Hamel Quotes & Sayings

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

Don't be such a dick." His grip was almost painful, but part of me liked it. I liked how close I was standing and how intense he looked. I knew he was just messing around with me' and was probably going to admit to the joke any second, but I wanted to drink him in while I had the chance.
Because in two seconds I was going to slap the shit out of him.

- Lacey — B.B. Hamel

Perseverance may be just as important as speed in the battle for the future. — Gary Hamel

From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top. — Gary Hamel

I don't want to come off like a girl scout and 'Isn't she sweet?' but the honest-to-God truth is I had seven years of a great show. It put me on the map. Yes, I'm associated with Joyce, but this is not chopped liver. — Veronica Hamel

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

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

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. — Gary Hamel

There's no such thing as "sustaining" leadership; it must be reinvented again and again. — Gary Hamel

The problem is not one of prediction. It is one of imagination. — Gary Hamel

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

She'd been only eight when Arobynn Hamel, her mentor and the King of the Assassins, found her half-submerged on the banks of a frozen river and brought her to his keep on the border between Adarlan and Terrasen. — Sarah J. Maas

The opportunities for future growth are everywhere. Seeing the future has nothing to do with speculating about what might happen. Rather, you must understand the revolutionary potential of what is already happening. — Gary Hamel

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. — Gary Hamel

Aelin braced her forearms on the bar, crossing one ankle over the other. "Hello, Tern." Arobynn's second in command-or he had been two years ago. A vicious, calculating little prick who had always been more than eager to do Arobynn's dirty work. "I figured it was only a matter of time before one of Arobynn's dogs sniffed me out."
Tern flashed a too-bright smile. "If memory serves, you were always his favorite bitch. — Sarah J. Maas

I have a producing partner named Stephen Hamel, and we've been trying to generate material. — Keanu Reeves

We don't know where we're going, but we're not going to stray from familiar paths. — Gary Hamel

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

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

Business leaders must find ways to infuse mundane business activities with deeper, soul-stirring ideals, such as honor, truth, love, justice, and beauty. — Gary Hamel

Ideas that transform industries almost never come from inside those industries. — Gary Hamel

Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. — Gary Hamel

When it comes to innovation, a company's legacy beliefs are a much bigger liability than its legacy costs. - Gary Hamel — Jackie Fenn

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

Competition for the future is competition to create and dominate emerging opportunities-to stake out new competitive space. Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own roadmap. — Gary Hamel

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

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

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

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

Farran studied his new ally, his gaze glittering. "You have no idea." After another moment, he asked, "Why did you do it?"
Arobynn's attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. "Because I don't like sharing my belongings. — Sarah J. Maas

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

Why don't you get to the point," she drawled. "I want to have a few hours of sleep tonight." Not a lie. With every breath, exhaustion wrapped tighter around her bones.
"I would have thought," Arobynn said, "given how close you two were and your abilities, that you'd somehow be able to sense it. Or at least hear of it, considering what he was accused of."
The prick was enjoying every second of this. If Dorian was dead or hurt
"Your cousin Aedion has been imprisoned for treason - for conspiring with the rebels here in Rifthold to depose the king and put you back on the throne."
The world stopped.
Stopped, and started, then stopped again. — Sarah J. Maas

The only thing that can be safely predicted is that sometime soon your organization will be challenged to change in ways for which it has no precedent. — Gary Hamel

If organized religion has become less relevant, it's not because churches have held fast to their creedal beliefs - it's because they've held fast to their conventional structures, programs, roles and routines. — Gary Hamel

Your organization can start tweeting, but that wont change its DNA. — Gary Hamel

People are all there is to an organization — Gary Hamel

We like to believe we can break strategy down to Five Forces or Seven Ss. But you can't. Strategy is extraordinarily emotional and demanding. — Gary Hamel

Why do my legs hurt from driving?" I said out loud. "I don't know. Mine are sore too." "That's from running around my mind all day." "Good one."

