Leading The Revolution Summary

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Recommended: Concepts of transformational leadership

Leading The Revolution by Gary Hamel Leading the Revolution was written by Gary Hamel and published in September of 2000. Hamel writes a how to book on creating the new dynamic organization. His main theme is that old business strategies are not going to survive in what he calls the age of Revolution. In his premise to the book, he states that he will show the reader how to become a revolutionary in the business world. He completes his stated task by explaining the difference between contemporary strategy and revolutionary strategy, by explaining how a reader can begin to think revolutionary, and finally by explaining how a person can act revolutionary in their own company.

Hamel introduces the topic of revolutionary strategy by explaining …show more content…

He discusses the fact that revolutionary strategy does not come from above, but from below. A point he makes when he discusses traditional strategy formation at a large corporation. He states “Generally the same 10 people are talking to the same 10 people for the last 5 years. They can finish each others sentences and no revolutionary strategy will ever emerge.” This was an interesting insight that I remember well from a company I worked at for 5 years. The same people over and over deciding which direction or lack of direction they would head in. Hamel feels that the revolutionary must do three things to bring about change in large organizations. First, have a clear goal that you are willing to risk your job over. Second, find a supporter at the level of management that can protect you from dismissal. Third, find small successes within your overall goal that can be achieved and presented before upper management to help encourage buy-in in the overall plan. There are many other small steps in between these large steps that could be added, but these were the main three that were repeated. He used examples at Sony, IBM and Shell to illustrate his point. All three revolutionaries at these companies helped to transform their respective companies into the company they are

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