Cultural Alignment in companies: culture is key, but sometimes we lose the keys…

Companies have goals sometimes we don’t even guess about, because of complex business strategies, fakes or trials, to hide any movement from competition. And sometimes they lose the real direction and how they build their global intent, in lean management, avoiding wastes and loss of times. In any company, at one time of their existence, grows some kind of “culture” that is written in gold by HR or in the basement times. As any individual, we all have cultural roots, more or less deep and recover it and bearing themselves in mind means a lot for history. But even if don’t look back, the simply shaping of “cultural lines” is quite interesting to speak as on voice and have all teams behind a common whole of values. This is called “cultural alignment”.

How to manage in such complex systems? It means managin several parts in the company and use outside inputs, as described in the below drawing:

Navigate through:

• Talents management: know how to hire relevant talents, nurture them and hope they will grow themselves and grow their business. And hope one day they’ll go elsewhere (!), with everything they learnt to build another masterpiece. Not convinced? Think about Zappos who offers 3.000$ for people who want to leave company while they’re still in training and welcome period…A smart way to learn about limits and “real” motivation…and keep the goal on passion, values and real sense of delivering. The only purpose that counts, in competition…
• Innovation: “at any step of the growth, keeping in mind to stay innovator”. The only way to have an incredible footprint and grow a tremendous brand. And a windful of passion, leading to compete with hurdles, inside and outside the company. Somekind of super power that overcomes any willingness to succeed and make any employee a super hero. Catch it if you can, and set it up in the ordinary process of all teams. “Ask for the impossible, and make innovation do the rest”. Sometimes, dream is the reality as you believe in it. And the innovation passion is the essence of the next blue chip.
• Execution and deliverings: “without execution and deliverings, nothing exists”. No promess, no product, no customer, no brand. This is the sad story about all companies which spend their times in R&D, searching, describing and creating thing, products, services they will never handle to shape and deliver. It’s double truly sad, because no one will ever appreciate all efforts and attention…through execution, accuracy for details and delivering to end using. In my opinion, one of the most important part of any process, that shapes the user’s experience and makes it buzz everywhere.
• Customer insights: if it’s still to prove for you, your customers will leave you, feeling alone with no particular relation but money with you. Figure out they have bright ideas, know probably your market and products more than you, and can give you a smart view of a “strategy”, dealing with a simplicity you dream of.
• Business strategy: you can call it a game, but believe in something reliable, explainable, sharable and scalable. Doing this, you start in the whole business strategy process, and begin to build and organize departments, flows and process to hold the whole structure of the economic equation. You’ll have to describe, believe and inhold a frame for business, exclusive, bright and envied features. One that can be adored by your shareholders and converge all partners toward your company. And sometimes a smart move can transform a whole ecosystem, with your innovation. “Be the one others will follow and make a business case in the world”.
• Imagination: “we all miss a lot of imagination, in everything we do”. We don’t miss ideas, motivation of skills, but imagination. The sole part of our brain we rarely train, because of time, laziness or easiness. In fact, look at children or young at work: they’re not perverted yet with failures, fear or politics. They do “essence” and genuine art of business, trying to solve their first puzzle. They answer with truth, heart and logics, just for the game, and not for the money yet.

Getting the best of the whole organization, from align business to innovation with a cultural support for this same innovation. Having all these elements together make a war machine and awesome bottom line result for an enhanced efficiency. Be blue, think out of the box, protect and defend your assets and brand, but also, nurse your culture and make it happen in all the simple key elements of your whole company. Grow it, make it sustainable and keep your startup spirit, push away the limits and have a incredible faith for the impossible. Dare the cutting-edge organization and handle it with team and process. The more cultural and mixed is your approach, the more it will win all your stakeholders: employees, partners, customers and shareholders. But the battle is to do with sensibility, the culture sensibility…

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Small vs Big: where the model shapes the rules…

Small is beautiful…and useful, efficient now. Look at all those blue chips, coming from new economy, with light structures, skilled minds and clever intentions. We use to see big monoliths as never ending winners, champions in any industry. That used to…before the web. Web and linked technologies tumbled down lots of industries, because of disruptive ways of marketing, production, delivering. How can we consider software, technology or social networks could value so, in the middle of such big companies that build and need so much capital intensive? Past jobs disappeared on the effect of technological shifts or processes that completely changed the organizations, including big structures.

