This is not a book about one thing. It's not a 250-page dissertation on leadership, teams or motivation. Instead, it's an agenda for building organizations that can flourish in a world of diminished hopes, relentless change and ferocious competition.

This is not a book about doing better. It's not a manual for people who want to tinker at the margins. Instead, it's an impassioned plea to reinvent management as we know it--to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work.

Leaders today confront a world where the unprecedented is the norm. Wherever one looks, one sees the exceptional and the extraordinary:
* Business newspapers decrying the state of capitalism.
* Once-innovative companies struggling to save off senescence.
* Next gen employees shunning blue chips for social start-ups.
* Corporate miscreants getting pilloried in the blogosphere.
* Entry barriers tumbling in what were once oligopolistic strongholds.
* Hundred year-old business models being rendered irrelevant overnight.
* Newbie organizations crowdsourcing their most creative work.
* National governments lurching towards bankruptcy.
* Investors angrily confronting greedy CEOs and complacent boards.
* Newly omnipotent customers eagerly wielding their power.
* Social media dramatically transforming the way human beings connect, learn and collaborate.

Obviously, there are lots of things that matter now. But in a world of fractured certainties and battered trust, some things matter more than others. While the challenges facing organizations are limitless; leadership bandwidth isn't. That's why you have to be clear about what really matters now. What are the fundamental, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead? Hamel identifies five issues are that are paramount: values, innovation, adaptability, passion and ideology. In doing so he presents an essential agenda for leaders everywhere who are eager to...
* move from defense to offense
* reverse the tide of commoditization
* defeat bureaucracy
* astonish their customers
* foster extraordinary contribution
* capture the moral high ground
* outrun change
* build a company that's truly fit for the future

Concise and to the point, the book will inspire you to rethink your business, your company and how you lead.