Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift

by Geoff Tuff, Steven Goldbach

Have a problem with your organization's strategy in an era of accelerating, exponential change? Modern business orthodoxy has an easy transform it. How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift argues this thinking is itself in need of an overhaul. Rather than devote time to expensive, long, and often unsuccessful transformations, leaders should instead focus on holistically designing and honing the management systems that are the nervous systems of their businesses.

The third in a trilogy of business strategy books written by renowned strategists and two-time Thinkers50–nominated authors Steven Goldbach and Geoff Tuff, this book explains why and how to optimally hone your organization's execution of its strategy, with highlights

The importance of recognizing and taking action to defy the drift that often afflicts organizations undergoing massive transformation Guidelines on how to design and continually reshape effective management systems to influence organizational and individual behaviors Reframing the job of CEOs to be Chief System Designers for their organizations Reflections on how honing principles within organizations can be used on broader societal challenges

240 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication January 27, 2026

About the author

Geoff has almost 30 years of experience consulting to some of the world's top companies on the subjects of strategy, growth, innovation, and adapting business models to deal with change. Currently, he is a Principal at Deloitte and holds various leadership positions across its Sustainability, Innovation and Strategy practices. Prior to this, he led the innovation firm Doblin and was a senior partner at Monitor Group, serving as a member of its global Board of Directors. He is currently based in Deloitte's Boston office.

Geoff's work centers around helping clients transform their businesses to grow and compete in nontraditional ways. Over the course of his career, Geoff has worked in virtually every industry and he uses that breadth of experience to bring novel, cross-sector insights about how things might operate to clients stuck in industry conventional wisdom. Geoff has a particular strength in using facilitation and personal intervention to help clients make hard choices and take action.

For his entire career, Geoff has focused exclusively on helping companies grow. He has been instrumental in developing many of Monitor's - and now Deloitte's - core methodologies related to driving profitable topline growth for clients. His expertise spans the domains of design-driven innovation, new business model development, product launch and growth strategy, and business transformation.

Geoff is valued for his integrative approach to solving problems. He combines deep analytic and strategic expertise with a natural orientation towards approaches embodied in design thinking. His belief that human behavior is still - even in the digital age - the fundamental driver of economic value for companies allows him to bring a unique perspective to his clients struggling to shift their business models. He is a widely sought-after speaker and writer on the topic of growth through innovation. His writing has appeared in journals such as Marketing Management and Harvard Business Review and as a regular contribution to HuffPost. He is also co-author of the National Bestseller "Detonate: Why - and How - Corporations need to Blow up Best Practices (and Bring a Beginner's Mind) to Survive," released in May, 2018. In 2019, Thinkers50 named Geoff as finalist for the Distinguished Achievement Award in Strategy.

Geoff grew up in Canada and the UK, and came to the United States for university. He received his B.A., with honors, in English literature and creative writing, from Dartmouth College. He also holds a MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was an honors student. He currently lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts with his wife, Martha, and four sons.

Reviews

[Ben Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this as its basis lies in Roger Martin's strategy cascade. However, the book is seriously lacking in both depth and practical advice. It is also highly repetitive. The artisan examples were an interesting take on a business book, but read as pointless anecdotes about the author's mates. In short, it could have been a one page article about the value of making incremental changes to your company management systems. At the end it swerves into how to tackle climate change too, which was just odd rather than insightful.

I'm not a fan of Tom Fishburn either, so the weak 'marketoons' were just a bit distracting.

[Kathryn Jiwani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important and compelling book — an easy-to-read examination of first principles in motivating behaviors and influencing culture. The anecdotes and craftsperson features are useful and interesting. The best of the trilogy in my opinion!

[Steve Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have selected this book as Stevo's Business Book of the Week for the week of 11/9, as it stands heads above other recently published books on this topic.