What do you say to leaders who think that concepts like purpose-and leading with humanity-are ‘squishy’? My main driver in writing this book was not to tell the world that “I’ve got it I’ve figured it out.” I did feel, though, that much of what I learned when I was at business school or in my early years as an executive is either wrong, dated, or incomplete.Īnd so I wanted to provide a guide to leaders at all levels who are eager to abandon old ways and are keen to lead from a place of purpose, and with humanity. And yet at the same time how hard this is, and how all of us are on a journey to become better. The greatest surprise or delight is just how widely held this view is-that leading with purpose and humanity is the way to go. What surprised you most about writing the book-whether in the research or response? To find new ways for all of us to lead so that we can create a better future, a more sustainable future.

And so I felt-before the COVID-19 crisis, of course, but even more so now-that we need an urgent refoundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity. use your brain to get to the right answer, and then tell people what to do.Ĭlearly, this has gotten us into trouble. McNamara, architect of a futile war, dies at 93,” New York Times, July 6, 2009,. For 40 years, we’ve been following a model that was based on two sources of inspiration: Milton Friedman’s primacy of shareholders and Bob McNamara’s 1 Robert McNamara was the US secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 and is best known for his role in the US involvement in the Vietnam War. The world is clearly facing a multifaceted crisis, whether it’s the health crisis, economic crisis, social-justice crisis, the environment, and so forth.Īnd what’s the definition of madness? Doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome.

What problem were you trying to solve with this book? An edited version of the conversation follows. In his new book, The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism (Harvard Business Review Press, May 2021), Joly (an alumnus of McKinsey’s Paris and New York offices) highlights the leadership principles that fueled Best Buy’s resurgence and describes his own quest to become a more authentic, vulnerable, and human leader. In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Tom Fleming talks with Hubert Joly, former chairman and CEO of Best Buy and currently a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School.

Book the heart principle