Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 1

What Matters Now

Amanda Duke
Siena Heights University

Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 2
Gary Hamels (2012) What Matters Now has opened my eyes to a new way of thinking
about management, even though my professional experience is quite limited. Hamels
experiences and knowledge has helped him to create a collection of useful information for
business professionals around the world. Concerns in management at many levels have caused
some major issues in Hamels eyes. After reading and taking notes, I have recognized some ideas
and strategies that Hamel used to address issues in management. One problem that I
acknowledged in the workplace is that we, as leaders, get so caught up with a face paced life that
we forget about what really matters. Hamel reiterates the important concepts in life that matter
the most. The new insights that I have gained from this book have guided me in a forward
direction, leading to a plan of action for my life. While reading What Matters Now, I have
formulated a plan of how I am going to apply the concepts I have learned in my organizational,
academic, personal, and professional life. Hamel has changed the way that I think about the
fundamental assumptions and rules of management. In order for an organization to be productive
and successful, there are five major staples that Hamel believes in. These five staples that
determine whether an organization will thrive include: Values, innovations, adaptability, passion,
and ideology. The five major staples can be applied in almost every aspect of my life.
The first staple that Hamel (2012) discusses is value. In my opinion, value is mentioned
first because a solid set of values seems to be the fundamental building blocks of success. An
ethical foundation behind each person and organization sets the precedent of a successful future.
Some words that come to my mind when I saw the Values Matters Now heading were honesty,
integrity, trust, and morals. My values are the things that I believe are important in the way that I
live my life. I can apply what I have learned in What Matters Now by creating a set of values and
morals to live by. My set of values that I vow to live by include dedication, accountability,
Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 3
balance, and respect. This set of values will drive me to be the best that I can be every day. This
list of values help to develop a clear sense of what is really important in my life and why. I have
chosen these values from the book because they relate to my life in a lot of ways. I vow to be
dedicated in everything I do. I will never give up and always fight for what I think is right. I will
be accountable for my actions, good and bad. I will acknowledge my successes and also my
failures. I will challenge myself to balance the important aspects of my life: emotional, physical,
and social. I will continue to do what makes me happy, while being productive. Last, but not
least, I will have respect for all. I will not only respect the people around me, but also myself.
Hamel has educated me on the importance of a solid set of values. My plan of action in my
organizational, academic, personal, and professional life is to stay focused on the four words I
have indicated as my core values. I will surround myself with people who have the same values
and morals as me. The next concept that Hamel considers to be very important in the business
world is innovation.
Innovation has become huge concept in success of major organizations around the world.
Innovation is considered to be any new idea that creates value for an organization. In my
opinion, any organization no matter the size can be innovative. Staying one step ahead of your
competitors, collaborating for new ideas, and striving to be the best are all ways to be innovative.
I have gained knowledge from Hamel (2012) about the effectiveness and necessity of innovation
in life. In a personal way, I can continue to make myself better, allowing myself to grow. In my
organizational and professional life I will strive to obtain and sustain a competitive advantage. In
my academic life, I will continue to collect data and knowledge from different resources that will
contribute to an innovative and competitive mind. I think that innovation is more than just
creating a product that can be used to produce profit. To me, innovation involves creativity,
Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 4
forward thinking, inspiration, and inventiveness. I think that innovation can be applied to almost
every aspect of life. Finding an easier way to accomplish a goal, doing research on competitors
products, and constantly thinking of ways to get better are simple ways to be innovative in life. A
few ideas that I have learned from Hamel regarding innovation include collaborating with others
to brainstorm new ideas, not being afraid to fail, and gaining a forward thinking mentality. I can
apply these three concepts to my organizational, academic, personal, and professional life. Next,
Hamel describes the utter importance of adaptability.
Adaptability, to me, simply means to be able to adapt to certain situations. According to
Hamel (2012), adaptability essentially contains two parts- the willingness to adapt and the
attitude towards the adaptation. I think these two concepts go hand in hand. The willingness of a
person is really important in my opinion. I am a laid back person, I have an incredibly adaptive
personality. This is very helpful when dealing with changes in an organization, plans, and ideas.
I consider myself to be very willing towards change, in fact, I welcome change. On the other
hand, attitude plays a big part. I also think that I have a positive attitude towards change. I do not
get upset or anxious over changes that are made. Of course, if I dont agree with the change I
will ask questions, but most of the time I have a positive attitude toward changes in life. I believe
that as a person with an adaptive personality I am confident, empathetic, positive, and tolerant.
These are all qualities that can be used to portray my ability to adapt. As a coach, the ability to
adapt is very important. There are many ways that I can be adaptive as a basketball coach. I must
adapt to make the best use of my personnel in order to take advantage of the opponents
weaknesses. An example of being adaptive during a game is when faced with an injured player
