ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a family whose very name connoted wealth. The Vanderbilts had a vast empire built on freight through steamboats and railroads. Over a few generations, the wealth-worth billions in today's money-had been frittered away and the business itself faded as new options came up in the freight business. Their story remains an enduring example of what happens when business leaders fail to embrace the future and transform. BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION is a live subject, one that authors R. Gopalakrishnan and Hrishi Bhattacharyya have between them a hundred-plus years of leading in their companies. Their learnings, supported by numerous examples, make for riveting reading. One chief lesson why such transformations succeed or fail has to do with combining the art and science of the change - the heart and the mind - and getting the balance of the two right. In life as in business, to effect a transformation, one needs a compelling narrative, one that inspires the organisation. Important too is to see transformation as a continuous endeavour and made a part of work culture rather than to consider it an exercise undertaken only in a crisis. Embrace the Future is a major book by two business leaders that will appeal to anyone who has faced change-in today's fluid business environment, most of us. As Gopalakrishnan and Bhattacharyya emphasise, companies that fail to adapt are destined to perish. One needs to learn from the past, manage the present and prepare for the future. We must imagine the future we desire and then fold it into the present.
