Gary Hamel is the epitome of all that is wrong with the business professoriate. His best book was his first, Re-engineering the Corporation. Since then he's been responsible largely for drivel, exemplified by his nonsensical op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, whose editors ought to know better. In it he claims to have discerned in Google the keys to avoiding the strangulation of innovation and productivity that seems to be the hallmark of the corporate behemoth.

There are four "evolutionary risk factors," according to Hamel, and Google has a neat strategy for addressing each. In response to risk factor #4, for example: "Creeping mediocrity," Google "keep(s) the bozos out and reward(s) people who make a difference."

This is the Hamel formula:

1) Cozy up to executives at a successful company.
2) Spend time schmoozing with them over wine and cheese. Read some articles about them. Have your research assistant assemble your Brie-smudged notes.
3) Take your simplistic and casual observations about the organization and assign them numbers, to suggest rigor and comprehensiveness (e.g., the four evolutionary risk factors. How do we know there aren't five, or three? Easy -- Hamel thought of four by his deadline.)
4) Slap it all together with a breezy, name-dropping, occasionally jargon-laden style to suggest that you are hip and connected, yet erudite.
5) When your subjects are subsequently revealed to be business disasters, or worse, criminals, a lesser person might pretend he never wrote about them. Mistake. Instead, continue to market the book in which you drool over Enron as if you are living in an alternate universe. Further, continue to offer to speak on the topic for $40,000 a pop. Show no shame. You are a freaking rock star, after all.

To give you a flavor for how Hamel operates, while at the same time sparing you the misery of actually reading his dreck, I submit to you my humble attempt at Hamelese:


I studied executive performance at ten top-performing companies in the computer industry and discovered three secrets to sustained success. These are the keys to being a leader, not a has-been:

1) Clothes matter. In all of the companies I examined, every single executive wore either pants or a skirt. What's more, this rule is a cultural imperative. It is essential to the organization's survival. In one instance when an employee showed up with neither, he was immediately shown the door. This is serious business.

2) Bill 'em. That's right. Not a single one of these high-flying revolutionary companies let a customer get by without receiving a bill. Discipline, diligence, and timely billing are their religion.

3) Cool off. Each one of these superior companies has air conditioning. Not a one would even entertain the possibility of doing business without it. While the competition is heating up, these competitors are as cool as the other side of the pillow.

The rest of the world is far behind, not wearing clothes, forgetting to bill their customers, working in a dusty dirt field in the middle of Alabama. But not these top performing superstar companies. They have discovered a world that most executives can't even dream of. At that is why they are at the top, and destined to stay there for quite some time.

I'm Gary Hamel, and I'm a clueless schmuck.