Stagnation Assassin
Available Now
By Todd Hagopian, The Stagnation Assassin
Eighty percent of businesses are stagnating — running the same consultant playbook as everyone else and wondering why nothing changes. Stagnation Assassin is the anti-consultant manifesto: the complete HOT System rebuilt as a 90-day battle plan across nine integrated frameworks. No consultants. No six-month studies. No Option C. Optimize to death, or declare war. The war begins Monday morning.
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Literary Titan Gold
Book Award
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Gold Stevie Award -
Stagnation Assassin Show (Related Podcast)
Watch: Why Corporate Stagnation Is Your Greatest Enemy—And How to Assassinate It
A brusque and powerfully worded call to combat corporate stagnation. The author's vividly rendered vision is surgically precise.
Kirkus Reviews
Hagopian declares war on stagnation and provides the weapons to wage it.
BlueInk Review
Hagopian writes like someone who has stood inside a burning building and has very little patience for committees debating the temperature.
Literary Titan
A 'must' for business libraries.
Midwest Book Review
Nothing ever changes until we tell ourselves the truth. Isn't it time you stop making excuses?
Randy Pennington
author of Results Rule!
It will not just change how you think about your business; it will change how you lead it.
Glen Parkes
80/20 guru
A real-world playbook leaders can put into action today.
Brandon Kuykendall
80/20 Continuous Improvement Manager, Illinois Tool Works
DECLARE WAR ON STAGNATION
The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox
Available Now
By Todd Hagopian, The Stagnation Assassin
“We all read the same 20 leadership books preaching sanitized, whitewashed solutions, expecting breakthrough results above our competition. I weaponized my bipolar disorder into $3 billion in shareholder value through frameworks you've never seen before.”
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Firebird Book
Award Winner
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Literary Titan Award
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NYC Big Book Favorite
Watch: Why Corporate Stagnation Is Your Greatest Enemy—And How to Assassinate It
Your Mission: Slaughter Stagnation
Where to Buy
“Daring Disruption: The Unfair Advantage reveals how organizational transformation happens at the speed of vulnerability. Mental resilience isn't just a survival strategy—it's your most disruptive competitive weapon.”
Howard Behar
Former President of Starbucks
“We are inspired over and over as we learn the value of bipolar disorder in transforming a business from chaos and disorder to a finely tuned machine”
Jeffrey Liker
Best-Selling Author of "The Toyota Way"
“Todd doesn't glorify hypomania; he weaponizes it into an unfair advantage. Let me be blunt. If you're tired of managing from behind, this book is not optional reading. It's required.”
Bill Canady
Best-Selling Author of "From Panic To Profit"
“What impressed me most is how the book transforms complex business principles into clear, implementable strategies through the vehicle of storytelling.”
Ben Gay III
Best-Selling Author of "The Closers"
“The best business novelization since The Goal”
Mark Blayney
Business Turnaround Expert
Bold Businesses Breakthrough Barriers.
Bland Businesses Barely Breathe.
The HOT System Unveiled
Corporate stagnation is killing companies. Incremental 3% growth isn't good enough anymore. Markets move too fast, competition is too fierce, and mediocre performance leads to extinction.
The Unfair Advantage reveals the HOT System (Hypomanic Operational Turnaround System), a battle-tested methodology used to generate over $3 billion in shareholder value across Fortune 500 companies, Fortune 1000 companies, small businesses and brand new startups.
This book weaponizes hypomanic patterns: Grandiose goal setting, the relentless drive, systematic execution, and ruthless prioritization that separates transformational leaders from everyone else. You'll master three core frameworks:
The Karelin Method
Outwork Your Rivals
Work 20% more hours with 20% greater efficiency while focusing 100% of your time on the 20% of activities that drive 80% of results, and you'll be 6-7X more productive than competitors stuck in "balanced" mediocrity. Named after the wrestler who went 13 years undefeated, this systematic approach combines relentless work ethic with laserlike focus on high-impact activities. Most leaders spread their energy equally across all priorities; the Karelin Method teaches you to dominate by concentrating force where it matters most.
