Books and publishing

Thinkers50 publishes what we believe to be important titles that merit a place in business and management literature. In addition, we partner with the international publishing house John Wiley & Sons to offer the Thinkers50 Imprint.

ManagementGPT

Prototypes of AI Co-Thinkers

For all the talk about Generative AI the work of management remains largely untouched by the new tech wave. Research by Katim Lakhani of Harvard Business School suggests that less than 10 percent of executives use Generative AI tools in their daily work.

But, how can —and will—GenAI change the world of management?

A new report from The Management Lab by Capgemini Invent in partnership with Thinkers50 provides exciting new practical insights into the likely future of management. Welcome to the world of ManagementGPT.

The central transformative insight from this research project is to understand GenAI’s potential to act as a collaborative Co-Thinker rather than as a mere Co-Pilot. The role of a Co-Pilot often renders humans passive, merely awaiting answers or task completion. In contrast, strategic dialogue with an AI Co-Thinker brings value through feedback and mutual challenge. This opens up a way forward to what really matters for managers and their organizations: better decisions, more rounded strategies and truly transparent leadership.

The Human-Centric Enterprise

As the future of work rapidly evolves, we must urgently reassess our
understanding of where, how and why we work
.

In this thought-provoking and timely book developed by Mercer and Thinkers50, we journey through the seismic and inevitable shift toward a more human-centric enterprise. We see how this fundamental restructuring is revolutionizing not just how we perform work but also how we classify, organize, manage and are rewarded for it.

Using their own data and insights, an array of Mercer subject matter experts investigate important dimensions of this high-speed shift, from rethinking leadership roles and resetting work around human-centric values and innovating work experiences, to leveraging culture for transformation, approaching technology through the lens of empathy, redesigning pay and rewards, and the evolution of the HR function.

Guided by a human-centric approach to organizational and work design, this book redefines our perspective on modern workplaces and offers advice for leaders on how to prepare for this vital and inevitable transition toward a more human-centric enterprise.

Developed by Mercer and Thinkers50, The Human-Centric Enterprise redefines our perspective on putting people at the center of modern workplaces.

Certain Uncertainty

Leading with Agility and Resilience in an Unpredictable World

Improve your ability to adapt to an increasingly unpredictable world.

In Certain Uncertainty, renowned management theorist Des Dearlove delivers an exciting and illuminating discussion of how to build resilience and agility into our lives and businesses. As rapid and foundational change becomes ever more constant, a state of constant disruption increasingly becomes our new normal. Certain Uncertainty collects advice and fresh thinking from accomplished business leaders to help managers and executives navigate contemporary markets.

An engaging and insightful exploration of a dynamic and ambiguous world that’s increasingly full of surprises, Certain Uncertainty will earn a place on the bookshelves of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries seeking ways to adapt to a world in which sameness and certainty are relics of the past.

The Digital Transformation Playbook

What You Need to Know and Do

The Digital Transformation Playbook: What You Need to Know and Do is an indispensable resource for you and your organization as you embark on the exciting and challenging journey of digital transformation. It features insights and wisdom on the ideas and best practice driving digital transformation. Contributors include leading thinkers and practitioners drawn from throughout the world.

The stakes are high. As the Project Management Institute President and CEO, Pierre Le Manh writes: “Ultimately, digital transformation is about driving business growth and success by use of technology. It is about finding new and innovative ways to deliver value to your customers and to stay ahead of the competition. With the right tools, strategies, and mindset, you can emerge stronger and more competitive than ever before.

Building Resilient Organizations

Best Practices, Tools, and Insights to Thrive in Ever-changing Contexts

In our tumultuous times, understanding and achieving resilience has never been more important. Some organizations have resilience in their DNA. They possess the agility of mind, culture, and organization to survive and thrive no matter what is put in their way.

Building Resilient Organizations is focused on identifying what sets these enterprises apart, exploring the nature of resilience for organizations. Along the way, we discover some inspiring global examples of resilient projects in practice and some novel thinking for leaders to consider about what it takes to be resilient over the long haul.