That makes this new subject about “size” of companies to be compared and valued, as new challenges in world commerce points out. But not only “size”, but also the ability of reaction facing the speed up of competition and focusing on abilities to compete on “time-to-market”, with great resources and know-how. In fact, the size might be the effect of several causes in growing up companies:

• Raising the business and activity
• Raising the R&D tasks
• Complexity of processes, needs for controlling or middle management
• In direct effect for human intensive resources needs

And we said “size” might be increased by the complexity of organizations, not directly focused on results and too much on means. To get an impression of what’s going on and the different leverages that could be used, it seems necessary to compare strengths and weaknesses of the two ways to do business. Having in mind that there is no “good” or “bad” but relevant with your activity, your business plan and the kind of business you’re in. You could be a startup in a whole big group and act as well. The simple fact to measure and value the differences between small and big structures make sense to the way you organize path to delivering.

And it seems startup models spread through all industries now, according to the fast moves from software and IT power. Having a different method to go faster and rethink the way doing “business” or simply create and deliver products or services. The “lean startup” or light structure company steps aside of traditional approach of:

• Business plan
• Financial goals
• Design and building
• Launch

Recovering some kind of instinct creativity with:

• Hypothesis
• Experience
• Trials/samples/prototyping

Faster than ever in the creativity cycle and the way it can improve really on the go, the starting defaults and mistakes. No need to start with perfect products, but having in mind “testing and launching fast” instead of trying to do the best at first sight. The idea behind is to be more flexible and test any possibility, with several trials, formulas and prototypes to cover all situations before really launching. The different kinds of issues allow lots of consumer reactions, corrections and empower the experience cycle. Doing, building and destroying in short decision cycles make the whole creation experience more interesting and collaborative too. And these practices are particularly owned in startups spirit, where ideas run and go, as fast as the wind…Building, creating other combinations means agility and flexibility that big companies can envy, but don’t handle correctly.

This new method, named “pivoting”, in the lean startup concept, brings a new approach for innovation and collaboration between customers and teams, including fast innovation and reaction to dead end, studying more easily B plans. Big companies and schools, with the whole scrambled education system turn their eyesight to these behaviors as business cases and practices to hold, nurture and leverage. This makes another round for risk taking too, that is a huge danger in strong and long process for big companies, who then hesitate to innovate and launch new concepts. But we all know differences in appreciation of “risk” and failure: some fear and some learn, just this difference means a lot in an entrepreneurship environment and mindset. A culture where failure is considered only as a “bad side” is doomed to sleepers and followers. But meanwhile, if you risk often and fast, you’re in the know for an incredible venture of learning more efficiently than others. Because, instead of fearing yourself and your skills, you enforce them by example, mistakes and make it a “friend”. Not a loser, but a learning machine to enhance your creativity and trust potential.

The lean startup model knows to cope with it, so that it could be a strong model for biggest companies, out of order with creativity, flexibility and relevance.

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Google loves Paris. He does…

Yes it reminds me the famous title “I love Paris” covered by so many artists (Sinatra, Fidgerald…), written by Cole Porter in 1953, and Google could make it his new hymn, to prove and show his gratitude to France. Few days after a sparkling opening of their new Googleplex in Paris, they decide to gear up their settlements in France, for all French happiness, starting by President Sarkozy himself, who visited the new European HQ. Through his European presence, covering in France with “LeWeb” wide conference and its opening, Eric Schmidt had smart opportunities to enforce and insist on French American relation, strong, passionned and built since several years, through cooperation, respect and culture integration. There’s no mystery between the two countries, rythmed by the brotherhood relations between President Obama and President Sarkozy, who gave so many proofs of collaboration, mutual respect and strong position facing the recent crisis.

