The book in a nutshell
With his book, Umair Haque (@umairh) continues the journey he started on his Harvard Business Blog to provide us with a blueprint for business that is fit for the 21st century. Having in mind that more and more money does not make us more and more happy he envisions a capitalism that stops throwing at people more and more useless stuff and thin value. With "thin value" he means value that is fully loaded with negative externalities such as environmental distruction, exploitation of labor or adverse health effects for consumers. He instead provides us with five tools for creating thick value, these are:
As a regular reader of his blog I have been quite skeptical of his theories for a long time. Often because they were lacking hard facts and uncompromising evidence. However, in The New Capitalist Manifesto Umair Haque (@umairh) provides us with a rich set of examples of what he calls "Constructive Capitalists". While - obviously - this is no undeniable proof, it uncovers the inner mechanisms of a capitalism fit for the 21st century.
Why it might help
Mankind knows how to overcome the steepest sustainability challenges we face - water scarcity, greenhouse gases, pollution etc. Countless scientific and hands-on papers have been written on all those problems. However, very little work has been done on how to overcome change resistance. A recently published paper entitled Change resistance as the crux of the environmental sustainability problem by systems engineer Jack Harich puts forth the hypothesis that it's change resistance that we have to tackle now. By showing how to create value from sustainable business this is exactly where Umair Haque's (@umairh) book might contribute.
Currently I'm reading "Universal Princinples of Design" by William Lidwell (@williamlidwell), Kritina Holden and Jill Butler (@jillkb).
With his book, Umair Haque (@umairh) continues the journey he started on his Harvard Business Blog to provide us with a blueprint for business that is fit for the 21st century. Having in mind that more and more money does not make us more and more happy he envisions a capitalism that stops throwing at people more and more useless stuff and thin value. With "thin value" he means value that is fully loaded with negative externalities such as environmental distruction, exploitation of labor or adverse health effects for consumers. He instead provides us with five tools for creating thick value, these are:
- value cycles instead of value chains
- value conversations instead of value propositions
- philosophy instead of strategy
- completing a marketplace instead of protecting a marketplace
- betters instead of goods
As a regular reader of his blog I have been quite skeptical of his theories for a long time. Often because they were lacking hard facts and uncompromising evidence. However, in The New Capitalist Manifesto Umair Haque (@umairh) provides us with a rich set of examples of what he calls "Constructive Capitalists". While - obviously - this is no undeniable proof, it uncovers the inner mechanisms of a capitalism fit for the 21st century.
Why it might help
Mankind knows how to overcome the steepest sustainability challenges we face - water scarcity, greenhouse gases, pollution etc. Countless scientific and hands-on papers have been written on all those problems. However, very little work has been done on how to overcome change resistance. A recently published paper entitled Change resistance as the crux of the environmental sustainability problem by systems engineer Jack Harich puts forth the hypothesis that it's change resistance that we have to tackle now. By showing how to create value from sustainable business this is exactly where Umair Haque's (@umairh) book might contribute.
Currently I'm reading "Universal Princinples of Design" by William Lidwell (@williamlidwell), Kritina Holden and Jill Butler (@jillkb).
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