C.H. Hamel Quotes

The problem is not one of prediction. It is one of imagination.

The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.

Truth be told, there are lots of companies that provide exemplary phone support. DirecTV, Virgin America and Apple are a few that regularly exceed my expectations.

Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane.

An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety.

The value of your network is the square of the number of people in it.

Our biggest challenge is how to create a self-renewing company.

Every now and again your life's course can turn on one simple thing, some small decision the import of which isn't at all obvious at the time.

There is no way to create wealth without ideas. Most new ideas are created by newcomers. So anyone who thinks the world is safe for incumbents is dead wrong.

In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record - it's easy to discover who's in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don't appear on any organization chart.

The problem with the future is that it is different, if you are unable to think differently, the future will always arrive as a surprise.

I don't know whether the universe contains any evidence of intelligent design, but I can assure you that thousands of everyday products do not.

Fact is, inventing an innovative business model is often mostly a matter of serendipity.

Building human-centered organizations doesn't imply a return to the paternalistic, corporate welfare practices of the 19th century. Most of us don't want to be nannied.

Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it.

Resilience is based on the ability to embrace the extremes -- while no becoming an extremist. ... **Most companies don't do paradox very well.** (emphasis by author) [2002] p.25f

Any company that cannot imagine the future won't be around to enjoy it.

We live in a moment that is pregnant with possibility.

It's important to remember that innovators in business don't always get a platform.

Most of us do more than subsist. From the vantage point of our ancestors, we live lives of almost unimaginable ease. Here again, we have innovation to thank.

I am an ardent supporter of capitalism - but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not.

Companies do not do new things because they understand it but because they feel it.

All too often, a successful new business model becomes the business model for companies not creative enough to invent their own.

Obviously, you don't have to be religious to be moral, and beastly people are sometimes religious.

Most companies don't have the luxury of focusing exclusively on innovation. They have to innovate while stamping out zillions of widgets or processing billions of transactions.

For every person who can imagine a possibility there are tens of thousands who are stuck in the greased grooves of history.

I started to write book reviews as a means of recording my thoughts about what I'd read before all memory of them vanished.

I don't understand the mechanics behind things, so a site that I find impressive may not really be more technologically advanced than something which is ostensibly uninteresting.

What I find amazing is how sometimes ideas will just click, seemingly without effort.

Over the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines.

Businesses fail when they over-invest in what is at the expense of what could be.

If you neglect your blogs they don't take up much time.

For the first time in history we can work backward from our imagination rather than forward from our past.

In a world of commoditized knowledge, the returns go to the companies who can produce non-standard knowledge.

people are all there is to an organization

Influence is like water. Always flowing somewhere.

When a politician bends the truth or a CEO breaks a promise, trust takes a beating.

Resilience is based on the ability to embrace the extremes -- while no becoming an extremist. ... **Most companies don't do paradox very well.**(emphasis by author)[2002] p.25f

If we cant laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others?

... all too often, a successful new business model becomes the business model for companies not creative enough to invent their own.[2002] p.46

A good strategy with a bad implementation is a bad strategy

At the pinnacle of great design are products so gorgeous and lust-worthy that you want to lick them: a Porsche 911, Samsung's Luxia TV, an Eames lounge chair or anything by Loro Piana.