Rita McGrath
Have business books jumped the shark? The “peak book” hypothesis
Thought Sparks
Introduction
Publishing a book used to be a rite of passage for would-be pundits, experts, speakers and more. Books once provided credibility, presence in the market and an audience for new ideas. But in an age where everybody has a book, has thought leadership in the management area migrated elsewhere?
In Search of Excellence Has a Lot to Answer For
1982. That’s when Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman’s manifesto, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies was published. It’s important to remember the reasons the book made such a splash. American companies were reeling from the first waves of globalization –sending many business models into free fall as global competition from countries like Japan began to dig into American companies’ market share. Articles with titles such as “Managing Our Way to Economic Decline” were in vogue. OPEC had discovered its power.
5 or more figure speaking fees. Lots of pricing power on the advisory front. Getting access to fancy conferences. Being recognized as an authority. Being on TV. Getting moderately famous. All these things at one point were very much associated, for business authors anyway, with having a successful book. The lifestyle associated with all this came to be known as “thought leadership” in which authors shaped the conversation that others were having, became well known and were much sought after.
You’ve got to have a book
No more blurbs, no more paperbacks … early warnings of a business book inflection?
The book business itself is changing in interesting ways as readers consume content on other platforms and through other media. It could be a real shift in the thought leadership industrial complex.
If having an impact on the world and getting ideas out there is the measure of effective and authentic thought leadership, I think we are already living in the reality that it’s not just books. Thought leaders are increasingly creating short, timely, easily consumable nuggets of ideas that shape ongoing conversations.
So what’s a thought leader to do?
Are books no longer the gold standard?
As someone who has been trying to wrestle a book to the ground for longer than I care to think about, I certainly hope not. But as a living mechanism for influencing ideas, books have their limitations. Had I written the one I’m working on (on permissionless organizations) on my original schedule, it would have been obsolete before it ever appeared between two covers.
Want to spark some thinking in your own organization?
https://thoughtsparks.substack.com/