80/20 Matrix
Cut Dead Weight
Discover why 5% of your revenue consumes 80% of your resources, then eliminate it without mercy. The Matrix segments customers and products into four quadrants, revealing your "true 80" (high-value customers buying high-value products) versus the complexity-driving wasteland draining your profits. Stop treating all customers equally and start maximizing margins by bear-hugging your best clients while charging premium prices to, or firing, the rest.
The 3-A Method
52 Improvements Per Year
Traditional Six Sigma delivers 2-4 projects annually with 4-6 month cycles. The 3-A Method (Apprehend-Analyze-Activate) completes improvements in 6 weeks, generating 52 annual improvements that compound exponentially. Most continuous improvement programs concentrate expertise in certified specialists while 99% of employees wait passively. The 3-A Method rotates 100% of employees through improvement projects, building organizational capability that accelerates rather than plateaus. Stop celebrating 40% improvements on 3 projects and start generating 5-10% improvements across 52 initiatives that multiply into transformation.
Orthodoxy Smashing
Break the Rules Everyone Follows
Your competitors read the same 20 leadership books, attended the same conferences, and hired the same consultants. When everyone executes the same playbook, nobody achieves breakthrough results. Orthodoxies are industry assumptions everyone accepts without questioning, "customers demand this feature," "markets work this way," "we need full product line." The refrigeration division discovered 62% of customers never used dispensers regularly, yet every manufacturer included them because "that's what premium brands do." Smash the orthodoxies your competitors still defend and capture 3-5 years of competitive advantage while they wonder what happened.
This book is for executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders who are tired of incremental gains and consensus-driven mediocrity. If you're ready to declare war on stagnation and drive dramatic transformation, this is your playbook.
Todd Hagopian has spent his career turning around struggling divisions within massive corporations. He has turned around businesses at Whirlpool, ITW, Berkshire Hathaway and JBT Marel. His methods are proven, systematic, and replicable.
This isn't just a book, it's a movement. Join thousands of Stagnation Assassins who refuse to accept mediocrity and are committed to operational excellence and dramatic transformation. Come Declare WAR On Stagnation!
Are You a Warrior?
You're Ready If...
- Tired of incremental gains
- Not satisfied with 3% growth
- Willing to fight for transformation
- Ready to eliminate dead weight
- Committed to operational excellence
- Want dramatic results, not marginal improvement
You're Not Ready If...
- Seek consensus above action
- Prefer comfort over change
- Avoid difficult decisions
- Accept mediocrity
- Fear confrontation
- Choose incremental over exponential
If You're Ready to Fight
Todd Hagopian, business transformation author, speaker, and executive, is Global VP of Product Strategy and Marketing at JBT Marel. Known as The Stagnation Assassin, he helps leadership teams kill stagnation before it kills their margins.
Hagopian has led business transformations at Berkshire Hathaway, Illinois Tool Works, and Whirlpool Corporation, generating a documented $3 billion in shareholder value across his corporate roles. Outside the corporate world, he doubled the value of his own manufacturing business acquisition in three years before selling it. He is a former Leadership Council member at the National Small Business Association.
He built his methods into a framework system that includes the HOT System, the Karelin Method, the Four-Position Framework, the 80/20 Matrix, 80/20 Squared, and the Stagnation Genome diagnostic. His methodologies have been published on SSRN and featured in Forbes, The Washington Post, NPR, and Fox Business.
Hagopian is the author of The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox (Koehler Books, January 2026) and Stagnation Assassin: The Anti-Consultant Manifesto (Koehler Books, July 2026). His next book, Ten Minute Transformation, is forthcoming from Koehler Books in 2027. He is the founder of Stagnation Assassins, a community for executives who refuse to manage from behind, and his blog at toddhagopian.com is published in more than 15 languages. He holds an MBA from Michigan State University.
He speaks to leadership teams on business transformation, turnarounds, and breaking stagnation. Learn more at toddhagopian.com/speaking.
Author / Keynote Speaker
Todd Hagopian
Disclaimer: Todd has declared war on stagnation in several industries. Side effects of following his strategic frameworks include: uncontrollable profit growth, methodical competitive domination, and chronic business transformation.
Ready to Declare WAR on Stagnation?
The war on mediocrity begins with you. Get The Unfair Advantage today and join thousands of leaders who refuse to accept incremental gains.
Coming soon
Ten Minute Transformation
Todd Hagopian's next book. From Koehler Books, February 2027.