THE POWER OF PULL

NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Pull is in the air. Pull is the ability to draw out people and resources as needed to address opportunities and challenges. We pull movies and news items on demand. We pull the information we need at light speed on internet search engines. But these activities are merely the surface of something more profound that is reshaping the world around us. By positioning themselves to take advantage of these growing networks of activity internally and externally, companies gain access to flows of knowledge and information that allow them to 'scale learning' in their organization and across their ecosystem.

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The implications – outlined in "THE POWER OF PULL: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion" (Basic Books; Trade Paperback Reprint; December 4, 2012) – are profound. Today, just one in five workers in the U.S. is truly passionate about his or her work, according to pioneering research conducted for the book. But the rising world of pull creates more opportunities for workers to shape their future and roles, even in a sluggish economy.

Business leaders, according to the authors, will find a framework to better understand how to expand their organizations with fewer resources once they embrace the power of pull. Passionate, engaged workers will be a large part of that expanded impact. These are the employees that turn pressure into opportunity and are more likely to seek out challenging roles that drive them to test their limits. These workers see new and daunting challenges as opportunities to get better at what they do. The book will explain how you can identify them in your company and use them to their fullest capacity.

Available now in paperback, THE POWER OF PULL goes beyond the surface events that are often distractions and examines the deep forces reshaping our world. Drawing on stories and examples from around the world, authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison show us how pull can be more systematically used to shape serendipity. They show that what we thought we knew about pull is just the tip of the iceberg, obscuring the real power of pull. Pull can bring us together in new ways to drive more rapid performance improvement (in such diverse arenas as extreme surfing and large scale business networks emerging in China) and provide powerful platforms to more fully achieve our potential. The authors also provide us with pragmatic migration paths to aid us in getting from where we are today to where we need to be in a world of pull.

"A fundamental shift from a world of push to a world of pull has been playing out for decades, but new technologies have emerged making it more feasible to transform even a large, staid institution into an organization able to make the most of waves of exponential change," said John Hagel, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, Deloitte LLP. "This fundamental shift allows individuals and organizations to stay on the edge of their field regardless of how quickly change happens."

The book brings a tight, logical, structure to this transformed world. The authors identify and explain three waves of change, three levels of pull that are becoming central to success, and three elements of the journey we all need to make in order to understand and master pull. 

The three waves of change are:

• Infrastructural Shift- began with the microprocessor revolution that began in the 70s and continues today with new technological changes
• Knowledge Flows- barriers to communicating more richly were broken down by the technological changes, and they continue unabated
• Institutional Innovations- this third wave is the world that will be created by the forces driving the evolution of the Big Shift

The three levels of pull the authors identify are:

• Access- the ability to find and get to the people and resources we need when and where we need them
• Attract- the ability to shape our serendipitous encounters so that we increase the probability and quality of those encounters. When used skillfully, online tools can allow us to attract people, talent, and knowledge from unexpected directions
• Achieve- using the techniques described above to achieve our potential in less time and with more impact than has ever been possible

The three elements that shape the path that individuals and institutions must take to traverse from push to pull are:

• Trajectory- the path toward a meaningful destination helps shape choices and action in the near term while defining a destination helps focus effort and initiative
• Leverage-the opportunity to connect with others and expand impact through the mechanism of pull
• Pace – the speed which helps us to move quickly at a time when everything around us is changing and accelerating

Recognizing and grasping these changes, the levels of pull and the elements of the journey are vital to understand what this new world will look and feel like.

For more information about THE POWER OF PULL, please visit www.deloitte.com/powerofpull.

About the Authors
The authors bring together an unusual combination of backgrounds and experiences.  John Hagel, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, is a noted business strategist who has helped companies around the world improve performance and carve out sustainable edges.  John Seely Brown, independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, is a prominent technologist from Silicon Valley who has been deeply involved in the technology innovation that has shaped the digital world. Lang Davison was formerly executive director of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, which he co-founded in 2007. He now practices energy medicine at Sun Circle Healing in Portland, Oregon. Over the years, these authors have written a number of best-selling books, including Net Gain, Net Worth and The Social Life of Information.

