Gary Hamel Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

A good strategy with a bad implementation is a bad strategy

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

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