-Camden & Lacey — B.B. Hamel

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

In an increasingly non-linear economy, incremental change is not enough-you have to build a capacity for strategy innovation, one that increases your ability to recognize new opportunities. — Gary Hamel

I was drawn to him inexplicably, like a planet pulled towards a star. — B.B. Hamel

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

Great accomplishments start with great aspirations. — Gary Hamel

To be embraced, a change effort must be socially constructed in a process that gives everyone the right to set priorities, diagnose barriers , and generate options. — Gary Hamel

I thought I'd have time to become a movie star. And it didn't happen, did it? We're still waiting. And they're saying, 'Don't hold your breath, kid.' Even movie stars can't get movies, you know what I mean? — Veronica Hamel

Strategy is, above all else, the search for above average returns. — Gary Hamel

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. — Gary Hamel

your boss is an older sibling. You'll always be respectful, but you won't hesitate to offer frank advice when you think it's warranted - and you'll never suck up. — Gary Hamel

**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 — Gary Hamel

Only stupid questions create wealth. — Gary Hamel

Arobynn only smiled at her, taller by a head. And when he reached out, she allowed him to brush his knuckles down her cheek. The calluses on is fingers said enough about how often he practiced. I do not expect you to trust me; I do not expect you to love me. — Sarah J. Maas

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

Large organizations don't worship shareholders or customers, they worship the past. If it were otherwise, it wouldn't take a crisis to set a company on a new path. — Gary Hamel

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

There's a simple, but oft-neglected lesson here: to sustain success, you have to be willing to abandon things that are no longer successful. — Gary Hamel

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. — Gary Hamel

Beaumont-Hamel sits within a thousand acres of French agriculture. The trenches are under this blanket of grass. In the 1920s, a park was established here and trees from Newfoundland imported to encircle the battlefield so you get the feeling of being within a copse of woods. — Michael Winter

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 — Gary Hamel

There are as many foolhardy ways to grow as there are to downsize. — Gary Hamel

Are we changing as fast as the world around us? — Gary Hamel

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

What matters in the new economy is not return on investment, but return on imagination — Gary Hamel

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

At the heart of every faith system is a bargain: on one side there is the comfort that comes from a narrative that suggests human life has cosmic significance, and on the other a duty to yield to moral commands that can, in the moment, seem rather inconvenient. — Gary Hamel

But he was a filthy pirate. They were Arobynn Hamel's assassin-educated, wealthy, refined. Slavery was beneath them. — Sarah J. Maas

It's not just that individuals have lost faith in the integrity of their leaders, it's that they no longer believe society's most powerful institutions are acting in their interests. — Gary Hamel

You can't use an old map to see a new land. — Gary Hamel

The fantastic thing about the memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel is that it's one of the rare examples where they've preserved a battlefield more or less as it was. You can see all the trenches, where the British were, where the Germans lined up. — Michael Winter

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

Listen, I need to sleep. You okay watching over the house for a few hours?" "Sure thing. You tell them yet?" I frowned. "I told Lacey." "Your sister?" "Stepsister." "Whatever. How'd she take it?" "About how I expected." "So she thinks you're a lying piece of shit." "Pretty much."

- Camden & Trip — B.B. Hamel

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

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

A good strategy with a bad implementation is a bad strategy — Gary Hamel

In the long term the most important question for a company is not what you are but what you are becoming. — Gary Hamel

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

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

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

All too often, legacy management practices reflexively perpetuate the past - by over-weighting the views of long-tenured executives, by valuing conformance more highly than creativity and by turning tired industry nostrums into sacred truths. — Gary Hamel

The best innovations - both socially and economically - come from the pursuit of ideals that are noble and timeless: joy, wisdom, beauty, truth, equality, community, sustainability and, most of all, love. These are the things we live for, and the innovations that really make a difference are the ones that are life-enhancing. And that's why the heart of innovation is a desire to re-enchant the world. — Gary Hamel

Management innovation is going to be the most enduring source of competitive advantage. There will be lots of rewards for firms in the vanguard. — Gary Hamel

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

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

Discovery is the journey; insight is the destination. — Gary Hamel

We live in a moment that is pregnant with possibility. — Gary Hamel

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. — Gary Hamel

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

Influence is like water. Always flowing somewhere. — Gary Hamel

Innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance. — Gary Hamel

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

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. — Gary Hamel

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

The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be. — Gary Hamel

With age brings wisdom; with youth brings innovation. Combine the two and they are unstoppable. — Ocian Hamel-Smith

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

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

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. — Gary Hamel

Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who's forging a bullet with your company's name on it. You've got one option now - to shoot first. You've got to out innovate the innovators. — Gary Hamel

As human beings, we are the only organisms that create for the sheer stupid pleasure of doing so. Whether it's laying out a garden, composing a new tune on the piano, writing a bit of poetry, manipulating a digital photo, redecorating a room, or inventing a new chili recipe - we are happiest when we are creating. — Gary Hamel

I feel like I was just one pair of insanely high heels away from getting propositioned on the street. — B.B. Hamel

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