Quote

Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent.

Gary Hamel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gary Hamel
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: January 1
Businessman
Businessperson
Economist
Authority
Dissent
Turn
Structures
Struggle
Pointless
Turns
Struggles
Political
Employees
Employee
Discourage
Structure
Breed
Advantage
Discouraging

More quotes by Gary Hamel

Image
Strategy is, above all else, the search for above average returns.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
Somewhere out there is a bullet with your company's name on it. Somewhere out there is a competitor, unborn and unknown, that will render your strategy obsolete. You can't dodge the bullet – you're going to have to shoot first. You're going to have to out-innovate the innovators.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
There is no way to create wealth without ideas. Most new ideas are created by newcomers. So anyone who thinks the world is safe for incumbents is dead wrong.
Gary Hamel
Image
This extraordinary arrogance that change must start at the top is a way of guaranteeing that change will not happen in most companies.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top.
Gary Hamel
Image
One way of building private foresight out of public data is looking where others aren't ... if you want to see the future, go to an industry confab and get the list of what was talked about. Then ask, What did people never talk about? That's where you're going to find opportunity.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
We've reached the end of incrementalism. Only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will prosper in the new economy.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
There are as many foolhardy ways to grow as there are to downsize.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In the age of revolution it is not knowledge that produces new wealth, but insight - insight into opportunities for discontinuous innovation. Discovery is the journey insight is the destination. You must become your own seer.
Gary Hamel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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