Rating: 
Summary: Waking the dead
Review: Can you wake the dead? Probably not. Tough job.Gary Hamel tries. He tries to wake the dead executives waiting for retirement. He calls them the "grey haired revolutionaries" and he believes they are the key to true innovation in many large corporations. They are. They are the mavericks who changed the world twenty years ago with their energy, drive, and deep commitment to business excellence. We need them now. They are among the few who have seen the future once and realized it. They can do the same today. They can see the future and help the new young mavericks realize it. Hamel also targets the young entrepreneurs within corporations who see the possibilities but are hesitant to share their insights with others. Hamel calls for them to speak up. Rise up! Do something! Good ideas come from good people. If good people do nothing... I found great value in this book. It exposes the short-sighted thinking of many of the dot com wiz kids and points to the need for large corporations to create new value in the world. Not every large corporation is a dinosaur. Not every large corporation is a Titanic. Some large corporations are giants - good giants who have the power to perform heroic deeds, accomplish great feats, change the world. If I were part of a large corporation, I would find Hamel's work inspiring. As CEO of a small web consulting firm, I still find his work inspiring. Everyone counts. Great ideas can come from anywhere, but it takes hard work, commitment, and drive to realize them. Any one of us who have these gifts can bring them to the world and create value. I will try. Nice job, Gary.
Rating: 
Summary: Glossy Lightweight e-Business Journalism
Review: Aimed at 'the dreamers and doers' (guess that means startups, consultants and educators), "Leading the Revolution" attempts to foster innovation in business. The lightly referenced, overlong, glossy chapters in 4 parts span: ++ 1- Facing up to the revolution- the end of progress, and rising expectations, diminishing returns. ++ 2- Finding the revolution- business concept innovation, and be your own seer. ++ 3- Igniting the revolution- corporate rebels, and go ahead, revolt. ++ 4- Sustaining the revolution- grey haired revolutionaries, design rules for innovation, and the new innovation solution. Strengths include: the glossy colorful, heavy-weight paper; some attractive (consulting style) diagrams (customer interface, core strategy, strategic resources, and value networks linked, and underpinned by efficiency, uniqueness, fit, and profit boosters); and positive enthusiastic tone. Weaknesses include: content mimics the worst of Tom Peters (e.g. consider any random contradictory idea without support, be an active rebel, & embrace any change); typos; overlong journalistic prose (30% excessive); many seeming 2nd source anecdotes (from public domain); ignores credible science of change/ organizational behavior; ultimately a lack of confidence of author's direct knowledge of real-business change, processes & working environments. Overall, this was enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying (to this reviewer)- after reading, it failed the "so what" (is new) test. Better to look at college texts on 'new product development' for sets of practical tools to develop new products or services; and to books like 'Digital Capital' (ISBN 1578511933) which address the e-marketplace in a more structured manner.
Rating: 
Summary: More New Economy Blather
Review: While many of Hamel's writings delivered solid business roadmaps, in this book he appears to have "crossed over" into a world of subjectivity and exageration. This book has many "if you don't reinvent yourself everyday" urban myths. To read this you'd think that huge companies are becoming obsolete and going bankrupt daily. Published at the beginning of the year 2000, the book is almost obsolete by November. The idea of business concept innovation is the main theme of the book and the reader can tell that Hamel, now working in California, bought the whole dot.com story about making everyone else's business model obsolete. We now know this is nonsense and as a result the person whom the book calls "the greatest strategist in the world" looks rather silly as the ink still dries on his book. This book like many that have come before it, uses massive exageration to sell books. Follow the advice in this book and you too can end up like the companies featured in the book - beware.
Rating:
Summary: Leading the Revolution
Review: The best book on the subject revitalizing your business for the 21st Century. This books should be required reading for every business executive in the country. You will walk away from the reading a different person provide you have any kind of open mind. Hamel takes a complex subject and makes it easy to understand and more important he makes the ideas grab you. As a consultant, author and speaker I recommend this book to all my clients.
