Gary Hamel Quotes - Page 4

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

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

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

**New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight.** That's right - the essential insight doesn't come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight -- a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision. [first-line bold by author] [2002] p.23

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.

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

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.

I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms.

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.

In the age of revolution you have to be able to imagine revolutionary alternatives to the status quo. If you can't, you'll be relegated to the swollen ranks of keyboard-pounding automatons.

An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There are as many foolhardy ways to grow as there are to downsize.

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

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