Dealing with its agenda, Eric Schmidt had a short talk with fellows of French-American Foundation, on 7th of december, with many people from different horizons. A smart and warm seance with french students, entrepreneurs, citizens, allowing the audience sharing thoughts, opinions and questions with Google’s chairman. We spent a cute but short time, enjoying the sense of humour of someone who deals with lots of challenges every day, straight to the point. He underlined and justified the choice of France as a new European and Middle-east settlement because of culture, talented and skilled people and that special taste of something sometimes called “arrogance”, that keeps French alive and probably unique. As a French citizen, I can confirm but prefer a “passion” side of this character…

Mr Schmidt delivered some clues about how Google cope with the main issues he has to deal with: data privacy, creation protection, EU lawyers at Brussels ongoing affairs, mobile potential and some of the new big features, Google’s working on. He agreed with the fact they made some mistakes and must be very humble about the privacy: the “don’t be evil” quote from the ages might be a straight forward obsession, to get back to trust and loyalty. Musing all these subjects with all the following statements with:

• the importance of being in France for a long time. Periods of doubt and untrustancy disappeared and i’ts time to build something stronger with the French ecosystem (schools, startups, VCs, engineering…). Trusting in the ideas system and relevancy, but saying there’s obviously a problem with “financing” ideas…in France
• the challenge of globalization, where in fact they are with the sheer nature of the web itself. Passing through a nearly joke with “politics often act local while problems become global”
• the increasing view and facts with mobile and smartphones that boost all the web uses and underlining apps. No, Google doesn’t plan to be a full carrier for mobile…but there’s an advanced work with the Nexus and so much more…
• the fact that a company like Google changes the world, because “technology change expectations”. Consumer becomes much more clever, accurate and addicted to more services. the way it “changes” the world…
• the cycles gear up now: increasing difficulty to see long term expectations and trouble relations with VCs and financial sources
• the necessity of keeping that “don’t be evil” faith, beyond buzz and threats: building trust means protect from all, privacy and engagement from community
• the digital fence and opportunity: freezing some industries but opening wide fields for innovation
• the hard file with the “Hadopi” French exception, in a whole, plugged, wired and online world: protect the creation in a WWW more opened than ever…and punish pirats but not the tools that put, rank and organize the links to contents…“autocrats dream to turn off the internet, he said”
• his three keys to success (personaly like it): Ideas, Team, Quick delivering
• a shortlink to new ambitions with art and museum: Google Art Project

I spent a smart moment with a tremendous manager. One who can rock the world and lead great innovation, passion and engagement. One who could ignite the taste for entrepreneurship, leading business and mentor a whole industry, in the tracks of enlightning the way we do business. Thanks to French American Foundation for having organized this relevant session, I think I’m not the only one “liked” it.

That made my day for sure, in the way I love America, since earliest stages. Of course because of my cousin, Sean (who is a great jazz musician, a complete talented “entertainer”) and his father who died in 2008, Jimmy, who played and brought the blue note in Paris in the 50′s, and played with the best. For me, it’s definitely a family and love affair with America…

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Facing the Dip in Happiness: wicked way?

Everybody sees Happiness as an incredible quest, without seeing what’s in front of us. We always search for what we don’t have, forgetting to enjoy the daily simpliest pleasures. It seems to be a real crisis of happiness, while we forgot all we had, as little children, who themselves care for any few thing to come and bite life breathless. We all claim for more, but never organize us to understand, appreciate and consume the situations that could help us to get higher happiness. We just put it on doom, mischance or broken life, never source on ourselves to know us better and find the light inside. It must not be the fault of life. Or others. It might be our fault, just forgetting the meaning that we really put in our life. Consumption became a powerful exposition for fulfill our fitness indicators, and expose others, in order to seduce, capture or trick the game. It must stay pleasure first, as we don’t buy any good but values, brands or attributes…Marketing gurus got their own skills to show you in a mirror, that doesn’t reflect you anymore. We have to seed the “be” against the “have” and be inspired of it.

This summer, I’ve been really inspired, reading two books, under the hot sun of Tunisia. Happier from Tal Ben-Shahar and The Dip, little handbook from Seth Godin. One explaining path to more happiness, with lots of stories, examples and concepts, simply with bright exercises to follow a coherent line into the tale and being able to apply few rules, quite immediatly. I’ve noticed, through this awesome story, the underscored aspects of having in mind the two terms of appreciate pleasure: short-term shots, necessary because they are the fuel of each day we spend, and the deeper elements that shape the “meaning” of a whole life, used as guides, goals or long term sense. And to link both, we have to make a work on ourself to share and balance the benefits, resources and efforts to build something relevant and sustainable. We link then to the other guide by Seth G. about “quitting”, leaving something in our life, on several motivations: fear, doubt, too much effort or energy, difficulty, no more envy, mindset change or whatever that could make us shift. And that’s when this period comes, after the beginner’s chance or the one-shot short-term pleasure, that one must make choice: go on or leave? Who never thought about it or being confronted to a major choice in his/her life?