With contributions from leading thinkers and practitioners from throughout the world, Building Resilient Organizations will enable you and your organization to further develop resilience as a muscle at your organization.

Perpetual Transformation

Practical Tools, Inspiration, and Best Practice to Constantly Transform Your World

Transformation is no longer a short-lived initiative. It is not a program. It is not linear.

Instead, the world’s leading organizations now embrace transformation as a a challenging, stretching, exciting and essential constant in their lives. Welcome to the age of perpetual transformation.

Now, the Brightline Initiative and Thinkers50 have collaborated to bring together some of the world’s leading minds on the theme of perpetual transformation. Curated by Thinkers50 cofounder Stuart Crainer and introduced by PMI COO Michael DePrisco, Perpetual Transformation features ideas and insights from Didier Bonnet, Susie Kennedy, Kaihan Krippendorff, Jeffrey Kuhn, Habeeb Mahaboob, Tony O’Driscoll, Martin Reeves, Lars Fæste, Tom Deegan, April Rinne, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Gabriele Rosani, Paolo Cervini, Robin Speculand, Behnam Tabrizi and a host of others.

Enterprise China

Adopting a Competitive Strategy for Business Success

Authors Allen Morrisson and Stewart Black explain how the overarching vision, strategy, and ambition of the Chinese state and the Communist Party guide and impact key commercial enterprises in China. An insightful roadmap for businesses engaging with Chinese enterprise, this book explores the unique nature of Chinese business and focuses on the interconnectedness of it with the state.

“Wherever you are in the world and whatever business you are in, you will have some association with China. How much it impacts your business will depend on what sector you are in and what strategy you adopt, but ignoring China is no longer an option. Meticulously researched, this timely book, written by two China experts, provides clear strategies for foreign business executives operating both inside – and outside – China.” – Des Dearlove, co-founder, Thinkers50

Government Reimagined

Leading Through New Realities

The traditional model of government is no longer fit for purpose. A new approach is required.

Government can no longer be isolated from the increasingly volatile ecosystem in which it operates. Government Reimagined explores a more synergistic model for an effective government and addresses the new realities of public leadership. With contributions from former presidents, prime ministers, and senior government ministers, internationally renowned expert Dr Ali Qassim Jawad takes the reader on a transformative journey to the future of government.

Rich with real life examples, case studies and guidance, this ground-breaking book will inspire you to action.

Transforming Beyond the Crisis

What Organizations Need to Do Now to Seize Tomorrow

The Covid-19 pandemic reminded us how fragile our societies, businesses, and our lives are. It turned things upside down in a matter of weeks. Today, the question is what do you need to do now to seize tomorrow? Transforming Beyond the Crisis is a new book by Brightline Initiative and Thinkers50 and brings a unique compilation of the best thinking from the world’s leading business thinkers and practitioners. They share their groundbreaking ideas, global experience and valuable insights. It provides lessons learned, practical tools, and inspiration to guide leaders through the current crisis and carry forward their transformation agenda.

Ecosystems Inc.

Understanding, harnessing, and developing organizational ecosystems

Insights from the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners.

Organizations were once linear and one dimensional. No more. The modern organization exists in a multi-dimensional ecosystem sustained by a potent combination of trust, technology, and management. Think of Amazon, Alibaba, WeWork, Tencent, and Uber. In Ecosystems Inc. some of the world’s leading management thinkers make sense of what it takes to understand, harness, and develop organizational ecosystems.

Looking Ahead: The Sustainable Global Agenda

Our oceans and forests are home to many diverse ecosystems that support the livelihoods of billions of people. Metals, minerals, and energy provide us with the raw materials to create entire industries, from transport to healthcare. This, in addition to labour and innovation has spurred a series of technological revolutions and driven unprecedented global economic growth, lifting millions out of poverty. But the strain on the earth’s resources is increasing. So how do we create the thriving cities of tomorrow? How do we drive social and economic progress for all? How do we tackle climate change? Looking Ahead: The Sustainable Global Agenda examines key global developments, challenges and opportunities, presenting data-driven evidence in creative graphics. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

The Chief Strategy Officer Playbook

How to Transform Strategies Into Great Results

The CSO Playbook showcases some of the very best thinkers and business leaders in the field of strategy implementation and beyond. Thinkers50 ranked and award-winning thinkers are featured including Anil Gupta, Haiyan Wang, Rita McGrath, Antonio Nieto Rodriguez, Alessandro Di Fiore, and Julian Birkinshaw. The result is a unique and compelling collection of valuable experiences, research, insights, and recommendations to help transform strategies into great results.

