How do you safeguard your livelihood in a dramatically changing world?   COVID-19 created massive and lasting shifts in consumer behavior, only to be followed by the rapid rise of Generative AI.  The world is changing quickly. Our only choice is to match the same speed in transforming our own ideas, businesses and careers.  I wanted to share the books that have helped me speed up and get more future-proofed.  It’s not a long list, but these four books are as relevant as ever and great at clarifying what’s required to safeguard your ideas and future. 

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd  Youngme Moon 2011

I love this book as a reminder that being different is much more powerful than being better.  We can so easily get stuck in a highly competitive, incremental mindset that forces us to outwork and outspend our competitors to find growth.  This is the feature/flavour arms race and it’s a massive challenge in most of retail and it might also be the challenge with your resume.  We create well-rounded brands with broad appeal, armed with research to validate their relevance, but that increasingly look the same as everyone else.  It’s not smart, nor does it unlock disproportionate value.  In contrast, to be truly different is to embrace the very idea of polarization.  It’s not about differences that say nothing, but the kind that speaks volumes.  And this is hard, because it also creates friction.  To stand for something means that some people won’t like it, but others will love it.  The magic is in the love. Yup.  I just wrote that.

Easy to read, lots of inspiring stories and a good reminder on waking up every day and asking yourself what you are doing not to out-compete but to escape competition altogether.  And it’s a great mindset to bring to your business and your career.

Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, And Innovators Create And Dominate Markets. Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead 2016

This book is the Silicon Valley version of ‘Different’.  A handful of smart ‘valley’ execs have created a working guide to what they call ‘category design’.  It is the ultimate expression of escaping competition through designing a new market category combined with the insane ambition of start-up culture.  You define a new market category, develop it, and dominate it over time to create massive value.  And it applies as much to your career as it does your business.  They weave this narrative together with stories from ‘category kings’ like Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA, but challenge that the approach applies to all industries and careers.  They also highlight opportunities to create value through a broader ecosystem of experiences and momentum through value ‘flywheels’.  New terms for things we already knew but now more simply expressed. 

Product Design + Company Design + Category Design = $ & :)

I like this one because it also includes a structured playbook, which makes it easier to think through the practical application to your own transformation initiatives.  There is lots of good content on how to uncover a unique category, the importance of powerful and consistent communications to express the problem that your category uniquely solves, as well as the process to build your organization or career up to a launch, which they call the ‘Lighting Strike’.  A powerful moment in time where you align all of your resources and the market to express your new category to all stakeholders. As the world begins to shift out of crisis and into recovery, what’s your brand or career lighting strike?

The book includes a specific a chapter which is all about applying the playbook to your own career.  It asks lots of good questions like what category do you want to create and ultimately own when it comes to your personal brand? Again - it’s all about different versus better.  And in this day and age, I don’t think anyone can afford to ‘Play Smaller’.

Leading Transformation - How to Take Charge of Your Company’s Future.  Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel, Thomas Zoega Ramsoy 2018

This book is more about how to execute transformational change versus designing the strategy itself, not surprising as it’s written by an executive, a neuroscientist and an academic.  It’s a rallying cry to stop incremental thinking and the tendency to act on what is nearby, familiar and easy to access and start driving towards what’s possible.   

The book is broken up into 3 sections: envisioning the possible, breaking down resistance, and prototyping the future, each one filled with process and tools to move beyond the intractable human response to change and lead brands into the unknown.  In particular, I found significant value in the approach to defining the strategic narrative of the future that is grounded in both organizational language (yes, words really do matter) and presented in simple yet powerful ways (they use a comic book format as an example).  I was introduced to the mindset of a ‘Chaos Pilot’ and the profile and capabilities required to navigate highly disruptive and rapidly changing environments, all of which have become essential to the next wave of leadership and career development. And finally, I found a lot of value in the Future KPI framework and the need for new metrics to help produce data-driven indicators that build confidence as you navigate through uncharted waters, situations where mature metrics are often ill-suited.

All of this is paired with examples and case studies from brands such as Lowe's, Walmart, Pepsi, IKEA, Google and Microsoft.  It’s not the easiest read, and it gets a little heavy into the neuroscience of change at times, but definitely worth it as some of the insights and frameworks are priceless.  This is my go-to reference on transformational change management.

The Reinventionist Mindset: Learning to Love Change, and the Human How of Doing it Brilliantly.  Joe Jackman 2020

The most recent book to be published in the series is the one that I would recommend reading last as it ties everything together.  Joe Jackman has a career of experience managing retail transformations, the most famous of which is Duane Reade in NYC plus Dave & Busters, Flow water and most recently, Staples (success TBD).

The book is broken up into two sections, the reinventionist mindset paired with a full step-by-step playbook that guides the reader from strategy design through to implementation. It’s detailed, easy to read and has a very practical and applicable framework.  And there are a few themes that really resonate.

First off, Joe frames up transformation as a fundamentally human endeavour with a business consequence versus a business endeavour with a human consequence.  It all starts and ends with people.  Get it right with people and you will get it right with the business. This theme runs throughout the book and applies as much to team members as it does with consumers.  I would also argue that the same applies to careers.  Joe builds off this insight with lots of tips around rallying everyone together to build the vision of the future followed by a detailed framework to execute the plan.  In summary, build momentum together or don’t build any at all.  The book also clarifies the importance of being open to learning from everything you put in motion, and continually evolving and refining as you go.  Your plans won’t be perfect, as nothing survives the first contact with reality, but you are better off moving with speed.  The same goes for updating your LinkedIn profile. And finally, the importance of relentlessly focussing on the outcome you want to achieve and courageously driving towards it until it becomes a reality.  Transformations, and careers, are inherently messy and at times we can drift from the course and lose sight of our north star, so never forget about what you want to achieve and never shy away from continually reminding everyone, including yourself.

If the best way to succeed in the future, is to help invent it, then this is a solid playbook for getting there.  And just like Joe Jackman, it’s articulate and well designed.

The insights and references have been invaluable to me as I navigate transformations at work. They’ve also been great at refining my own thinking about my career, skill set and how I am best positioned to add value.  There is no choice when it comes to change.  It’s hard, with lots of bumps and barriers, but it’s not a risk.  The risk is in not changing at all.

#futureproof