Rating:
Summary: The master at work
Review: This is Gary Hamel at his very best, describing in a clear and concise fashion the new world of revolutionary change. This is a world in which the winners will be those who have abandoned continuous improvement and have adopted revolutionary innovation as there driving force. We are living in a business world where incremental progress will not be enough to sustain competitive advantage. This new world requires much more than this - it requires revolution, new ways of working, new business models that revolutionise the industry. Hamel describes this as the end of progress, the end of incremental change. In this new economy what limits the future is our imagination, not technology or business processes. As Hamel explains, "Today we are limited only by our imagination....to fully realize the promise of our new age, each of us must become a dreamer, as well as a doer. In the age of progress, dreams were often little more than fantasies. Today, as never before, they are doorways to new realities. Our collective selves - our organizations- must also learn to dream". This new revolutionary age is fuelled by innovation, but innovation built on a new agenda. This is described by Hamel as: Continuous improvement and Non-linear innovation Product and process innovation and Business concept innovation Realising wealth and Creating wealth Serendipity and Capability Visionaries and Activists Scientists, marketer and Silicon Valley Hamel goes on to outline how organisations must think in different ways, to innovate and create new business concepts and models. He outlines the way in which organisations must become rebels and to revolt against the constraints of the past. Hamel creates a framework for developing a culture of innovation, and describes the "design rules for radical innovation" providing you with not only a conceptual framework but a practical process to implement real and sustained change in organisations. The final word must come from Hamel himself, " Our dreams are no longer fantasies, but possibilities....you are the one who now stands on the threshold of a new age - the age of revolution. You are blessed beyond belief. Don't falter. Don't hesitate. You were given this opportunity for a reason. Find it. Lead the revolution". Don't hesitate - buy this book, read it, and do it.
Rating: 
Summary: a revolution business can manage
Review: yeah, revolutionary language and a new look for a trusted strategy guru. Hamel captures the revolutionary vibe in a better-looking-than-most business book, but stops one step short of being truly revolutionary. This is just enough revolution to keep the current leaders in business, but for the same dare-to-be-different vibe made genuinely radical and personal check out books like Funky Business (another great looking book) and Cluetrain Manifesto. Closer to the imagination generation.
Rating:
Summary: A great book...
Review: It's a pity that Amazon does not have six stars ..if there is six stars, then this is the book. I have seen companies with managers having no real idea of what the internet is--- it's implications...the grey haired bosses continue to monitor the share prices in a pursuit of safe retirement... If this book was considered yet another mediocre book, just think....how many dot coms perished at the hands of senior bosses who had IPO and stock prices in mind ( camouflaged as revolutionary business model) a book that is a must read for a grey haired boss and for the visionary executive..
Rating:
Summary: Start The Revolution.
Review: This is not the usual Harvard Book type, too much of a Tom Peters there, and too funky to be the usual HB. I love the language, the -fonts- and -quotes-, I believe that a good book should also be an enjoyable book, an eye-openner, a page-turner. Not something we should bear, but something we should enjoy. This is not a very deep book about a certain model evangelism, per EVA/ REENGINERRING/ BALANCE SCORECARDS/ ETC f-a-d-s. But you will love this and pick a couple of ideas here n there. The first chapter i love most, the models afterward is nice and good, but it feel like the writer is trying hard to FIT the MODELS into a generalized business model. Aughh!. (well, not much to complain... but...) Recommend this to a couple of friends already, and most love the book, so this definitely worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Cheese Factory
Review: If a business author a) references Gandhi, King and Alinsky; b) uses Schwab, Cisco or Enron for case studies; or c) puts his/her picture on the cover of a book, I am suspect. Hamel does all three. In fact, he puts his picture on the book spine so you see his glamour shot when it sits on your shelf..(hint, think mailing label - it works great). Okay, other customers have commented on how this book, aside from the layout, is a totally uninnovative portayal of innovation so I will not waste space discussing that. I wanted to add one more thing to the discussion. I'll be honest after reading a few trashy trade-rag interviews with Hamel, I knew I had the wiring of the book and the fact that Hamel was academic turned evangelist. But I bought the book just for that reason. I was looking to hear a good sermon but was very disappointed. Hamel ain't no preacher even if he did get his Master's degree from a small liberal arts christian college. He strings together so many cheesy metaphors and punctuates every page with over the top adjectives the book becomes a death march to slough through. And if it isn't bad enough to run good business ideas through a cheese processor he further insults us by constantly reminding us of his intellectual genius. Juxtaposed with my reading of this was my reading of the second Harry Potter book. Looking for Gildroy Lockhart? You found him.
Rating:
Summary: Important ideas, but wait for the paperback...
Review: There are some great ideas in here - the essential component being that strategy and business concept innovation are best served when an organization foregoes the hoary 'strategic planning committee' approach and places its trust in the 'average' employee to uncover and develop these initiatives. But damn, I'm ripped at having to pay so much for this book. It clocks in at 314 pages when 200 or so would have had the same effect. The main culprit are these inane pieces of randomly injected, 4-color clip art that serve no other purpose than to break up the text. Not a single one of them clarifies anything that Hamel says here. To think I paid a premium to justify this ridiculous layer of puffery. This approach even extends to the book cover itself. In an egregious display of immodesty, the spine of the cover features a color photo of the author himself. Dude, you're a *management consultant*. Recent surveys have shown that 90%+ of the population can't even identify a picture of Jack Welch for god's sake. When steeling myself to actually read the words and ignore the other crap, I found the essence of some good ideas. An early runthrough of the fundamentals of a business model is outstanding and makes a great reference. I just wish I had waited for the paperback.
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