"Unlock the Potential of Your Team: Humanocracy - A Guide to Creating Organizations as Remarkable as the People Who Work in Them"

James Weiss: This is a good book to motivate one to explore areas of change to reduce and eliminate bureaucracy. It’s both inspiring and depressing at the same time. Hopefully our company will embrace these concepts and become a success story for a follow up book!

United States on Aug 24, 2023

Thomas: Excellent book! Must read. Recommended 100%. Full of insight.

United Kingdom on Apr 27, 2023

Frank Calberg: Some takeaways from reading the book:
- Pages 33 and 40: Change is increasing. The acceleration of change is the product of radical shifts in the growth of computational power and network capacity. Since 1990, the power of mobile phones has increased thousands of times, and global Internet traffic has increased millions of times. Every day, more than 700,000 hours of new content gets uploaded to YouTube.
- Page 43: Flourishing in an economy, which is continuously changing, requires initiative, creativity and courage. These values come from inside of us. They cannot be commanded.
- Page 48: Since the invention of bureaucracy in the 19th century, people have become better educated. Humans are capable of working in much better ways.
- Page 232: Ask yourself what has not changed for a long time and to what extent that still makes sense.
- Page 232: Listen to newcomers. Why? Because they have an innovation advantage. Their thinking is not constrained by experience.

Germany on Mar 13, 2023

LJLJ: Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Michele Zanini & Gary Hamel

Takeaways:
-Bureaucratic Mass Index (BMI)
-“We shaped our business to let employees show management the way to goals that once seemed unreachable.”
-“Politicking…results in favoritism, sandbagging and an erosion of trust”
-Crowdsource strategy
-“…megawatts of emotional energy get wasted on petty battles…. collegiality gets shredded by zero-sum promotion tournaments, and decisions get corrupted by artfully concealed self-interest”
-This is probably the 10th leadership book I’ve read that has referenced @southwestair Southwest Airlines - though there’s always a different approach to their culture shared. The CEO stated, “a company is stronger if it’s bound by love rather than fear”
-“The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed. You may not be able to see it from where you’re sitting now, but if you go looking for it, you can find it.”

I’ll stop there but that’s far from all the takeaways I have dog-eared. This book was recommended to me, I extend the recommendation to you. For the many...

United States on Nov 13, 2022

John Oldham: Unfortunately, this book is unlikely to help managers find better ways to manage.

The description of the problems of bureaucracy is reasonable, but the underlying cause is misdiagnosed as Taylorism – standardisation, management planning and controls, too many managers etc. The authors even blame the distress of eighteenth-century factory workers on Taylorism, despite Frederick Taylor not being born until the mid-nineteenth century. They also misquote him as saying, 'In the past the man has been first; in the future the machine must be first.' What Taylor actually said was that 'the system’ must be first. Big difference.

The reality is that much more of today's bureaucracy stems from remote senior managers trying to control through rules, procedures and managing by numbers, as well as the rise of 'support' functions and what Dekker calls bureaucratic entrepreneurism.

The authors’ prescription - following their misdiagnosis - is a rehash of 1990s empowerment thinking along with internal market mechanisms. Advocates of these supposedly humanistic approaches usually claim they’re what the most successful businesses do, selectively reporting the facts to...

United Kingdom on Jul 13, 2022

Pablo: Este libro defiende la idea de humanocracia. Esta es una palabra curiosa ya que defiende la cultura de la gente sobre cualquier otra cosa.

El foco en la persona y su desarrollo termina siendo el desarrollo de la empresa organización de la cual sea partícipe, es por eso que el autor enfatiza en enfocarse ayudar a las personas para ayudarse a uno mismo y a la organización que detrás. Mediante el crecimiento de las personas es que se logra el crecimiento de la empresa. Ayudar en el desarrollo de las personas y formar una cultura agradable y de crecimiento es lo que hace que las grandes compañías progresen y genera un impacto en la gente dentro y fuera de ellas.

Buen libro para aquellos que estén en alguna posición de establecer una cultura de empresa organización o bien ya estén en una posición de liderazgo. Da mucho que pensar.

Spain on Nov 12, 2021

Wally Bock: At the close of his 2007 book, The Future of Management, Gary Hamel said this: 

"For the first time since the dawning of the industrial age, the only way to build a company that's fit for the future is to build one that's fit for human beings as well."

That was the challenge in 2007. It's still the challenge. The only change is that Professor Hamel now has identified the reason that we must do more than reform management. We must get rid of bureaucracy, as well. 

If You're in Business, You Should Read This Book

There are two reasons you should read Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as The People Inside Them. First, it will give you ways to observe your organization and come up with new ideas to try. You should also read this book because other people will be talking about it and writing about it. You will get more from your reading or discussions if you read this book. 

There's a lot of value here, but there are dangers as well. So, read the book, but keep your eyes and your mind open. 

There are four reasons to be wary of what you read about in Humanocracy.

Don't Swallow All the Hype About "Bottom...

United States on Oct 04, 2020

Mark P. McDonald: Humanocracy is part manifesto, part call to arms and very serious about the need to reform the organization in favor of people rather than control. Gary Hamel and Michael Zanini have created a spirited, fast paced discussion of the imperative to change corporations and how they work. The book builds on Gary and Michael's work with the Management Innovation Exchange and demonstrates their master of management thinking and innovation.

This is recommended reading for everyone from the frontline person to the senior exec. Humanocracy is particularly relevant now as organizations seek to be more resiliant, agile, adaptive, innovative, customer centric etc. Leaders are looking for ways to create this change in their organizations and will seek to install systems to make this happen.

Read this book before putting those programs into place, otherwise you will just replace one form of bureaucratic control with another. You cannot achieve and sustain the benefits of resilience, agility etc without creating a more human organization.

A Humanocracy is defined as the design of an organization to maximize human contribution. It is based on seven core tenets to bring this...

United States on Sep 01, 2020

Leanne A: Congratulations on your new book Humanocracy! We need a manifesto such as this and thank you for providing both theories/models as well as real-world examples and a realistic how to guide.
Your case is strong, and your message is clear and comprehensive – it is current to what leader’s need now as a guide. Your book takes a leadership role among other great models and research whose goal has been to illuminate what creates agile companies where people are inspired to contribute their genius. For anyone who has appreciated learning about and/or applying best practices from the likes of servant leadership, EOS, Situational Leadership (Blanchard), Dr. Adizes (Adizes Institute), or the 4Ds of Execution (C. McChesney, S. Covey, and J. Huling) you will reveal in this comprehensive exploration into a case for and case studies on models that are working, plus some strong implementation guidelines.
If you lead an organization, a team, or aspire to do so one day, pick up this book and dive in.

Canada on Aug 31, 2020