1st Book Prize, 2025 edition
The HLU Book Prize: for whom and why?
Our Book Prize was born as part of HLU’s “The Power of Books” program.
In the age of “AI companions”, the book could well (re)become your best companion to advance your pieces on the chessboard!
We firmly believe that the book is essential for business leaders:
- To better understand the complexity of the world.
- To project ourselves into the future, and make more robust strategic choices.
- To read and immerse oneself in inspiring real-life experiences that can be applied to one's life as a leader.
- To develop one's emotional and relational skills.
- To take a healthy break and recharge in a hectic daily life.
- To provide substance, nuance, and to combat overly conformist or manipulated thinking.
- To enable a deeper exchange with its stakeholders.
This prize recognizes three categories:
Heart Leadership
Best book for leaders on Heart Leadership (intuition, empathy, and courage in practice)
"Poil à Gratter"
Best “provocative” book for leaders (challenges mainstream thinking, encourages reflection and alternative actions)
The World to Come
Best book for leaders about the world to come (science fiction, political fiction, foresight)
The winners of the 2025 Prize:
Winner
Heart Leadership
Cabane, by Abel Quentin, published on August 21, 2024 by Éditions de l’Observatoire
This novel sheds light on the fifty years since the publication of the Meadows Report on the Limits to Growth. It portrays the motivations and obstacles faced by decision-makers in the face of planetary boundaries. Through its incisive narrative, it calls upon leaders to demonstrate a surge of clarity and courage in the face of ecological challenges.
Winner
Poil à Gratter
Antidote to the Cult of Performance, by Olivier Hamant, published on August 31, 2023 by Tracts|Gallimard
In a short and impactful format, this essay revisits the biological determinants of the robustness of living organisms—and of our organizations. By calling for a shift away from the pursuit of maximum efficiency, it offers avenues for building more resilient businesses in an unstable world.
Winner
The world to come
Hyperwar, by Jean-Michel Valantin, published on October 23, 2024 by Nouveau Monde.
Jean-Michel Valantin’s book offers a groundbreaking analysis of the role of AI in contemporary conflicts. Beyond the transformation of military battlefields, it deciphers how these “visible” wars intersect with the economic and cognitive confrontations of today and tomorrow. This essential book is crucial for moving beyond the everyday uses of AI and understanding the strategic challenges facing businesses.
And the comic book "60,000 Rebounds: The Powers of Failure" by Charles Perrotin in the "Jury's Choice" category
Those who make the
HLU Book Prize
The
Orientation Committee
Six expert personalities, with links to HLU and belonging to the worlds of publishing and leadership/research/innovation, are meeting to discuss and clarify the framework and modalities of the Prize.
Our prize specifically aims to spread “Heart Leadership”, so that a growing number of leaders can deploy a contributive leadership style in the 21st century in the face of 3 challenges: ecological issues, inequalities, deviant uses of AI.
We have therefore selected certain works that are not given much attention, in order to make them visible to leaders who are readers.
Books are also a means of expression for leaders. Some of the books in this selection were written by “leader-authors.” Their lived experience, their style, their personal passions, and their convictions are fully expressed through a less conventional medium.
The
Jury
The works in competition
selected by category
Heart Leadership
Best book for leaders on Heart Leadership (intuition, empathy, and courage in practice)
"Poil à Gratter"
Best “provocative” book for leaders (challenges mainstream thinking, encourages reflection and alternative actions)
The World to Come
Best book for leaders about the world to come (science fiction, political fiction, foresight)