gary hamel

  • The Small Challenge For Big Companies

    Small = Optimised for Innovation Research suggests that smaller teams are more optimised for innovation. Indeed, as Dashun Wang and James A. Evans write for HBR, large teams can be better at development and deployment, but small teams are better at disruption. Their analysis… Continue reading

    The Small Challenge For Big Companies
  • The Growing Bureaucratisation Of Life

    Many organisations , without realising it , act as inhibitors of creativity. Rules and protocols are put in place – often for very good reasons – that preserve the status quo.  Over time, organisations develop a set of social norms – ‘the way we… Continue reading

    The Growing Bureaucratisation Of Life
  • Autonomy Only Happens By Design

    Most of us accept that bureaucracy squashes initiative, risk-taking, and creativity, but it doesn’t just stop there. Continue reading

    Autonomy Only Happens By Design
  • The Creativity Productivity Paradox

    You can’t endorse a top-down authority structure and be serious about enhancing adaptability, innovation, or engagement. Gary Hamel Employers are facing a conundrum: a generational gap in job satisfaction. Research seems to indicate that while Gen Z and millennial workers… Continue reading

    The Creativity Productivity Paradox
  • Is Digital Bureaucracy Making Us Less Productive?

    Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work. Albert Einstein. Some context for this post: I’ve been doing some thinking recently about why people keep saying they are ‘too busy’. Is busyness an indicator of having too much work to… Continue reading

    Is Digital Bureaucracy Making Us Less Productive?
  • The Way We Work Isn’t Working

    The office, after management, is arguably the biggest inefficiency tax that organisations layer over themselves. They cost huge amounts to procure and maintain, they become an all too convenient base for meetings (another inefficiency tax), and they set a precedent… Continue reading

    The Way We Work Isn’t Working
  • What If We Replaced All Our Managers With Robots? 

    Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done Peter Drucker Management is the greatest inefficiency in any organisation. Many of you will be familiar with the work of Gary Hamel , but his… Continue reading

    What If We Replaced All Our Managers With Robots? 
  • Why Do We Still Need Managers?

    “Management is not only dysfunctional, Management is also destructive” – Companies Without Managers Last week we held the first of the Bromford  #inspiremelab sessions – where colleagues curated and then discussed provocations around the future of how we work. We covered… Continue reading

    Why Do We Still Need Managers?
  • How To Become A Disobedient Organisation

    Imagine being given $250,000 for deliberately breaking the rules. No strings attached. That’s exactly what MIT are doing. Recognising that societies and institutions lean toward order and away from chaos they have launched an award and cash prize that will go… Continue reading

    How To Become A Disobedient Organisation
  • Managers are waste: Five organisations saying goodbye to the boss

    “Until there is a monumental shift in the leadership dynamic from the old fashioned command and control to a collaborative, status free, matrix way of working, then the debate about the need for an office (in the traditional sense) will… Continue reading