THE POWER OF PULL
How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion
By: John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison
Basic Books Publication date: December 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-465-02876-4 - Ebook ISBN: 978-0-465-021130
$17.99 (US) - $21.00 (CAN) - 296 Pages
Originally Published in Hardcover April 2010

For additional information about THE POWER OF PULL and other Basic Books, like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/basicbooks, or follow us on Twitter at @BasicBooks

Praise for
THE POWER OF PULL
How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion
(Basic Books; Trade Paperback Reprint; December 4, 2012)

"The Power of Pull examines the 'how question'—how can we effectively address our most pressing challenges in a rapidly changing and increasingly interdependent world? In The Power of Pull, John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison highlight fascinating new ways in which passionate thinking, creative solutions, and committed action can—and will—make it possible for us to seize opportunities and remain in step with change."
—William Jefferson Clinton, 42^nd President of the United States of America

"Hagel, Brown, and Davison have given us a provocative and insightful look at the power of today's knowledge flow. If you want to meet the challenges of working and living in the 21st century, this book should be your guide."
—Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google

"The Power of Pull will do for our 21^st-century information-age institutional leadership what Peter Drucker's The Concept of the Corporation did for industrial-era management. This book begins to create a body of learnable principles that will revolutionize our ability to access and work with knowledge flows."
—Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives

"The Power of Pull provide[s] great insight into the quickly changing world of information. On the surface, [it is a] book about technology and business, but on a deeper level, reveal[s] much more about the future of communication, culture, and people."
—800-CEO-READ

"In a ferociously dynamic world, what happens if we can't plan but can only adapt? We must move, say the authors, from push to pull. At the center of the pull strategy is an individual (not a corporation) who has access to knowledge flows, takes advantage of porous boundaries and serendipitous interactions, and occupies new creative spaces to achieve a novel order of performance. I know. It's a complex model with several moving parts. But it makes for an exhilarating read as the authors sublimely reinvent the world of enterprise."
—Harvard Business Review

"Provocative…the beauty of The Power of Pull is that the authors bring such seemingly disparate ideas into one simple, overarching imperative: Stop pushing; start pulling."
—MIT Sloan Management Review

"A succinct metaphor for the shift in the information economy—from 'push' to 'pull'."
—Publishers Weekly

"The Power of Pull is anchored on a framework that includes multiple dimensions in which interventions and initiatives happen and in their interplay comes out a very different mechanism of operation that encompasses business, process, and people."
—Seattle Post Intelligencer

"In times of unprecedented change, we as individuals and institutions can have extraordinary leverage and influence if we marshal the passion, knowledge and resources necessary to achieve great things. The Power of Pull empowers and guides us to make the most of today's enormous possibilities."
—John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends

"Stop whatever you are doing and read this amazing book. The authors totally nail it. Digging beneath the surface of stuff that distracts us on a daily basis, they unpack the deep forces that really truly matter and provide a guidebook each of us can use to unleash passion, transform how and why we work, and restore destiny and dignity to our lives."
—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Great Reset

"We live in a global village, where borders are blurred, where all humanity could and should be responsible for the well-being of others. The Power of Pull proposes fresh insights that coalesce into a powerful way forward in this new world. This erudite manual for change is a testament to the creativity and insight of its authors."
— Mark E. Tucker, Former Group Chief Executive of Prudential plc, Member of the Court of the Bank of England

"As social media and enterprise cloud computing continue to exert their democratizing influences, the Power of Pull will become a key principle for success. The individuals who learn how to use these tools most effectively are the ones who will pull their institutions into new heights of rapid innovation, improved performance and significant achievement."
—Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com

"This brilliant and exciting book shows how to pursue your passions by harnessing the power of networks. Success no longer comes from possessing knowledge; instead, you have to participate with others in creating a flow of knowledge. The power of 'pull'—the ability to draw out people and resources for each endeavor—can transform both individuals and institutions."
—Walter Isaacson, President and CEO, the Aspen Institute, and author of Einstein: His Life and Universe

SOURCE Deloitte