THIS MONTH'S PAGE-TURNERS ON BUSINESS AND BEYOND

January may be over, but McKinsey is still busy sticking to its resolution of sustainable, inclusive growth. In this year’s first edition of Readers & Leaders, McKinsey senior partners Miklós Dietz and Venkat Atluri break down the multitrillion-dollar promise of the emerging ecosystem economy and lifelong economists discuss labor distribution and industrial policy with members of McKinsey Global Publishing.

Watch new Author Talks interviews, catch the highlights from Davos 2023, and check out this month’s top bestselling business books, prepared exclusively for McKinsey by NPD. Itching for more? Visit McKinsey on Books for the latest, and to get Readers & Leaders in your inbox monthly, click here to subscribe.

IT BEARS REPEATING

“We are expecting that by 2035, around one-third of the global GDP—which would be more than half of the distribution part of the GDP—will actually be orchestrated by cross-industrial ecosystems. … The enormous valuation increase of cross-industrial companies, even after the recent correction, is very visible. Over the past two years, $8 trillion has moved into ecosystem players. The markets are assuming and expecting to see early moves to grab a large part of this future value, because in this new ecosystem, the magic is not market share anymore—it’s customer ownership.”

—Miklós Dietz, McKinsey senior partner and coauthor, with senior partner Venkat Atluri, of The Ecosystem Economy: How to Lead in the New Age of Sectors Without Borders (John Wiley & Sons), in a recent edition of Author Talks.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Lifelong labor economist Myra Strober shares the framework for making life’s hardest decisions from her popular Stanford course, Work and Family: “How to divide the work is a major issue in marriages. It depends on the kinds of jobs each of you have, the kinds of preferences each of you have, how many children you want, where you want to live, and how complicated your lives are. However, you can’t plan everything in advance. There’s an old Yiddish saying: ‘Man plans and God laughs.’” Watch the full interview.

Institutional economist Ha-Joon Chang tracks the evolution of industrial policy and democracy in a capitalist economy: “When I first started doing research on this as a graduate student in the late 1980s, industrial policy for many people was a four-letter word—it was something that you didn’t mention in polite company. Today, a lot of countries that used to denounce industrial policy are now very keen to do it.” Watch the full interview.

MCKINSEY AT DAVOS

Decision makers gathered for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month to identify sustainable solutions to global issues. Revisit our Author Talks interviews on some of the key themes from #WEF23:

MORE ABOUT DAVOS

LOOKING AHEAD

BUSINESS BESTSELLERS TOP

New year, new books (plus some tried-and-true favorites). Find your next entertaining or enlightening read on this month’s list of business bestsellers in eight categories, prepared exclusively for McKinsey by NPD BookScan. Explore the full selection on McKinsey on Books.

BUSINESS OVERALL

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Avery Publishing Group)

BUSINESS HARDCOVER

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Avery Publishing Group)

DECISION MAKING

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette Book Group)

ECONOMICS

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (HarperCollins Publishers)

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Penguin Group USA)

WORKPLACE CULTURE

Deliberate Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World by Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michiel Kruyt (HarperCollins Publishers)

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House)

SUSTAINABILITY

Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work by Jess Rimington (Macmillan)

If you’d like to propose a book or author for #McKAuthorTalks, please email us at Author_Talks@McKinsey.com. Due to the high volume of requests, we will respond only to those being considered.

—Curated by Molly Liebergall, editor, New York

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