Gary Hamel Quotes

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

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations

Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.

In any business, you have to evolve.

Google worries - and rightly so - about how hard it is for a big company to come up with the next hot thing.

We cannot assume that past successes will insure future successes.

I'm a strong believer that you can build great companies in time of both greed and fear. But you have to be paying attention and operating under the right assumptions. You don't have to believe history repeats itself, but you should accept that history rhymes.

I think I've changed my business strategy every year since 2003. You have to be watching the horizon constantly. The rug has been pulled out from under our feet so many times.

I think we operate in a very dynamic marketplace, and as such, we need to constantly innovate.

Disruption starts with committing to excellence and taking a stand for your customer.

Even though we live in a fast-changing world with short term-ism all around, it requires years of determination to transform a company and structurally reap the rewards. Innovation companies need to set their sights on solving unmet needs - but this approach requires focus and long-term tenacity.

Adaptability and constant innovation is key to the survival of any company operating in a competitive market.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

The only way to avoid disruption is to constantly do what you would if you were just starting out.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

All economic activity is by definition "high risk." And defending yesterday--that is, not innovating--is far more risky than making tomorrow.

Doing business is all about providing a good product or service to your customers. A good businessman is he who knows that what is successful today may not be so tomorrow. Technology changes so fast, and so do people's needs and wants. That's why it would do well for a businessman to know how to adapt to change. He must constantly reinvent the business, or it won't last.

Entrepreneurship is a process, not a job or profession. So be faithful to the process and remember that even when times are bad, the process will give you a glimpse of the future that lies ahead.

Any company designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st.

The problem with most failing businesses is not that their owners don?t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations - they don?t, but those things are easy enough to learn - but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren?t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

Progress and growth are impossible if you always do things the way you've always done things.

Follow the accident, fear the fixed plan--that is the rule.

What every employer is looking for is not someone who can do the job, but someone who can reinvent the job.

You just have to change. To be successful, what you have to do is have an acceptance of risk and you have to be pretty explicit about that, because if you don’t accept risk, you don’t get any innovation. And that means part of risk is you have to accept failure because not everything works.

Business neglected is business lost.