Manage Differently Now

Gary Hamel was one of the speakers at the recent Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Mr. Hamel is a visiting professor with the London Business School, is ranked #1 as "The World's Most Influential Business Thinker" in 2008 by the Wall Street Journal, and is called "The World's Leading Expert on Business Strategy" by Fortune magazine.

Here are some of the things he shared:

• It's no longer possible to do things the same old way
• Organizations [People] lose their relevance when their rate of internal change lags behind the rate of external change; inertia kills organizations
• The world is becoming more turbulent faster than the organization [the person] is becoming more resilient'

'4 Key Imperatives for Change:

1. Overcome the temptation to take refuge in denial [face the facts, question how you do things, listen to the renegades/dissidents]
2. Generate more strategic options - get creative! [you must diverge - a lot - before you start to converge]
3. De-construct what you already know/do - be radical! [examine everything that hasn't changed in a long time and ask whether change is necessary]
4. Remove 'top-down' power structures; the organization should be able to function without a "superstar" leader [there aren't too many Steve Jobs', Jack Welch's, Bill Gates', Warren Buffett's around]

New reality key characteristics: mobile, connected, supportive, dynamic, malleable, experimental, flat, meritocratic, vibrant'

Winners manage differently, changing as fast as the world around them.