BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : OCTOBER 16, 2000 ISSUE
BOOKS You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Cubicle LEADING THE REVOLUTION By Gary Hamel Harvard Business School -- 333pp -- $29.95 Cynics beware: The anti-Dilbert has arrived. Combining the enthusiasm of a Tommy Lasorda with the subversive impulses of an Abbie Hoffman, management guru Gary Hamel has produced, in Leading the Revolution, a manifesto for young, would-be revolutionaries in the lower ranks of America's corporations. His message: It doesn't matter whether you work for Cisco Systems Inc. ( CSCO) in Silicon Valley or a machine-tool maker in Cleveland: If your work seems pointless or stultifying, if your boss seems brain-dead, if most of your days aren't filled with the ardent pursuit of radical innovation, Hamel wants you to start fomenting revolutionary change to save your company from the long, grim twilight of obsolescence. Hamel doesn't mince words. ''Are you a courtier, kissing corporate butt?'' he asks, ''or a rebel challenging your company to reinvent itself?'' Hamel leaves little doubt about which he prefers. In this clever but often overheated book, he implores readers to throw aside pessimism and think really big thoughts, take really big chances, and, most of all, care deeply about how it turns out. Sure, you say, you've heard it all before, right? A consultant or professor who has little at stake in the outcome of his or her remarks urges corporate managers to blow up their stodgy companies and reinvent them, lest the next wave of business wash them away. You, meanwhile, have your kids' college tuition coming due any year now. But Hamel, author of the landmark 1998 Competing for the Future, is no armchair revolutionary. A fixture of the Harvard Business Review, a visiting professor at London Business School, and founder and chairman of a Silicon Valley consulting firm, Strategos, Hamel practices what he preaches. For the past decade, he has been advising companies such as Whirlpool ( WHR), Procter & Gamble ( PG), Royal Dutch/Shell Group ( RD), and a host of others to heed his exhortations, and these clients have become innovators on many fronts. For example, under Hamel's direction, Royal Dutch/Shell has found a way to spur innovation in weekly, companywide brainstorming sessions called ''Game Changers'' that have resulted in more than 320 revenue-producing ideas, including one that helped Shell find some 30 million new barrels of oil in Gabon last year. At times, Hamel's brio can make change seem a bit too easy. ''I am no longer a captive to history,'' he urges us to intone as a mantra. ''Whatever I can imagine, I can accomplish. I am an activist, not a drone. I am no longer a foot soldier in the march of progress. I am a revolutionary.'' Fortunately, though, the book goes beyond exhortations and hyperbole. The high points in Leading the Revolution come when Hamel turns from abstractions to real-world cases. His heroes? Those who emerge from the ranks and manage to bring off big changes. These include David Grossman, a programmer, and John Patrick, a staff executive, who together coaxed and prodded IBM ( IBM) first into acknowledging the Internet's importance, then into building a Web presence, and ultimately into becoming an e-business powerhouse. They did it, Hamel writes, by talking up the Web, being persistent, showing off their wares, devising large demonstration projects such as the Web site for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, gathering true believers, and, finally, winning over IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Another Hamel hero: Ken Kutaragi, a Sony Corp. engineer who bucked criticism and opposition for years while he developed a succession of digital devices that ultimately led to the enormously successful PlayStation, which now accounts for 40% of Sony's annual profits. Yet Hamel insists that you don't have to be a Kutaragi or a Grossman to pursue ''business-concept innovation'' of the kind that turns industries on their ear. How to do it? Leading the Revolution comes with bomb-making instructions, so to speak: a step-by-step guide on how to create innovative upheaval. In a chapter entitled ''Go Ahead! Revolt!,'' Hamel describes how readers should--just as Kutaragi, Grossman, and others did--write a manifesto, create a coalition, co-opt and neutralize opposition, find sympathetic ears among senior management to help bridge the gap between rebels and the Establishment, and stay underground long enough to build critical mass. And last: Infiltrate--don't overthrow--the highest levels of the organization to win the resources you'll need to be successful. Why is such radical innovation so vital? Hamel says that despite billions of dollars' worth of investment in information technology in recent years, most companies fail to boost profits over those of their rivals. ''Almost all of that investment has been the technology equivalent of an arms race,'' he says. ''Make one gain and your rival matches you. Now, only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will have a lasting competitive edge.'' Sure, becoming a successful revolutionary in today's business world may be a tall order. But for even the most cubicle-bound Dilberts among us, Hamel makes a strong case that bringing fresh thinking to the job can produce wealth as well as satisfaction--and rekindle passion for the work, regardless of what it is. Word to the frustrated and downtrodden? Start plotting. By MARCIA STEPANEK Stepanek writes about the Internet's impact on corporate culture and management for BUSINESS WEEK. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Cubicle PHOTO: Cover, ``Leading the Revolution'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

Copyright 2000-2008, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Use   Privacy Notice