Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift by Tempering a Resilient Edge

A clarion call to business leaders to recast their conception of leadership and strategy execution to meet the demands of the modern world

Have a problem with your organization’s strategy in an era of accelerating, exponential change? Modern business orthodoxy has an easy answer: transform it. Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift argues this thinking is itself in need of an overhaul. Rather than devote time to expensive, long, and often unsuccessful transformations, leaders should instead focus on holistically designing and honing the management systems that are the nervous systems of their businesses. They can take a cue from chefs and other artisans and hone their organizations. After all, honing doesn’t sharpen knives; it realigns a knife’s steel to its original position. Choosing and honing the set of management systems that promote an organization’s desired outcomes (and uninstalling them when they are past their prime) is one of the most important things a business leader can do--and is just as much art as science.

The third in a trilogy of business strategy books written by renowned strategists and two-time Thinkers50-nominated authors Steven Goldbach and Geoff Tuff, this book explains why and how to optimally hone your organization’s execution of its strategy, with highlights including:

• The importance of recognizing and taking action to defy the drift that often afflicts organizations undergoing massive transformation
• Guidelines on how to design and continually reshape effective management systems to influence organizational and individual behaviors
• Reframing the job of CEOs to be Chief System Designers for their organizations
• Reflections on how honing principles within organizations can be used on broader societal challenges such as addressing climate change via the energy transition

Engaging, pragmatic, and inspiring, Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all private, public, and nonprofit sector professionals seeking to bring new sources of advantage to their organizations in a time of accelerating uncertainty and exponential change.

GEOFF TUFF is Deloitte’s global and U.S. leader for sustainability work with energy, resources, and industrials clients.

STEVEN GOLDBACH is Deloitte’s sustainability practice leader in the U.S. after serving nearly a decade as Deloitte’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Together, Tuff and Goldbach are co-authors of the Wall Street Journal bestselling books Detonate (2018) and Provoke (2021), and co-hosts of the monthly podcast Provocateurs: Profiles in Leadership. They were short-listed for Thinkers50’s Distinguished Achievement Awards in both Strategy (2019) and Leadership (2021).

TOM FISHBURNE is a marketing strategist and the creator of Marketoonist, a weekly cartoon series exploring the foibles of business since 2002.