Gary Hamel

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

“Today, no leader can afford to be indifferent to the challenge of engaging employees in the work of creating the future. Engagement may have been optional in the past, but it's pretty much the whole game today.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In most languages, 'control' is the first synonym for the word 'manage.' Control is about spotting and correcting deviations from pre-defined standards; thus to control, one must first constrain.”

“The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.”

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

“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.”

“Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane.”