Books I’ve Written
Aberrant Capitalism: The Decline and Revival of Customer Capitalism
The corporation was a timely emergent phenomenon of the capitalist system. Under entrepreneurial ownership with customer value creation goals, corporations introduced new products and services, new capital structures and new management processes capable of improving customer experiences in every facet of their lives. After entrepreneurship, the organizational model transitioned to managerial capitalism, and from there into command-and-control and central planning. Then came further transition into the era of financialization, where shareholder value replaced customer value as the purpose of the corporation. Managers diverted resources to their own enrichment as well as that of shareholders, at the expense of investment in future innovation. Capitalism’s reputation has become tarnished and its purpose distorted. This Element ends with the promise of another emergent era, via the corporations of the digital age.
In an era where there is so much conceptual and linguistic imprecision in debates over political economy and, specifically, over capitalism, Hastings’s and Denning’s book sheds vital light onto the true nature of a capitalist market economy. Honest seekers of knowledge from all persuasions will find in this historical overview a much better and clearer understanding of what capitalism’s strengths and weaknesses are, and what criticisms or acclaims ascribed to the capitalist system are more correctly bound to the nature and activities of the corporations that operate within. They will discover that the primary purported problems of capitalism have not always existed in capitalist societies, that such problems are in fact quite modern. Perhaps we can narrow the ideological gap and begin to make some real progress together with this significant step in understanding.
–PROFESSOR MARK PACKARD
Florida Atlantic University
Research Director, Madden Center for Value Creation
The Interconnected Individual
Amazon Book Description: We now are in the era of service innovations and service models that are enabled by AI and cognitive computing. Some analysts have created fears of a replacement of human workers by smart machines, with a consequent loss of jobs and of morale among the population. In Seizing Individual Opportunity in the Cognitive Computing Era, Hastings and Saperstein explain why the opposite will be the case, and how individuals in all walks of life will find new ways to thrive with the help of cognitive assistants. This new book builds on the Service Thinking framework to focus upon the opportunity for individuals to augment and empower themselves by utilizing emergent cognitive computing capabilities. They may work in an enterprise, own a small business, lead a start-up, be a freelancer, or an individual customer of services who will benefit from the cognitive augmentations becoming available. In all cases, it’s a positive, optimistic and empowering message for individuals. The adaptive T-shaped individual will enjoy a cognitively augmented future if they seize the opportunity.
I recently read the Interconnected Individual and found the work to have strong depth and breadth of current issues we face in our professional lives (yet most of us haven’t spent the time to consider). It also serves as a thought-provoking exercise in awareness and reflection, while offering pragmatic insights and exercises to help readers look forward, design, and plan their career path. I was particularly drawn to the conversation around values-based career navigation.
— D. LUKE IORIO
PCC, President of iPEC and One Idea Away
Service Thinking: The Seven Principles to Discover Innovative Opportunities
Amazon Description: Business paradigm shifts are rare. However, the shift to a services-dominant economy and to services-dominant value creation genuinely merits the designation. Almost 80% of GDP in developed economies is attributable to services, and some economists regard products as merely the physical embodiment of service delivery. Yet today’s business analysis, business management, business organization, business processes, and business education emerged from manufacturing-dominant logic; the principles of service are often under-served and poorly understood. This results in lost opportunities for growth. Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) has been slowly bubbling up and building learning and knowledge in academia for 30 years, with an acceleration in the last ten years. The disciplines, principles, insights and tools of SSME are now ready to transition to the mainstream business world, with transformative effect.
This is a must-read for anyone trained in traditional process improvement or business architecture […] I intend to buy a copy for every member of my team.
— DART LINDSLEY
Senior Manager of Transformation Planning & Analysis, Cisco
Bust the Silos: Opening Your Organization for Growth
Amazon Description: For the first time, marketing can systematically drive top-line revenue growth and long-term business value. Finally, your organization can have a marketing discipline that begins with customer insight and leverages the full benefits of process, creativity, measurement, and collaboration. In this book, legendary marketing innovator Hunter Hastings helps you build that revolutionary marketing organization and use it to achieve unprecedented business results.
Discover how to integrate marketing and customer knowledge into everything your company does…leverage technology to identify breakthrough opportunities and marketable innovations…learn faster, act faster, and drive maximum value from every marketing investment you make.
Marketing is part art and part science. The ‘art era’ was ok in the 20th century. If you need to consistently generate growth and increased profitability in this century, you better stick with the science. When cost cutting is not enough to improve the bottom line, it is time to focus again on the consumer. Improve Your Marketing to Grow Your Business shows how to go from consumer insights to relevant innovation and actionable marketing plans. Metrics to measure marketing effectiveness complete a must-read book.
– ARTURO MASSA
Leading Global Marketing Executive, Fortune 500 Company
Bust the Silos: Opening Your Organization for Growth
This book presents a shifting new paradigm for growth in today’s global economy -Demand Creation. Using examples of companies who are implementing Demand Creation principles to innovate and grow their businesses today, the authors explain how any company can adapt, innovate, and compete more effectively on a global scale. Their Demand Creation methodology is proven, empirically based, and repeatable. Inside this text authors, Hastings and Saperstein reveal:
- Why Demand Creation is the next paradigm for organic organizational growth.
- How long-established companies with legacy systems create structural and cultural barriers that make Demand Creation adoption more difficult than in newer companies.
- The essential role of senior management in Demand Creation adoption.
- How Demand Creation can be applied to brand building through the application of process and cross-functional integration.
Bust The Silos is a must read for managers, staff, and executives who want to understand how organizations have embraced “Demand Creation” as a new paradigm to support competitive advantage in the 21st Century. In this easy-to-digest book, the authors provide rich, detailed examples of how such companies as Genentech,Cisco, and Clorox have applied the principles of the “Demand Creation Model” by focusing on creating: role-based functions rather than jobs, multifunctional teams rather than departments, networks rather than silo structures, value through intangibles, and innovation though a customer centric orientation.
– Michael Albert