What does it mean? refusing happiness at the threshold? no pain, no gain?

And I found some correlative coincidences in the fear of the dip and the fact of “consuming” happiness, burning it too fast, without any plan, goal or forecast for meaning and without giving a long-term sense to life. Starting, beginning in something, diving into new experience, company, life need a snap of vision, envy, chance and motivation, but probably less energy because of novelty and curiosity. We all know how to get a small shot of pleasure, in simple few things we can allow us daily with meetings, close and personal thoughts and dedicated moments. But the real problem is to “process” them to make them scalable, sustainable and part of something bigger: goal. A kind of envision with steps to cross, the “complete estimated and fully hope” way of your life to be discovered. But how get to it while you don’t organize the way, the steps? If you consume all your energy, focused on short-term pleasure, when dip is coming, because it always does after a period of “trial”, the feeling of doubt, mistrust or despair will appear. Some will get from this, with lots of energy and target to grow the hard curve. But many won’t, because they will miss the whole vision of “sense” for their life.

But when you take time to set goals for achievements, giving you a “reason-to-live” beyond, you start to draw something more clear and valuable, all along the path…This gives you courage, force and energy, and maybe you won’t spend any time in the dip, surfing on pleasure, all along the steps. I tried to represent the way I figure it, on the second graph. Imagine you have a stairway, where each step is a new challenge, hurdle or thing to achieve, and for each step you will get all your attention to feel, learn and get all the lessons from: you’ll get more profitable time, enjoyable and memorize a lot more than if you don’t get any attention at all. But moreover, you will touch to a higher level of short-term pleasure and you’ll earn it forever. This is the principle of having a far away goal, while spending time to appreciate each part of the path to go there. While consuming your short-term pleasure, you’ll touch a well being level like a trigger, and function with a “ratchet effect”. What you earnt is forever, speaking about welfare level. And that’s a real funny way to share and balance between easy approach to solve daily stuffs, learn and feel, then dreaming of the big picture that makes sense for you. And the best way to get rid of this “haunting” dip, that demands so much efforts, pain and questions for you to go on…

The best you plan for the future, the best you can appreciate all the strong steps to go there, and feel all the energy of passing the difficulties of life. “Success calls success” we could tell, like a process circle that gives you motivation, sense but joy in the action. Because a kind of “rat race”, refusing pleasure now for hoping it later is to ascetic, take time to stare the whole story, imagining how you could get tot he peak, enjoying all the phases, encounters and lessons that make the process. “If there’s a goal, there’s a way”, I could add “an enjoyable way”.

Don’t quit, ever, just have an enjoyable trip, reachable goals, reliable and fulfilling milestones, and trust for you to take right decisions with insightful and tuitions mindset. An eye on the horizon goal, the other on daily feelings. You’d better start now…

Resources if you want more:

• happiness as healthcare
• happiness loves company
• happiness as your business model
• the happiness project

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How to drive “happy innovation” as a core concept?

Driving the change with happiness produces better results in the long term for brands: products, service level, employees involvement and motivation, learning scale, knowhow footprint. Some could say theres’s some “disturbing tricks”, considered sometimes too framed, complicated, as “sect” behaviors. But none. In the spirit of “meaning” and quest for everybody to a “sense of life“, allowing for the luckiest, a perfect stability between career, family, entertainment and in heritage, there’s not only “chance”. If we look at poursuit of happiness, as a never ending story to keep motivation, willingness to learn and share and a desire for improvement, we can perfectly get the essence of this weird process:

• things become boring as we reach them ; just like collectors who keep fever until they get the last piece of their collection…and depress then after
• the emotion is intense while the action is, but step down just after the success. It’s really strange, but it is. Ask for champions who won, and then…kind of baby blues, in someway?
• to keep the sheer energy, innovation with happiness must be considered as a never ending process, always searching for new tracks for improvement, challenging the service level and beat our own results. An impossible quest? Not sure, because passion is an awesome fuel for everyone…

In a special bigup for this delicious tale and stories inside “Happier”, from Tal Ben-Shahar, the first impressions were that the race for happiness in itself, doesn’t mean anything if we see it as a collection, without a framed life. Drawed like a coherent way to discover each day, new experiences, surprises with rituals maybe, we have to be convinced by the special force of “sense”. If we try to compare happiness in relative ways with others, we lose our mind with bad thoughts about jalousy, greed and deny. That’s not a positive attitude which don’t enable opening stories with others. He meant and gave perspective to happiness (and quest for) in underlining the “way”, the “process”, as a source of happiness itself. In other words, “don’t focus only on the result, but feel and appreciate the way to go there”. A perfect and slow ongoing way to learn and give a chance to any milestone, any few snap thing that “makes” the way.

