolete. We now know this is nonsense and as a result the person whom the book calls "the greatest strategist in the world" looks rather silly as the ink still dries on his book. This book like many that have come before it, uses massive exageration to sell books. Follow the advice in this book and you too can end up like the companies featured in the book - beware.

There is nothing new in this book. This book is a "call to arms". Hamel is exhorting everybody in large companies to lead the revolution. Coming from someone who has never worked in a large company, most of the advice is rather naive, irritating and preachy. The advice is rather generic and if you replace the startups with "Japanese" and "e" references with quality, it sounds like a book from the eighties.

He provides examples of successful revolutionaries like John Patrick. But, how about analyzing the millions of "soliders" who perished or left after waging fruitless battles. Being a revolutionary is not as easy as portrayed in this book. That is the reason why many talented managers leave and become entrepreneurs because it is easier to start new than change existing legacy processes, procedures and systems.

This is yet another "motivational" book for clueless managers by a so-called guru who have never built anything. Hamel is a backseat driver who advices senior management but has never experienced the day-to-day heartbreak of execution or crisis management. Armchair experts or historians seem to be dime a dozen these days, especially on the e-bandwagon.

This genre of e-help for managers reminds me a lot of self-help gurus like Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change), relationship counselors John Gray (Men are from Mars etc.), and Phillip C. McGraw (Life Strategies). The Amazon review for Life Strategies states -- Some people spend their lives reacting to what life hands them, while others craft life to fit their goals. Does this sound familar :-)

What is good about the book? This book has been superbly edited. The prose flows very well. My hats off to the editors at Harvard Business School. They certainly are the best.

"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 Interface

1. 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 producer and the customer.

4. Pricing Structure: This refers to the price choices depending on the traditions of your industry.

IV- Value Network: It surrounds the firm, and which complements and amlifies the firm's own resources.

1. Suppliers

2. Partners

3. Coalitions

On the other hand, according to Hamel these four major components are linked together by three 'bridge' components:

1. Configuration: Intermediating between a company's core strategy and its strategic resources is first bridge component.

2. Customer Benefits: Intermediating between the core strategy and the customer interface is second bridge component.

3. Company Boundaries: Intermediating between a company's strategic resources and its value network is third bridge component.

More detailed discussion of these business concepts briefly mentioned/summarized above and the other unique ones, I highly recommend this invaluable study.

One of the worst books on the subject on Strategy, from a person who has been declared one the most influencial people in the business world.

Hamel has never been innovative as one might have thought. His book, Competing for the Future, discusses "Foresight", but neglects to even mention the Internet. Some Foresight.

There's nothing in this book you have not read elsewhere. My compliments on the design, which is outstanding. However, if you are looking for an innovative book, don't waste your money.

Another attemt (probably successful, due to his brand name...) to boost up his consulting revenues.

Leading the Revolution? try telling the truth. you have no idea where things, going, Gary, no clue.

Michael

This book from the so called 'mangement guru' Hamel lost all its standing when the Enron debacle emerged. mr Hamel has used Enron as worldclass example and innovative company. What a nonsense. Second, you need to know that this writer was in the Chairman advisory board of Enron.
Where is your credibility as management expert with making such enormous mistakes ?!
On top of that Hamel is trying to hide his past with Enron. The quoted flaptext of the book on his website does not mention Enron anymore. But, he forgot that it ist still in the flaptext in the printed book.
Do not spend money on a would-be-guru who thought he was right and now is trying to hide his past after finding out he was dead wrong.

Aimed at `the dreamers and doers' (guess that means startups, consultants and educators), "Leading the Revolution" attempts to foster innovation in business.

The lightly referenced, overlong, glossy chapters in 4 parts span:

++ 1- Facing up to the revolution- the end of progress, and rising expectations, diminishing returns.

++ 2- Finding the revolution- business concept innovation, and be your own seer.

++ 3- Igniting the revolution- corporate rebels, and go ahead, revolt.

++ 4- Sustaining the revolution- grey haired revolutionaries, design rules for innovation, and the new innovation solution.

Strengths include: the glossy colorful, heavy-weight paper; some attractive (consulting style) diagrams (customer interface, core strategy, strategic resources, and value networks linked, and underpinned by efficiency, uniqueness, fit, and profit boosters); and positive enthusiastic tone.

Weaknesses include: content mimics the worst of Tom Peters (e.g. consider any random contradictory idea without support, be an active rebel, & embrace any change); typos; overlong journalistic prose (30% excessive); many seeming 2nd source anecdotes (from public domain); ignores credible science of change/ organizational behavior; ultimately a lack of confidence of author's direct knowledge of real-business change, processes & working environments.

Overall, this was enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying (to this reviewer)- after reading, it failed the "so what" (is new) test. Better to look at college texts on `new product development' for sets of practical tools to develop new products or services; and to books like `Digital Capital' (ISBN 1578511933) which address the e-marketplace in a more structured manner.

Granted, Hamel is a strategy genius. But there is little in this book that you haven't read before, either by him or others, both in books and the numerous e-commerce magazines. The book has a cool, revolutionary design but its content can be grasped just by reading through the sub-headings. This is a good refresher course on what companies need to do in the face of the Internet revolution sweeping the business world. But those who haven't already got the message are unlikely to "get it" from Hamel's hectoring and rah-rah enthusiasm. If you already "get it" then you really don't need this book.