we may have to adapt our game strategy. We may have to change the offense or defense.
Another way to adapt in the coaching world is when complacency in a team sets in. It is the
Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 5
coachs job to adapt quickly and change up some things. For example, when playing an inferior
team, as a coach, I must confront my team and challenge them to new goals. The same thing
happens when we are winning by 20 points; I cannot let the team get complacent. It is my job to
apply new goals to the team to keep them interested and competitive. There are many ways that I
can be adaptive in the coaching world. On a personal level, I can be adaptive by having a
positive attitude, welcoming change, and being flexible. I believe that an adaptive person is easy
to work with. I can use the concepts that Hamel discussed to understand that my adaptive
personality is a positive attribute to possess. An important concept that I learned from Ketter
(2010) in the Six Trends Article is from Steve Arneson who stated that leaders must be
transparent (p. 36). I think that being a transparent leader means being honest and open with
your fellow employees. Being able to admit mistakes and adapting to fix those mistakes is very
important when leading. Another attribute that that is essential in any situation is passion.
Passion is one of my all-time favorite words. As a coach, I am constantly preaching to my
team the importance of passion. I think that passion is something you either have or do not have.
One of the hardest parts of my job, is to bring out the passion of my players every single day.
Luckily for me, my players have made it to the college level, therefore, they are passionate about
the game of basketball. In my professional life, I portray passion by getting excited when a
player does what I want, getting mad when they do not put enough effort into a play, and
showing them I care about their development. Not only am I passionate about basketball, but I
am passionate about developing players and seeing them grow. It is really important that I show
my passion for the game when coaching, hopefully it will rub off on my players. In my opinion,
passion directly impacts performance. In my personal life, I have many things that I am
passionate about. I am passionate about my job, my family, and treating others with respect.
Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 6
Through Hamel, I have learned that I should find out what I am passionate about and make a
career out of it. As I search in the next couple months, I hope to find a job that I truly love.
Going into work every day and enjoying it would be an absolute dream to me. I honestly believe
that passion fuels productivity, success, and accomplishments in life. In my organizational,
academic, personal, and professional life passion is essential. For example, I am passionate about
this assignment because not only do I want to succeed in this class, but I want to use this plan of
action to move forward in my life. My forward action plan for passion is to find little passions in
everything I do that will essentially help me to move toward success. I plan to find a career path
that I am truly passionate about. Right now, in my professional life, I plan to display my passion
for basketball and demand passionate play from my players. Last, but not least, the final concept
that Hamel considers to be important is ideology.
Hamel (2012) states that ideology consists of the ideas that establishes ones goals,
expectations, and actions. He challenges the ideology in management by discussing hierarchies,
pyramids, and setting and accomplishing goals. Hamel considers ideology to be a vision that was
set about a hundred years ago. The basic framework of management was established. Ideology
matters now because we can discuss the things we want management to achieve and how we
plan to achieve those goals. Hamel has helped me to formulate an ideology action plan for my
life. This action plan includes: setting goals, coordinate a plan to achieve the goals, and then
evaluate the effectiveness and productivity of the achievements. I think that this action plan can
be applied in every aspect of my life. On an academic level, I decide I want to earn an A in a
certain class. I dedicate myself to that goal by putting extra time aside to get my work done, learn
the information, and get help from outside sources. Lastly, I make sure I am putting in the correct
amount of effort and producing solid work in order to achieve that goal. I believe that this basic
Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 7
three step process can help me to be successful in any environment. In my professional life, I
was very interested in Hamels inverted pyramid. I can take the information he provided from the
pyramid to make my players accountable for their actions (on and off the court), make sure they
all feel appreciated (even the role players), and set appropriate authority figures, such as
captains. I believe that these ideas will make our team stronger. In my personal life, I was
touched by the idea to aim higher. On a personal level, I want to aim higher in everything that I
do. I want to set attainable goals that force me to exceed my limitations. I want to push myself
past anything I have ever thought I could do. I want to aim higher. My personal plan of action is
to aim higher in every aspect of life.
Although my professional and business experience seems to be limited, Hamels staple
concepts in What Matters Now can be applied to almost every aspect of my life. The concepts of
value, innovation, adaptability, passion, and ideology have real life application to my
organizational, academic, personal, and professional life, intertwined. By reading What Matters
Now, I created an action plan for my life using Hamels ideas and strategies. Through the
insights I have learned, I will use my action plan to assist and improve on my organization skills,
my academic goals, my personal, and my professional life. I believe that there are inspiring ideas
and concepts about organization development in Hamels What Matters Now. I have realized that
I want to be part of an organization that embraces these principles.




Running head: WHAT MATTERS NOW 8
References

Hamel, G. (2012). What matters now: How to win in a world of relentless
change, ferocious competition, and unstoppable innovation. San Francisco,
CA: Wiley.
Ketter, P. (2010). Six trends that will change workplace learning forever. T + D. Dec 2010:35-
40.