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Competing for the Future (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition) Review

Hamel's thesis:

Employees can have:

Passion
Creativity
Initiative

______________________

Intellect
Diligence
Obedience

We need the traits above the line be they cannot be commanded. Traits below the line are minimum "table Stakes" and are commodicized.

Some gems from a speech Hamel did at World Business Forum:

"Management is the greatest innovation of our time."

"If you are not spending 80% of your time growing food, you can thank management"

"The management problem was to increase efficiency every year. This is just table stakes. Every company needs to do this but it is now a commodity."

"1000 years from today, people will be amazed at the high pace of rate of change." As change accelerates, so does the need for adaptation.

"Product based advantages erode faster than before."

Crisis causes innovation, renewal and change. Deep change is almost always caused by crisis.

"We are no longer in the knowledge economy, we are in the creative economy."

"Today you have to compete with everybody, everywhere for everything" (Although he said this in his talk, he says it is not his quote.)

So the goal is how do you create a company that can innovate and change. Seek creative destruction. Bottom line -EVERYONE in the company needs to be creative and innovate. How do we unleash the creative potential of everyone.

Gary is a good speaker with good insights.

Competing for the Future (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition) Overview

This is an enhanced edition of HBR article 94403, originally published in July 1994. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Is your company a rule maker or a rule follower? Does your company focus on catching up or on getting out in front? Do you spend the bulk of your time as a maintenance engineer preserving the status quo or as an architect designing the future? Difficult questions like these go unanswered not because senior managers are lazy--most are working harder than ever--but because they won't admit that they are less than fully in control of their companies' future. In this adaptation from their upcoming book, Hamel and Prahalad urge senior managers to look toward the future and ponder their ability to shape their companies in the years and decades to come. Creating the future, as Electronic Data Systems has done, for example, requires industry foresight. Since change is inevitable, managers must decide whether it will happen in a crisis atmosphere or in a calm and considered manner. Too often, profound thinking about the future occurs only when present success has been eroded.

Competing for the Future (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition) Specifications

Winning in business today is not about being number one--it's about who "gets to the future first," write management consultants Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. In Competing for the Future, they urge companies to create their own futures, envision new markets, and reinvent themselves.

Hamel and Prahalad caution that complacent managers who get too comfortable in doing things the way they've always done will see their companies fall behind. For instance, the authors consider the battle between IBM and Apple in the 1970s. Entrenched as the leading mainframe-computer maker, IBM failed to see the potential market for personal computers. That left the door wide open for Apple, which envisioned a computer for every man, woman, and child. The authors write, "At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads." They argue that business leaders need to be more than "maintenance engineers," worrying only about budget cutting, streamlining, re-engineering, and other old tactics. Definitely not for dilettantes, Competing for the Future is for managers who are serious getting their companies in front. -- Dan Ring

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Customer Reviews

Excellent Expansion of Key Ideas in Management Theory - Charles Broming - Orlando, FL United States
This is an excellent book that expands on two important ideas that these authors adapted to the business environment, core organizational competencies and strategic intent. Both of these ideas can be found in von Clausewitz, but this adaptation (originally propounded in two Harvard Business Review articles, both of which won annual McKinsey Awards for best article) clarifies how these notions work in the business environment. Required reading for students, observers and practitioners of business strategy.

better than Porter - Dr. S. Johnson - Sydney, AUS
This book is great! I am just waiting for the hardcover version of it! Hamel and Prahalad have managed to write a book that is interesting and informative at the same time. Plenty of examples illustrate the theory and keep the reader interesed. Very nice book!

Good for business strategy - Mark Deo - Torrance, CA
Great foundation for business strategy. Good in tandem with Drucker. Very motivating. Great from a communication and organizational standpoint. Very refreshing. I highly recommend.

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