Emergence: How Leaders Break Free From Outdated Thinking - Hardcover

Vessels, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1394439237 ISBN 13: 9781394439232

Verlag: Wiley, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

Navigate leadership transformation when Industrial Age strategies no longer apply

In Emergence: How Leaders Break Free from Outdated Thinking, Jennifer Vessels ― CEO of Next Step and the change agent who led Adobe's shift from packaged software to cloud subscriptions, from during which its market value grew from $16 billion to $250 billion ― delivers a proven approach for leading organizations through rapid, converging disruptions in which traditional planning approaches consistently fail to produce results.

The book introduces the P.E.A.C.E. compass ― Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, Empowerment ― a structured approach for thriving when predetermined paths disappear. Drawing on transformation work with Adobe, Cisco, Novartis, Schneider Electric, and IKEA, Vessels shows how to integrate AI with human talent, empower multi-generational teams, and build organizations that are ready for continuous change.

Readers will also discover:

• Strategies for navigating five converging forces ― Speed, Confidence, Meaning, Pressure, and Human/AI disruption ― reshaping the leadership landscape
• Practical AI integration approaches used within global enterprises including Van Ameyde, IKEA, and Barloworld
• How to shift from fear-based decision-making to intuition-driven, experiential leadership that produces measurable organizational results
• Tiger team structures and empowerment approaches that release collective capability at scale across large organizations
• The story of Marie, a young woman who navigated wartime Europe on purpose and confidence alone ― proof that the P.E.A.C.E. principles are timeless and accessible to anyone, regardless of title or authority
• Lessons from IKEA's six-year Korean market entry and Novartis's approach to restructuring every six months

Designed for CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone struggling to keep up, Emergence provides the approach leaders need when markets shift faster than traditional planning allows, with tested lessons from engagements with Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, and Novartis.

The future is emerging. Take action now ― before it moves without you.

"Jennifer Vessels has captured the new reality but also powerfully lays out how we can navigate productive ways into the future."
―Stuart Crainer, cofounder Thinkers50

"Your greatest competitive advantage today is quietly becoming your most dangerous blind spot tomorrow. In this book, Jennifer Vessels distills two decades of experience to provide an approach for leaders ready to trade the comfort of expertise for the courage of navigation."
―Sunil Gupta, Professor Digital Strategy/Innovation, Harvard

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JENNIFER VESSELS doesn’t just talk about the future―she builds it. As CEO of Next Step, she has driven transformation for Adobe, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, and Novartis across Silicon Valley and Europe. Her P.E.A.C.E. approach―Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, and Empowerment―equips leaders worldwide to act.

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PRAISE FOR EMERGENCE

“Your greatest competitive advantage today is quietly becoming your most dangerous blind spot tomorrow. In this book, Jennifer Vessels distills two decades of experience to provide an approach for leaders ready to trade the comfort of expertise for the courage of navigation.”
―SUNIL GUPTA, Professor, Digital Strategy/Innovation, Harvard

“Intensely personal and universal, challenging and practical, future looking and grounded, informative and demanding, Emergence is an important book. Jennifer Vessels has captured the new reality but also powerfully lays out how we can navigate productive ways into the future.”
―STUART CRAINER, Co-founder, Thinkers50

“We are living through an unprecedented period of rapid change and convergence. Jennifer Vessels has spent over twenty years building her approach for moving with P.E.A.C.E. in uncertain times. Emergence gives leaders a compass to navigate through uncertainty and cause for optimism about what lies ahead.”
―DAVID CHUN, CEO, Equilar

“What if change isn’t just a risk to avoid, but an opportunity to seize? Drawing on decades of transformation experience in companies such as Adobe and Cisco, Jennifer Vessels shows―with rigor and optimism―how leaders can navigate the future―no matter what.”
―TERENCE MAURI, Founder of Hack Future Lab and author of The Upside of Disruption

“Most leaders know the old playbook is dead but aren’t clear how to move. Jennifer Vessels has spent decades alongside the ones who do. Emergence distills how they broke free to read the moment and navigate perpetual uncertainty―toward outcomes they never could have planned.”
―NANCY GIORDANO, Futurist and Founder of Play Big

Aus dem Klappentext

Jennifer Vessels, who guided Adobe through the transformation from enterprise software to cloud subscriptions―growing that market cap from $16 billion to over $250 billion―has spent decades leading change inside organizations like Cisco, Novartis, and Schneider Electric. That experience has taught her a foundational truth: the Industrial Age playbooks of management authority, career paths, and rigid planning are obsolete.

They are being swept away by five colliding cyclones of change, driven by climate and societal shifts, geopolitics, over-capitalism, and technology:

• Speed―AI and technology are compressing decades of change into months, making expertise obsolete before it can even be applied.
• Confidence―the institutions that once conferred authority and stability (government, media, education) are collapsing, forcing leaders to act without external validation.
• Meaning―as traditional structures like lifetime employment erode, people are demanding purpose and impact over paychecks.
• Pressure―climate, economic, and geopolitical volatility are compounding, making every decision carry existential weight.
• Human(ity) Redefinition―as AI mimics creativity and cognition, we’re forced to ask what makes people irreplaceable.

This creates space for what Vessels refers to as the Emergence, in which leaders navigate through uncertainty guided by purpose, intuition, experiential learning, and collaboration.

Emergence moves beyond conventional change management by empowering readers to embrace transformation with P.E.A.C.E.―an approach built on five interconnected principles: Purpose, Exploration, Action, Collaboration, and Empowerment. Each principle addresses a distinct leadership challenge that arises when established maps disappear. The book draws on the author’s direct experience inside organizations, from business model shifts to AI integration and multigenerational workforce dynamics. It provides practical purpose-driven strategies and structural approaches that prepare leaders to act decisively amid perpetual uncertainty―achieving outcomes they never could have planned. Most books isolate technology from humanity. Emergence shows they’re not competing forces but interwoven―and it’s in that intersection, AI and people together, that future-ready leaders thrive. Vessels reveals practical AI integration strategies she pioneered within enterprise organizations, alongside methods for engaging multigenerational, diverse teams globally. The book equips readers with proven approaches for building future-ready organizations where becoming continually adaptable and iterative, combined with continuous learning, replaces static planning as the operating norm.

Written for CEOs, executives, and senior managers responsible for steering organizations through continual change, Emergence also prepares managers, team members, and consultants to succeed with P.E.A.C.E. Entrepreneurs, board members, investors, and students―anyone navigating through unstable environments―will benefit from the actionable approaches for success going forward.

Business as usual is obsolete―and Vessels argues that’s the opportunity, not the threat. Emergence gives leaders permission to stop searching for a map that no longer exists and start building the capability to navigate without one. For anyone ready to trade the illusion of certainty for the muscle of adaptability, this book is the starting point.

“Read it. Recommend it. The Marie story alone is worth the price. The P.E.A.C.E. methodology is practical enough for all to use immediately. The leaders who are thriving right now are not the ones with the best plans. They are the ones who are able to move when nobody knows what the future will bring.”
―ARNE-PEDER BLIX, Investor, Board Chairperson

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1394439237
• ISBN 13: 9781394439232
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Wiley-VCH GmbH; product_safety@wiley.com; ; Boschstrasse 12; Weinheim; 69469; Deutschland