Is there a strategic blueprint to turn disruption into positive change, or are businesses trapped in a repeat boom and bust cycle?
Businesses and enterprises which are poorly aligned or fail to realign to reflect the new realities of their changing business environment are at risk of damaging consequences, warns a book listed among Bloomberg’s Best Business Books 2022.
The recent banking crisis involving Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), other American banks and Credit Suisse in Europe is a case in point. With the 2008 global financial crisis still fresh in memory, many observers find it baffling that this sort of crisis seems to be again hitting the financial services sector. This is despite well-articulated guidelines, warnings based on painful lessons learned and compelling academic research.
The recent book, ‘Re:Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Overcoming Disruption and Improving Performance’ by Professor Jonathan Trevor of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, is one such example. Bloomberg listed it among the Best Business Books 2022, presenting it as one of ‘the most fascinating, mind-blowing, challenging, hilarious, and urgent titles of the year’.
‘Toward the end of every year, we reach out to the more than 2,700 journalists who work at Bloomberg and ask them to canvass the executives they cover in search of the best recently published books,’ Bloomberg explains its methodology to indicate the difficulty of being selected as one of the best business books of the year.
Among those executives whom Bloomberg calls top business leaders are Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Governor of Bank of Finland, and CEOs of Volkswagen AG, Trivago, Christie’s, and PayPal.
'I am delighted that the book's frameworks and insights for how to align and realign enterprises to be fit for purpose in our complex, changeable and disrupted global business environment resonates so closely with business leaders', says Professor Trevor, reflecting on the selection of his book in the Bloomberg Best Business Books list.
In Re:Align, published by Bloomsbury and drawing upon active research at Oxford Saïd, Professor Trevor provides tangible and practical insights into how organisations, or enterprises, can tackle disruption and the unexpected and improve performance. It answers why some businesses thrive while others struggle - principally because of misalignment between their enduring purpose (as a business), their chosen approach to market (their strategy) and how they are organised, including their culture and people. It also provides a compelling critique of the trend towards prescriptive one-fits-for-all approaches to solving predicaments facing today’s organisations and for which there are no shortcuts or easy answers.
Professor Trevor is no stranger to such awards as the first edition of this book, published in 2019 with the title ‘Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Aligning Enterprise Purpose, Strategy and Organization’ was selected as a Financial Times Book of the Month, a finalist for the 2020 Business Book Awards and featured in the press as a must-read for CEOs and senior leaders.
Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever (2009-19) and author of Net Positive, said about Re:Align: ‘Today’s C-suites are well-advised to heed Jonathan Trevor's distinctive wisdom and method… If you want to build a thriving company in our increasingly complex and unpredictable world, you have to take a holistic approach to your company’s values, strategy and structures. Greater alignment can undoubtedly help secure lasting success’.
Professor Trevor’s book aims to help thousands of enterprises globally operating below their potential. He outlines how strategic realignment, a leadership process to overcome disruption and secure sustainable high performance, can turn disruption into an advantage. Given that change is a constant and disruption to the business environment is ever more likely, there couldn’t be a better time to heed Professor Trevor’s distinctive blueprint in Re:Align.