Innovation@Work

What it takes to succeed with Innovation

Innovation is where the worlds of business and creativity meet to create new value. It really is as simple as that. Indeed, one definition of innovation is “the creation of new value.”

Innovation@Work is a smorgasbord of ideas and insights on innovation. We are delighted to partner with Fujitsu’s Open Innovation Gateway (OIG) in bringing Innovation@Work to the world. OIG describes itself as a gateway to growth, truly contributing to our new understanding of innovation as something built on sharing, collaboration, exploration, and openness. Fujitsu has also been the sponsor of the Thinkers50 Innovation Award since its inception. So far, the award has been given to Clay Christensen, Linda Hill, Navi Radjou, and Scott Anthony – all of whom are featured in Innovation@Work. Opening up to innovation is the way forward.

Join us!

Strategy@Work

Strategy@ Work

A Brightline and Thinkers50 collaboration bringing together the very best thinking and insights in the field of strategy and beyond.

If you ask a manager what excites them about their job, what gets them out of bed in the morning, what provides meaning to their work, their answers tend to be similar no matter where they are in the world, who they work for, or what their job is. Distilled to three words it is: Getting things done. Strategy@Work showcases some of the very best thinkers in the field of strategy and beyond. We hope that it acts as a catalyst for readers to get things done.

Dear CEO

50 Personal Letters from the World‘s Leading Business Thinkers

This collection of specially-commissioned letters offers clear, calming, and concise advice from across the spectrum of current leadership thinking. Written by respected business thinkers around the world, these 50 letters provide guidance, wisdom and personal insight into the particular challenges facing the business world today and anyone in a senior position. Contributors include high-profile names such as Tom Peters, who stresses the importance of focussing on the people within an organization; Liz Mellon, who writes to her CEO about gender equality in the workplace; Chris Zook, explaining how a change of mentality can lead to exponential growth; and Linda Brimm, who discusses managing global cosmopolitans and a modern workforce.

Haier Purpose

The real story of China‘s first global super-company

In 1984 Zhang Ruimin took over as Director of the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory. The small collectively-owned factory was losing money. Others had tried to turn the venture around and failed. Money had to be borrowed to pay wages and products often had to be repaired before leaving the factory.

Since then Zhang Ruimin and Haier have cut an impressive swathe through business orthodoxy. Their experiments and innovations in management are unique in their scale. Today, Haier has 75,000 employees and annual revenues of over $32 billion. In 2016 Haier bought GE’s appliances business in the US for $5.4 billion. This year Zhang Ruimin was identified by Fortune as one of the World’s Greatest Leaders.

Now, for the first time, the inside story of the company’s rise and its revolutionary approach to management and leadership is told by Hu Yong and Hao Yazhou in Haier Purpose.

The Giving World

The Three Financial Forces That Could Transform Global Development

The developing world faces many significant social and economic challenges. These include tackling poverty and disease, reducing crime, and creating the infrastructure and security needed to foster economic prosperity and create jobs. Governments around the world currently provide some $135 billion in international aid. But this is not enough. Many parts of the world also rely on the goodwill and financial support of charitable organizations and private individuals. Two other types of international giving are significant: international philanthropy; and money sent home by migrant workers as remittances. All together, government aid, philanthropy, and remittances add up to a staggering $350 billion a year. Yet, at present, these huge sums of money are underutilized; they are wasted or fall far short of their potential maximum impact.

What We Mean When We Talk About Leadership

In their newest title, Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer capture the extraordinariness as well as the ordinariness of great leaders. In What We Mean When We Talk About Leadership you will discover: how leaders build things, the behaviours of great leaders, how leaders thrive on ambiguity, and – why great leaders wear cardigans.

This entertaining and lively book presents a vision of leadership illuminated by conversations with entrepreneurs, management thinkers, CEOs of global businesses, and leading sports stars.

Government for a New Age

The Transformation Agenda

What is the role of government in the modern world?

The environment that governments operate in today is hugely complex. Governments face difficult challenges on all sides. Global upheavals and geopolitical shifts, climate change, rapidly evolving technologies and socio-economic demographics, resource constraints, an increasingly diverse constituency, and citizens’ more demanding expectations — these are just some of the forces driving societal changes and transforming the context in which governments operate.
Around the world governments are responding to these challenges by shifting the way they think, steer, organize, measure, and engage with citizens, and the private and third sector.
Until now, though, best practice has remained elusive. Intergovernmental collaboration and sharing of innovative policymaking is piecemeal.

Government for a New Age brings together the latest thinking on modern government. It sheds light on the current trends in governance practices, operating models, processes, and tools that leading governments are embracing.

Thinkers50 Leadership

Organizational Success Through Leadership

Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, creators of Thinkers50, have personally interviewed top leaders from businesses around the globe–from CEOs of multinationals to successful sports coaches to people on the front lines of education.

In Thinkers50 Leadership, the authors cull the best practices and most intriguing insights of today’s top leadership experts to give you an edge on the competition.

Thinkers50 Innovation

Breakthrough Thinking to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Innovation used to separate extraordinary companies from average companies. Today, it’s making the difference between those that succeed and those that outright fail. Business leaders have no choice: innovate or die.

Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, creators of Thinkers50, bring you the very latest thinking on the subject of business innovation. Citing the ideas and insights of the world’s leading thinkers and business practitioners, the authors present a guide to business innovation that will put you ahead of the competition.

Thinkers50 Management

Cutting-Edge Thinking to Engage and Motivate Your Employees for Success

Is management an art or a science? It is both—and much more. Management may be the single most important business discipline, and yet it is the most difficult to define.

Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, creators of Thinkers50, begin by providing a thorough definition of management. Thinkers50 Management then reveals the most innovative management theories and insights from today’s leading academics and practitioners.

Thinkers50 Business Thought Leaders from India

The Best Ideas on Innovation, Management, Strategy, and Leadership

India now produces a disproportionately high percentage of the business world’s most influential thinkers. As globalization progresses, it is increasingly clear that Indian thought leaders will have a major influence over how the world conducts business going forward.

Thinkers50 Business Thought Leaders from India reveals the uniquely Indian approach to management—which is in many ways radically different from Western-style capitalism. Less obsessed with profit and more focused on purpose, Indian-style management is changing the world of business.

Thinkers50 Strategy

The Art and Science of Strategy Creation and Execution

The ability to strategize is one of the most vital talents of any manager—whether you run your own business, manage a small department, or sit at the helm of a global corporation. And the more competitive business gets, the more important clear, creative strategic thinking is.

Revealing breakthrough concepts from today’s most innovative business minds, Thinkers50 Strategy helps you seize the competitive edge by arming you with the very latest thinking in business strategy.

Thinkers50 Future Thinkers

New Thinking on Leadership, Strategy and Innovation for the 21st Century

The most innovative ideas from the rising stars on the Thinkers50 Guru Radar Globalization, increasing competition, and the rapid pace of innovation are changing business best practices faster and faster. If you have long-term success in mind, you need to stay a step ahead of the competition.

Thinkers50 Future Thinkers reveals groundbreaking ideas from Thinkers50 Future Thinker award winner Nilofer Merchant; Monika Hamori, professor at Spain’s IE Business School; groundbreaking leadership thinker Gianpiero Petriglieri; the cocreator of Jugaad Innovation, Navi Radjou; as well as bestselling authors Adam Grant, James Allworth, and Dorie Clark. 

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Thinkers50 Awards Gala 2023

Join us in celebration of the best in business and management thinking.