Book Review: Pivoting As a Way of Life

Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

An all-encompassing guide on how to pivot product-based businesses

Heraclites said it best: “The only constant in life is change.” To teach the concept of product-market fit makes sense—a sort of introductory goal for entrepreneurs to chase—but it’s a unicorn they’re chasing. A myth. They should strive to create the perfect product for the right market, yes, but that’s only attainable if they continue to pivot.

Joseph Hanna is the creator of the Pivoting Life Operating Model (PLOM), a framework that can be incorporated into product-based business structures which focuses on consistently adapting with a specificity as precise as Billy Beane with the Oakland Athletics. Pivoting As a Way of Life even presents this framework with movie & tv references like Moneyball and Schitt’s Creek. 

Hanna has spent over 30 years in the technology field.He has held executive positions at various companies and continues to encourage AI use in business. He’s a brilliant man with enough answers to enough problems that you’ve probably already faced or are about to face. With his expertise comes an array of advanced topics. This isn’t a how-to book for product-based business beginners but more so for knowledgable execs with schooling and work experience. It is a difficult book—but a rich one jam-packed with resources and applicable strategies. 

Copycat methods, Agile, success measurements, and acronyms—this is a business-pro’s favorite manual. It saves you time—time enough for actual business practice—by withholding beginner explanations and moving forward with a presentation you could envision on your white board at a game-changing business meeting. With a framework as earnest and true as this one, this book serves as the type of meeting you’ll be glad you took. It could send you out of the conference room and straight over to your shredder—to rid yourself of the myth of product-market fit and to embrace change and adaptation. Get on it before everyone else does. But if you’re late, adapt: learn from others and use those innovations for your own product. 

Hanna’s use of pop culture references engage the reader with forms of storytelling, but it never spends too much time on them. The thing that’s most important here is the strategies, metrics, and measurements. Because of this, the reading can feel dense, but for those with their pens and business dictionaries handy, this could very well be the book that changes everything for them.

Pivoting As a Way of Life is a tome of valuable resources for product-based businesses and an honest perspective that’ll get you prepared for the tornado of change incoming.

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