Quotes from Gary Hamel

I'm not one of those professors whose office is encased floor-to-ceiling with books. By the way, I think academics do this to intimidate their visitors.

In a well-functioning democracy, citizens have the option of voting their political masters out of office. Not so in most companies.

As human beings, we are the genetic elite, the sentient, contemplating and innovating sum of countless genetic accidents and transcription errors.

During the ten years I lived in the U.K., I frequently attended an Anglican church just outside of London. I enjoyed the energetic singing and the thoughtful homilies. And yet, I found it easy to be a pew warmer, a consumer, a back row critic.

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

The goal is not to speculate on what might happen, but to imagine what you can make happen.

Never before has the gap between what we can imagine and what we can accomplish been smaller.

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

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

To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.

In an ideal world, an individual's institutional power would be correlated perfectly with his or her value-add. In practice, this is seldom the case.

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

If corporate leaders and their acolytes are not slaves to some meritorious social purpose, they run the risk of being enslaved by their own ignoble appetites.

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

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

In a democracy, you don't need anyone's permission to form a new political party, publish a politically charged article, or organize a 'tea party.' And in open markets, individuals are free to buy and invest as they see fit.

While one should never underestimate the ability of risk-besotted financiers to wreak havoc, the real threat to capitalism isn't unfettered financial cunning. It is, instead, the unwillingness of executives to confront the changing expectations of their stakeholders.

A titled leader relies heavily on positional power to get things done; a natural leader is able to mobilize others without the whip of formal authority.

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

Like a child star whose fame fades as the years advance, many once-innovative companies become less so as they mature.

The fact is, society is made more hospitable by every individual who acts as if 'do unto others' really was a rule.

One doesn't have to be a Marxist to be awed by the scale and success of early-20th-cent ury efforts to transform strong-willed human beings into docile employees.

We owe our existence to innovation. Our species exists thanks to four billion years of genetic innovation.

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