Overview:
— I got this book as an advance review copy. Rita McGrath has produced another stunning book, in a way even better than her earlier book “The End of Competitive advantage”. You can pre-order the book here.
Ease of reading:
— The book is not only easy to read. The stories and the insights from the stories follow one after the other. The stories keep the reader interested and the insights from the stories allows us to learn from these stories.
What I loved about the book:
- We are living in a world where there are inflection points coming at us from all around us. Industry after industry seems to be on the path of disruption. Given this scenario, the ability to see these inflection points early and knowing what to do (and when to do) is a meta skill that all leaders will need to develop, if they want to continue to be effective as leaders and to successfully navigate their organizations through these inflection points.
- She presents a simple framework through which we can look at these inflection points and decide what would be the appropriate response.
- The book seamlessly moves from being descriptive to becoming prescriptive.
- Every chapter ends with a key takeaways, so that if you don’t have the time or patience to read the entire chapter, you could quickly read the summary to get the gist of the chapter. While the summary is great, this gives some people incentive to just read the summary and not dive deeper, which leads to them not understanding the nuances.
What would I have done differently:
- I don’t think there is anything I would have done differently. She shares examples of how people and organisations already have used the principles that she presents in the book to navigate crucial inflection points.
- Maybe, it would have been very interesting for readers to see what in her opinion are some of the inflection points that are playing out in the market (that could have a significant impact on the market) and how would she expect the players in the market to respond. I think this could make an excellent additional material that she can provide for people who would like to know more and may not necessarily go into the book.
In Conclusion:
- If you are leading an organisation, business or even if you see yourself as the leader leading your life, this book comes highly recommended. I would give this book a 5/5. I also know that this is one of the books that I will be giving away the most copies of this holiday season.
- Past books that i have given away a lot of are
- Peak by Anders Ericsson
- The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath
- Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath
