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" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Matter
Easy
Natural
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" 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. "
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" It doesn't matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is - what matters is its relative 'share of customer value' in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value. "
Gary Hamel
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" 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. "
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" The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs. "
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" Over the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines. "
Gary Hamel
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" 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. "
Gary Hamel
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Truth
" In a well-functioning democracy, citizens have the option of voting their political masters out of office. Not so in most companies. "
Gary Hamel
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Democracy
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" You have to train people how to be business innovators. If you don't train them, the quality of the ideas that you get in an innovation marketplace is not likely to be high. "
Gary Hamel
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" What's true for churches is true for other institutions: the older and more organized they get, the less adaptable they become. That's why the most resilient things in our world - biological life, stock markets, the Internet - are loosely organized. "
Gary Hamel
Internet
Become
World
" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Others
Authority
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" In most organizations, change comes in only two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Review the history of the average organization and you'll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change. "
Gary Hamel
Organization
You
Long
" The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. "
Gary Hamel
Decisions
Authority
Power
" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Most
Focusing
Innovation
" I'm a capitalist by conviction and profession. I believe the best economic system is one that rewards entrepreneurship and risk-taking, maximizes customer choice, uses markets to allocate scarce resources and minimizes the regulatory burden on business. "
Gary Hamel
Burden
Choice
Believe
" It's not unusual for a would-be entrepreneur to get turned down half a dozen times before finding a willing investor - yet in most companies, it takes only one 'nyet' to kill a project stone dead. "
Gary Hamel
Down
Stone
Entrepreneur
" A well-conceived product excels at what it does. It's close to being functionally flawless - like a Ziploc bag, a radio from Tivoli Audio, a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, a Nespresso coffee maker or Google's home page. "
Gary Hamel
Home
Radio
Bag
" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Practice
Power
Individual
" Over time, a successful company will acquire much in the way of resources and momentum, and these things often insulate it from reality once it has stopped being successful. "
Gary Hamel
Momentum
Way
Time
" An employee who's one of hundreds, rather than one of a few, is unlikely to feel personally responsible for helping the organization adapt and change. "
Gary Hamel
Adapt
Than
Organization
" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Free
Tea
You
" You can't build an adaptable organization without adaptable people - and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to. "
Gary Hamel
Change
Build
You
" We owe our existence to innovation. Our species exists thanks to four billion years of genetic innovation. "
Gary Hamel
Existence
Innovation
Thanks
" Trust is not simply a matter of truthfulness, or even constancy. It is also a matter of amity and goodwill. We trust those who have our best interests at heart, and mistrust those who seem deaf to our concerns. "
Gary Hamel
Matter
Trust
Seem
" I am an ardent supporter of capitalism - but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not. "
Gary Hamel
Understand
Am
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" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Risks
Challenge
Freedom
" 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. "
Gary Hamel
Leaders
Own
Slaves
" When a politician bends the truth or a CEO breaks a promise, trust takes a beating. "
Gary Hamel
Trust
Promise
Truth
" As the great grandchildren of the industrial revolution, we have learned, at last, that the heedless pursuit of more is unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. Our planet, our security, our sense of equanimity and our very souls demand something better, something different. "
Gary Hamel
Great
Better
Revolution
" Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent. "
Gary Hamel
Authority
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" I was frustrated for a long time with my colleagues in the business school world and with so many management authors who didn't really see themselves as innovators. They were glorified journalists. "
Gary Hamel
Time
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