Aug 19, 2020
Gary Hamel is
on the faculty of the London Business School and is a cofounder of
the Management Lab, an organization that builds technology and
tools to support breakthrough management innovation. Professor
Hamel has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal as the world's most influential business
thinker, and his landmark books have been translated into more than
twenty-five languages. They include The Future of
Management,
What Matters
Now, and
Humanocracy: Creating
Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside
Them.
Gary makes a passionate, data-driven argument for
excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.
Drawing on more than a decade of research and packed with practical
examples, Gary lays out a detailed blueprint for creating
organizations that are as inspired and ingenious as the human
beings inside them.
Key Takeaways
[3:40] Employees feel powerless
because they’re not the CEO or in a leadership position. Truth is,
employees hold a lot of power.
[6:15] You don’t need to take
down the whole system to fix it. Experiment and see what
works.
[7:50] Most communication in
organizations is horizontal, not vertical.
[9:10] Gary shares an example of
how employees can get the funding they need within their department
without going through the lengthy budget planning and permission
process.
[12:20] In a recent poll, more
than 56% of people thought that capitalism was doing more harm than
good.
[13:45] No matter your political
side, people are frustrated by the broken system.
[20:45] Being in a physical
location does not impact whether an employee feels more connected
to the company mission.
[22:40] We live in an
increasingly complex world, where changes happen rapidly and often.
At the same time, bureaucracy is growing. Gary shares his thoughts
on why that might be.
[30:30] Breakthroughs often come
from people who are very young or from outside the system. If you
want to succeed, you need an outsider mindset.
[33:35] We see human beings as
instruments. We need to shift our focus and see them as agents
instead.
[35:45] Leaders think their
people are resistant to change. This is a false
narrative.
[37:35] There is a reason why
employees are so cynical.
[42:00] Gary shares his proudest
achievements and what he looks forward to in the future.
[45:25] If you’re a leader, ask
yourself how do you increase the power of those around
you?
Quotable Quotes
- “If
you’re really fed up with all of this and you think we need to
change, don’t wait for the bureaucrats to uninstall
bureaucracy.”
- “Every human being wants dignity and
opportunity and equity. You want to believe you matter as a human
being.”
- “Only
one in five employees believe their opinions matter and only one in
10 say they have the freedom to experiment and try new
things.”
- “You
gotta empower people to make decisions on the frontline, give them
the tools, knowledge, and incentives to do the right
thing.”
- “We
are eager to change, but our organizations give people very few
opportunities to be masters of their own destiny and lead
change.”
Resources Mentioned
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