The Heart of Business

Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly, Caroline Lambert

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781647820381
• eBook ISBN: 9781647820398
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

A remarkable turnaround by a man with a remarkable philosophy: Put people first. Provide meaning to workers. Lead with heart.

"It was December in Minnesota. It was cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes his first days as CEO of Best Buy, a job most thought he was crazy to accept. The company faced long odds as Amazon tore a disruptive path through the retail industry. But in the face of that existential threat, Joly did something remarkable: He saved the company, then remade Best Buy into a company that turned profits while being consistently rated as one of the most desirable businesses to work for.

Having recently stepped down as Chairman and CEO, the notoriously non-public Joly is ready to tell us how he did it. With compelling stories from his three-decade leadership journey, Joly shares the principles that make him successful. The core of his philosophy might surprise you. It's not rigid management discipline or relentless focus on data. The heart of business, he says, is to put people first, provide meaning to workers, pursue a noble purpose, and treat profit as an outcome.

There was a time when many would consider this a soft philosophy. But times are changing. Best Buy was one of the signatories to the momentous Business Roundtable letter in support of a stakeholder-centric view of capitalism that continues to redefine our view of what a successful company is.

Joly himself was transformed from a skeptic. As much as this is a story about Best Buy's transformation, it's also the story of Hubert Joly's transformation from a young, hard-charging McKinsey consultant to the leader who turned around a company by focusing on what he calls human magic. His transformation came throughout his career as a leader, culminating in Best Buy's remarkable story. He will share what it means, practically, to lead with heart and how many assumptions about the practical mechanics of management, from incentives to decision making to feedback, must be rethought. It worked at Best Buy and Joly is ready to proclaim that it's not just the right way to lead, but also the profitable way. It is the very heart of business.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part One: The Meaning of Work
• Part Two: The Purposeful Human Organization
• Part Three: Unleashing Human Magic
• Part Four: The Case for Purposeful Leadership
• Conclusion: A Call for Action
• Notes
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors