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.
Interpretation
Organizations thrive when individuals can innovate and take risks without fear of failure.
This quote by Gary Hamel highlights the importance of fostering a culture within organizations that allows individuals to think independently and creatively. By encouraging employees to challenge established practices, experiment, and pursue their interests, companies can become more adaptable and innovative, ultimately leading to greater success and resilience in a rapidly changing environment.
In practice
During a team meeting, you can use this quote to encourage your colleagues to propose bold, new ideas.
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.
The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
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.
The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.
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.
In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.
If someone uses the uniform, whatever uniform, for partisan politics, I am disappointed because I think it does erode that bond of trust we have with the American people.
You know, I never walk into a room feeling as if I'm in the room as a Black woman. When I walk into the Security Council, I'm the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Security Council, and that's what I tell young women when I meet them.
In the Marine Corps, your buddy is not only your classmate or fellow officer, but he is also the Marine under your command. If you don't prepare yourself to properly train him, lead him, and support him on the battlefield, then you're going to let him down. That is unforgivable in the Marine Corps.
I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.
Government caters to those screaming the loudest, regardless of what they're screaming about. In business, it's exactly the opposite! You invest more in the most successful departments, and less in those that aren't performing.
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