Customer Reviews
A Roadmap for Innovation - By: Paul Sloane, 05 Sep 2008 
Many CEOs & leaders talk about the need for innovation but do not know where to start. They should read this book. In my opinion Gary Hamel is the best business writer around at the moment. He is lucid, provocative, entertaining & instructive. He gives many examples & case studies. This work will challenge you to throw off complacency & embrace innovation as the way forward for your organisation. Highly recommended reading.
An Operations Manual for Corporate Revolutionaries - By: Robert Morris, 22 Sep 2007 Note: I read this book when it was first published & recently re-read it prior to reading Hamel's latest book, The Future of Managementin which he provides a "guide to inventing tomorrow's best practices today." How well have the core conceptsin Leading the Revoluton held up? Very well. In fact, they are even more relevant today. Hamel develops several of themin much greater depthin The Future of Management which I also highly recommend.
Hamel is among the most insightful analysts of the contemporary business world. If you and/or your organization needs to be energized (or re-energized), this book is "must reading" ASAP. But a word of caution: The cohesive & comprehensive program Hamel presents is NOT for the faint of heart nor for dimwits.
In his Preface, he tells us "This is a book about innovation -- notin the usual sense of new products & new technologies, butin the sense of radical new business models. It begins by laying out the revolutionary imperative: we've reached the end of incrementalism, & only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will prosperin the new economy. It then provides a detailed blueprint of what you [italics] can do to get the revolution startedin your own company. Finally, it describesin detail an agenda for making innovation as ubiquitous a capability as quality or customer service. Indeed, my central argument is that radical innovation the [italics] competitive advantage for the new millennium."
The material is carefully organized as follows:
Part I Facing Up to the Revolution
Part II Finding the Revolution
Part III Igniting the Revolution
Part IV Sustaining the Revolution
Hamel concludes with these remarks: "I began this book with a simple observation -- that for the first timein history, our heritage is no longer our destiny. Our dreams are no longer fantasies but possibilities. There isn't a human being who has ever lived who right now, at this moment so pregnant with promise. Among all your forebears, among the countless generations who had no hope of progress, among all those whose spirits were betrayed by progress, you are the one who now stands on the threshold of -- the age of revolution. You are blessed beyond belief. Don't falter. Don't hesitate. You were given the opportunity for a reason. Find it. Lead the revolution."
If you and/or your organization arein the doldrums, this is "must reading." But be forewarned: As Hamel explains so carefully, being a revolutionary is to be exposed to constant perils. If you are a dimwit or faint of heart, don't bother to read this book because it was not written for you. Rather, it was written for many of those with whom you compete: People with courage & principle. People who are prudent but passionate risk-takers. Those who are determined to make a difference. Those who understand the challenges which the future offers...and will pounce on them with zeal & elan.
leading the revolution is a stunning achievement.
OK but not as good as others - By: , 20 Mar 2005 
From the co-author of Competing for the Future & chairman of Strategos, this was one of the best selling books of 2000. Using examples including Cisco, Virgin & (unfortunately with hindsight) Enron, this is a rally cry for companies to look for the radical & not the incremental as they seek to lead their sectors.
Extending to the Limits of Imagination! - By: Donald Mitchell, 20 May 2004 Leading the Revolution is an important book of business scholarship. It proposes a higher standard for companies: Constantly establishing & superbly implementing improved business models for customer interfaces, core strategy, using strategic resources, & 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 beingin operationin companies like Enron (which has obviously turned out to be a poor choice for an example), GE Capital, Cisco Systems, Nokia (which is having problems now) & Charles Schwab.
To those who have already are familiar with the literature of developing new business models (such as Digital Capital), littlein this book will be new. For those who are very focused on gradual improvement, the arguments here will be foreign & puzzling. Because of Gary Hamel's stature, many will read this book & begin to grasp the changed nature of the leadership & management challenges of the 21st century. Because of ways the argument is articulated & 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 & 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 skillsin business process, product, market & model innovation; broad human potential to imagine more & make it happen; & potential for improved communication & application of innovation.
As a strategist, he does an excellent job of outlining the key issues of these factors, & 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, & will make many people uncomfortable. That appears to be Hamel's purpose. The pages are laid outin vivid colors, photographs & 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 & on the reader's part. The message is more important & serious than the presentation.
On the other hand, I would like to give the editors at Harvard Business School Press credit for being flexiblein working with Hamel to create the presentation of this book.
The book's biggest weakness isin 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 Revolutionin either sense, but he never makes that point clear.
The second biggest weakness is that he presents a new paradigm that is very complex & 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 & 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 helpin understanding how to do this. That is a subject for an entire book, not just a few pagesin one.
One surprise for many people will be that the book is aimed more at the rebels at lower levelsin a company than at its formal leaders. The rebels will learn a lot about how to become more effectivein 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 & the difficulties that people there hadin coming up with new ideas until the consultants trained them. Conventional wisdom is based on very complicated psychological processes, & changing that conventional wisdomin 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, & inviting others to follow & flesh it out. I look forward to future books by Gary Hamel & other leading thinkersin 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.
A tour de force guide for shaking organisations to the core - By: Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, 23 May 2002 The anecdotal evidence is superb, though it suffers where strongly associated with Enron & a new edition is required to address the recent business events. The step-by-step guide to leading a business revolution within an organisation is superb & some of the ideas seem off the wall at first, only to make perfect sense on reflection. This really is a manual for managers throughout the world.
