M Hamel Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's the plan for today?" I asked him. "Same thing we do every day. Try and take over the world." I stared at him for a second. "Was that a 'Pinky and the Brain' reference?" "Sure was." "I'm the Brain." He laughed and took another sip of coffee. "I wouldn't have it any other way." I nodded triumphantly and nibbled at my bagel.

-Lacey & Camden — B.B. Hamel

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

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

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

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

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