The Living Strategy - Back cover:

"A growing number of managers around the world have come to recognize that human capital is rapidly replacing physical and financial capital as the key source of competitive advantage. The challenge is to come to grips with the "how to"s" of linking their people strategy with their business strategy. Conceptually robust, yet highly practical, Professor Gratton"s book will be extremely useful in establishing this link."Sumantra Ghoshal, Robert P. Bauman Professor of Strategic Leadership, London Business School

"Gratton"s thoughtful and creative work breathes life into the role of people in organizations. It helps executives clearly see why people matter and how to create organizations that accomplish both people and organizational goals. Gratton has been a thought leader in the people (HR) profession for years; this work now shows all managers how to better understand and use people. The book will become a classic for HR professionals and a toolkit for line managers."David Ulrich, Professor of Business, University of Michigan

Money used to buy you market share, technology used to bring you competitive advantage. Now even 23 year olds can raise a million dollars and technology is imitated in months. So what"s the next great frontier of advantage for businesses? The people who live there. Only people can turn strategy into living, breathing purpose. In this ground-breaking book, Lynda Gratton shares for the first time the "why" and "how" of putting people at the heart of corporate strategy. If companies want to increase their business performance, they need to recognize and develop the soul of the organization: they need a Living Strategy.

Inside front flap:"If "people are our greatest assets", it"s time to make strategies that people can live in. Living Strategy is the book that puts the human in human capital."- Lynda Gratton"People are our most important asset", "We are a knowledge based company", "All we have is our people". These are statements that we hear ever more frequently, from more and more companies. Yet, for too many of the people who populate our companies, the reality of organizational life is that people do not feel they are treated as the most important assets and they do not feel their knowledge is understood or used.The only route to improved performance is by placing your human resource at the centre of your strategic decision-making. Living Strategy shows you why and how to design strategies that have meaning and purpose for people, without whose commitment they remain drawings on the board-room wall chart. It argues that a new management agenda is crucial and shares the three tenets of human organizational behaviour. The six step Living Strategy journey guides the reader through the implementation of a strategy which will not only grow your organization, but create a business of which you can be proud.For corporate strategy to live and work, people have to understand strategy, and strategy makers have to understand people. Inside back flap:Professor Lynda Gratton is a global authority on the people implications of strategy and Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. She writes, teaches and consults across the world on human resource strategy. At London Business School she is Dean of the MBA Programme and Director of the Executive programme "Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Organisations. Since 1992, Lynda has directed the Leading Edge Research Consortium in partnership with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Glaxo Wellcome and Citibank. Reflections on these companies formed the framework for Strategic Human Resource Management: Corporate Rhetoric and Human Reality" published by Oxford University Press in 1999.Lynda has profoundly influenced the way managers think about human resource strategy. She consults actively to some of the world"s largest companies and has trained managers all over the world in her "Living Strategy" process.