Humanocracy

Our organisations are failing us. They're sluggish, change-phobic, and emotionally arid. Human beings, by contrast, are adaptable, creative, and full of passion. This gap between individual and organisational capability is the unfortunate by-product of bureaucracy – the top-down, rule-choked management structure that undergirds virtually every organisation on the planet.

Invented in the nineteenth century with the goal of turning people into semi-programmable robots, bureaucracy is deeply dehumanising. Today, only 13 percent of employees around the world are fully engaged in their work. The rest show up physically but leave much of their enthusiasm and ingenuity at home – hardly surprising given the tendency of bureaucrats to regard human beings as mere 'resources.'

By the authors' reckoning, bureaucracy costs the global economy more than $9 trillion in lost economic output each year. Worse, despite all the hype around flat organisations and agile processes, bureaucracy is growing, not shrinking.

In their provocative and practical new book, world-renowned business thinker Gary Hamel and expert coauthor Michele Zanini lay out a detailed blueprint for creating organisations that are fully human and free from the shackles of bureaucracy. Few leaders would admit to being champions of bureaucracy, but rarer still is the leader who has a plan for defeating it.

Humanocracy brims with illuminating insights, real-world stories, and powerful tools. Both manifesto and manual, it shows you how to build an organisation that's fit for the future by building one that's fit for human beings.