“What Matters Next” Selected for Thinkers50 2025 Best Management Books
Sometimes the most meaningful recognition comes not from what you’ve accomplished, but from confirmation that you’re addressing the right questions at exactly the right time. Today, I’m honored to share that “What Matters Next: A Leader’s Guide to Making Human-Friendly Tech Decisions in a World That’s Moving Too Fast“ has been selected for the Thinkers50 2025 Best New Management Booklist.
This isn’t just a personal milestone—it’s validation that the conversation about human-centered technology leadership has reached the highest levels of management thinking, exactly where it needs to be.
Why the Thinkers50 2025 Best Management Books List Matters
Thinkers50 has earned its reputation as “the world’s most reliable resource for identifying, ranking, and sharing the leading management ideas of our age.” Their annual best management books list doesn’t just celebrate good writing; it identifies the ideas that are shaping how leaders think about the future.
As Stuart Crainer, Thinkers50 co-founder, explains: “The books we select each year represent more than trends—they reflect a shift in how we understand leadership, organisational culture, and decision-making in a changing world.”
The Thinkers50 2025 Best Management Books list specifically focuses on “the dynamic challenges and opportunities shaping the future of work and leadership, spanning topics from strategy and sustainability to AI ethics and organisational wellbeing.”
That this book made this prestigious management books list signals something crucial: the questions we here have been grappling with—how do we make technology decisions that put humans first when the pace of change feels overwhelming—are exactly the questions that matter most to leaders right now.
The Right Questions at the Right Time
When I started writing “What Matters Next,” the goal was simple: help leaders navigate technology decisions without losing sight of what makes us human. The premise was that in a world moving too fast, we need better frameworks for slowing down long enough to make choices that align with our values.
What I didn’t fully anticipate was how urgently leaders would need these frameworks.
The past few years have brought us face-to-face with AI systems that can write, create, and reason; remote work technologies that reshape how we collaborate; and automation that changes entire job categories. Each advancement arrives with a choice: embrace it blindly, reject it entirely, or find a more thoughtful path forward.
Most leaders are choosing the third option, but they’re discovering they need new tools for the job.
Beyond the Hype and Fear Cycles
One reason this recognition feels particularly meaningful is that it represents a shift away from the extremes that have dominated technology conversations. We’re moving beyond both the breathless hype that promises technology will solve everything and the paralyzing fear that it will destroy everything.
Instead, we’re entering what I call the “pragmatic middle”—a space where leaders can acknowledge both the tremendous potential and real risks of new technologies while focusing on the practical question: “Given what we know and what we value, what’s the right choice for us right now?”
This is where human-friendly technology decisions happen. Not in the abstract realm of what’s technically possible, but in the concrete reality of what serves our people, our purpose, and our future.
What “Human-Friendly” Really Means
The term “human-friendly technology” sometimes gets misunderstood as anti-technology or as a call to slow progress. That’s not it at all.
Human-friendly technology decisions start with a simple recognition: technology is not neutral. Every tool we adopt, every system we implement, every process we automate shapes how people work, relate to each other, and make meaning from their efforts.
When we make technology decisions with this awareness, we can harness innovation’s power while preserving what matters most about human work and relationships. We can automate the tedious while amplifying the creative. We can scale efficiency while maintaining dignity.
The leaders who master this balance won’t just survive the next wave of technological change—they’ll shape it.
A Community of Practice
What makes the Thinkers50 2025 Best Management Books recognition especially gratifying is knowing that this conversation extends far beyond any single book or author. The selection process for the best management books involves “nominations and canvassed opinions from within the Thinkers50 Community, which comprises many of today’s most eminent business thinkers and practicing managers.”
This means the ideas in “What Matters Next” resonated not just with readers, but with the very leaders who are grappling with these challenges daily. It suggests we’re building something larger than individual insights—we’re developing a shared language and framework for technology leadership that puts humans at the center.
Looking Forward
The announcement came out today, but the full celebration will be happening at the Thinkers50 Awards Gala in November at London’s historic Guildhall. In the meantime, the real work happens in the daily decisions leaders make about how to integrate new technologies into their organizations.
Every choice to slow down and consider the human impact. Every decision to implement technology in ways that augment rather than replace human judgment. Every moment when leaders ask not just “Can we do this?” but “Should we do this?” and “How can we do this in a way that honors our people and our purpose?”
These are the moments when ideas become impact.
The Conversation Continues
Recognition on the Thinkers50 2025 Best Management Books list is deeply gratifying, but it’s also a reminder that the work is just beginning. The questions “What Matters Next” explores—how do we make thoughtful technology decisions in a fast-moving world—aren’t going away. If anything, they’re becoming more urgent.
I’m grateful to everyone who has engaged with these ideas, challenged them, refined them, and most importantly, put them into practice. The future of human-friendly technology isn’t determined by the tools we build, but by the wisdom we bring to choosing how to use them.
That’s a responsibility we all share, and it’s exactly the kind of challenge that brings out the best in human leadership.
The Thinkers50 2025 Best New Management Booklist was officially announced on June 16, 2025. “What Matters Next: A Leader’s Guide to Making Human-Friendly Tech Decisions in a World That’s Moving Too Fast” explores frameworks for technology leadership that keeps humans at the center of innovation.