How Corporations Succeed

Professor Lynda Gratton publishes new book The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving the World's Toughest Problems

The Key, which is published today and contains case studies from over 20 companies, explores the ways in which today’s corporations – already bigger, wealthier and more powerful than ever before – can ensure a resilient future by embedding themselves in the world around them.

Using proven examples from around the world, including Unilever, Tata Consultancy Services, Yakult and Natura Group, Professor Gratton looks at the ways companies can build inner and outer resilience through experimentation, amplifying intelligence and building alliances.

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour, London Business School, says: “One of the things I see changing most significantly in the world around us is the need for leaders and the corporations they lead, to widen the context in which they operate. For decades, executives were encouraged to view the world outside the corporation primarily as a field of competitors to be battled with or of consumers to be lured. The outside world of surrounding neighbourhoods was barely considered, or was kept in the periphery of a corporate social responsibility function rather than seen to be central to the strategy of the business.

"What I see emerging now is an acknowledgment that corporations need to develop a deeper, more meaningful and more positive relationship with the outside world. Corporate leaders are realising that the world outside the walls of their offices does matter, and that it can dramatically impinge on their business. Neighbourhoods are being recognised as a crucial part of the life system of a corporation and being a good neighbour is becoming an important part of every organisation’s profile.”

The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving the World’s Toughest Problems, is published by McGraw Hill, and will be launched at The RSA in London on 9 June and in a webinar on 10 June. In mid-June Professor Gratton will visit Hong Kong and Japan where her 2011 book The Shift enjoyed award-winning success.

The Key is available to order through Amazon.com.