No Ordinary Disruption

The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends

By: Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, Jonathan Woetzel

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's Summary

The dramatic fall of Blackberry and the stunning rise of What'sApp; the almost overnight emergence of "Single's Day" (Nov. 11), a contrived holiday in China, as the biggest online shopping day in the world, and the similarly from-out-of-nowhere rise of the U.S. as the world's newest petro-power: Are there common threads running through these big, important, stories?

Yes. Ours is an era of near constant discontinuity. Today and even more so in the years ahead, speed, surprise, and sudden shifts in direction in huge global markets will routinely shape the destinies of established companies and provide opportunities for new entrants. Business models can be up-ended in months. Competitors can rise in almost complete stealth and burst upon the scene. Businesses that were protected by large and deep moats now find their defenses are easily breached. New markets are conjured seemingly from nothing. Technology and globalization have put the natural forces of market competition on steroids.

This isn't just how the world now feels; it's also what the data tell us. Chart the plot points on most long-term trends and they no longer look like smooth upward slopes; they look like sawtooth mountain ridges, or like hockey sticks, breaking up sharply and to the right, or like the silhouette of Mt. Fuji, rising steadily only to start falling off. We live, increasingly, in an age of trend breaks.

In No Ordinary Disruption, the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, the flagship think tank of the world's leading consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, dive deeply behind current headlines to analyze the key forces transforming the global economy over the next two decades - and most importantly, to explain what business and government leaders need to do to reset their intuitions and take advantage of the disruptions ahead.

©2015 Richard Dobbs), James Manyika and Jonathan Woetzel (P)2015 Gildan Media LLC

Good performance, so-so content

The book is good to some extent but then gets repetitive. The main points are that India and China are rising, other economies are stagnating, there is a demographic shift, etc. and that companies need to be aware and position themselves to take advantage of these trends.

Insightful

The performer does a good job of emphasizing the sentence structure. The book is very insightful about government and the global economy and not just on trend breaking companies.

Did not live up to hype of title

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Not very focused, rambling. I got nothing out this book.

Would you recommend No Ordinary Disruption to your friends? Why or why not?

NO way.

Which character – as performed by Grover Gardner – was your favorite?

N/A

What did you take away from No Ordinary Disruption that you can apply to your work?

Nothing

Any additional comments?

Wish that I had returned for a refund.

Great insight among a long narration

This book does have some great nuggets of insight by you to listen through it all to pick them up. A good summary would be a nice addition.

Interesting, But Disjointed

This book chronicles disruptive trends for the labor markets and economies. It is interesting, although much of what it covers is also covered in other books.

The thing that is bothersome is how disjointed the book reads. Perhaps it is multiple authors. It would have been better to write a comprehensive treatment of one of the disruptive trends, or, as a much greater challenge, to make a much better effort at trying to synthesize the discussion into something more coherent. For example, is technology taking jobs at the same time that demographics are shrinking the labor force? Why do we need to worry about engaging or re-engaging older workers if the robots are taking over?

These are difficult questions and I suspect no one has the "right" answer about how it will all play out. Although this book raises interesting questions, it provides very little meaningful in the way of answers or analysis, at least to me.

Interesting Thoughts

I highly recommended this book for mid-senior leaders or people looking to navigate their way through future change and development. It provides insightful thoughts and trends that will impact our future and inspires relaxed toon on how to plan and adapt for success.