Back in 2005 W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne, a pair
of business school professors at INSEAD, tipped business thinking on its side
by suggesting that a new way to succeed in business was to seek out uncontested
market space, which they dubbed “blue ocean space” as a way for businesses to
pursue success without focusing on competition. Their book which espoused the
theory, Blue Ocean Strategy went on
to become a perennial bestseller in the business world.
Kim and Mauborgne went on to apply their Blue Ocean
principals to other aspects of business including a lengthy journal treatment
on how to apply those principles to leadership. That Harvard Business Review
article is now available in a handy pocket sized (literally) book; Blue Ocean Leadership as part of the Harvard
Business Review Classics series.
The books premise is based on a Gallup study that shows
that only 30 % of employees actively apply their skills and energy to move
companies forward. Kim and Mauborgne offer a solution with blue ocean
leadership that will unleash and tap into the unexploited talent base and
under-utilized energy to help drive business forward.
Estimates of the costs of this level of dis-engagement
run to half a trillion dollars annually and the authors serve up a road map
with examples of how companies can tap this unrealized resource just by
re-thinking their approach to leadership or middle level and frontline staff.
The concepts are easily digestible and come with blue ocean strategy maps to
help the implementation process.
Simply by the portable nature of his book, it has found
its way into a pocket of my business backpack and I have reached for it during
strategic planning sessions on a number of occasions and can see it becoming a
go to resource for the foreseeable future.
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