You Say You Want a Revolution?

Book: Leading the Revolution
Author: Gary Hamel
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Price: $29.95

Book: One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy
Author: Thomas Frank
Publisher: Doubleday
Price: $26

You know you've reached an inflection point in the evolution of business ideas (or at least a transition point in your own thinking) when two new books appear, one by the world's top business strategist, the other by a critic of almost everything connected to business -- and you're not sure which one to root for. But that's the situation I find myself in.

Leading the Revolution is the latest tract from Gary Hamel -- superstar author, transAtlantic instructor, and self-styled revolutionary theorist. One Market Under God is the latest work of social criticism from Thomas Frank -- not exactly a household name in business circles, but a quick-witted writer with a sharp eye for the absurd.

What's so interesting about these books is that they are mirror images of each other. Hamel, who has been dazzling us for years with insights on business strategy, is right on almost all of his substance -- but the tone of his book is so annoyingly "revolutionary" that it interferes with the message. Frank is a true master of skewering overheated prose of the sort that Hamel offers. Unfortunately, he so thoroughly misunderstands the new economy that it's difficult to enjoy his takedowns. My advice? Make use of the virtues of both books, try to look beyond their shortcomings, and walk away smarter.

Who Wants to Be a Revolutionary?

First things first: Gary Hamel's new book is packed with savvy insights. Hamel is a master of explaining how big companies can adjust to the Net, how senior executives can tap the brains of people who have the best ideas, rather than the most seniority, and how everyone in business can figure out how to make an impact on their organization.

The problem with Leading the Revolution is the unbridled fervor with which Hamel presents these solid ideas. Just feast on some of the rhetoric in this book (written, after all, by a guy who is affiliated with the London Business School and the Harvard Business School): "You can become the author of your own destiny," he implores. "You can look the future in the eye and say: I am no longer a captive to history. Whatever I can imagine, I can accomplish. I am no longer a vassal in a faceless bureaucracy. I am an activist, not a drone.... I am a Revolutionary."

Or revel in Hamel's anticipation about the work of revolution: "You understand the revolutionary imperative. You feel it in your bones. You're vibrating with excitement at the thought of doing something new, building something radical, and you can't shut up about it.... So whaddya do? Beat your head against the walls of your cubicle? Throw yourself in front of the chairman's limo? Bide your time until the morons recognize your genius and promote you? Take early mental retirement? Enroll in a seminary?"

Phew! To be sure, Fast Company has had its own moments of rhetorical exuberance over the past five years. But after so much gut-wrenching change -- not to mention 80-hour workweeks, countless nights on the road, and email at midnight followed by email at dawn -- most of the businesspeople that I encounter have outgrown whatever fascination they might have had with the idea of business as a platform for "revolution." Yes, the nature of economic value has changed. Yes, the logic of competition is morphing. Yes, people are inventing new ways to work. But what most people are searching for today is a set of business ideas and a strategy for personal success that allow them to do great work, to build winning companies, to keep on innovating -- and maybe to have dinner with their families a few nights a week. Who really wants to be a revolutionary?

That said, if you can get beyond the book's Marxism-Leninism-Hamelism, you will find a set of ideas and practices that speak directly to people's real concerns. Not surprisingly, Hamel's most powerful insights are about the nature of strategy itself. Competition, he says, is not between companies, or technologies, or even products. It is between business concepts. The question is not, What products do you make? The question is, What ideas do you stand for? "Unless you and your company become adept at business concept innovation," Hamel argues, "more imaginative minds will capture tomorrow's wealth." That's because past success has never been less relevant than it is today. "Never has incumbency been worth less," Hamel argues. "The Internet has turned bricks and mortar into millstones. And venture capitalists pour millions of dollars into terrorist training camps for industry insurgents." (Here we go again with that revolutionary zeal.)