And I found a reason to link this particular and hectic approach, to innovation, like a process.

I tried here to compare the acquisition and race for happiness, with models and behaviors confronted with choices of innovation, with two axes: return/pleasure on short term and pleasure/return on long term.

• First Quadrant : “Rat Race”…

…means focus on long term pleasure, never considering the way/process as interesting in getting/giving pleasure, as an ongoing flowing action. It supposes cash, strong settlements and long R&D windows of development, but rare entries on misc. activities in diversification. Devise could be “one day…maybe”, refusing elusive deals facing them prefering investing on framed, stronged and loud process. This could be pharmas’ models for example, confronted with security and sanity process, and the necessary R&D involvements. They like “hard innovation” but could refuse easy one…

• Second: Slow Followers…

…will slow the flow, with a “no…no…” attitude, to secure cash and strategy. Focused on past success, they mean to wait the future window of opportunity…staring at competition, long after “crossing the chasm“. They often do one thing at-the-time, but stare at anything that moves, to create a perfect control tower, safe. They can draw lessons from the past, but are not really sure if chance, random or anything else that way, could be the exact final decisive point. They also make the mass-market coming and can lower the costs of delivering, by industrializing the mainstream approach. Not really sexy, but necessary. Me-too products for settled consumers, and old processing because “nothing worths it…”. Some behaviors bending on “too much realistic” and not enough disruptive mindset.

• Third: Shooters…

…Everybody has ever known one in his own life: something/someonethat/who, can “woooot” you up, and make the spark in your eyes. A gun, a shooter, a big buzz. But once, only once. Focused on fashion, day-to-day, hedonism and sheer short-term gain. A star, who will never keep the distance. And that’s all the difference: big brands don’t make only big PR/buzz around products, services or deliverings. They stand and hold a position, for yesterday, now and tomorrow. Using your energy to bring news and buzz, will build a instant cash good deal, but doesn’t set you as a strong innovator. A lots of resources are managed and satisfied in the distance: customers, employees, machines, built-in processes…And as already described, running for an immediate goal, makes you in the blues and feel depressed, just after the victory. Like Champions…of one snap instant.

• Last, but not least, of course, according to me, the most sustainable and sharable shape of innovation: I called “The HappInovators”,…

…as they make a perfect exercise between goals to achieve together, and ways to proceed. Exploring radical shifts yes, but keeping concentrate and realistic about the ability to make the change happen. the organization in small cells, with maximum collaborative spirit, turned into energy. The energy for being able to think “why do I do this (like I do it)?”, several times in an ongoing process until the why is irrelevant. But not before. The spirit of feeling, appreciate all the milestones leading to result, learning from them but having joy, tears, hurdles too to print the moment. Doing nothing for nothing, as each case and stone must be the opportunity to rule something for the future, allowing the company to rise faster tomorrow, and to innovate easily. Talent management has not to be hold anymore because the spirit of “doing things happen”, lead them to think out-of-the-box and boost themselves all the time. They are on scene at each moment and on the lights. Why consider some talents more than others as the whole part is a talents building site? And why should I consider driving innovation in happiness? Because customers could feel it in your service, deliverings and brand. Because all your talents will be really involved as never, almost spending much costs on motivation tools or controlling. Because disruption comes when you put all the environment ready to make it come. Because you won’t choose between “today” and “future” anymore, you’ll manage the perfect balance between both, allocating resources as well. Because you’ll go to work (or any step you can transpose this process), with smile on your face. And spreading it, will overcome your results and the buzz for your entity.

Plant seeds of happiness is more than plant: it gives you the better (pacific) weapon to compete much closer and quicker, with the participation of the whole company. Training sessions for employees to come will make a better place to work, live and deliver…Saw that famous case about Zappos‘ story? Just in case…

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First step: the Connectivity effects “the way it does” (1/3)

First part of three set, including the changes triggered by the connected world in which we live. We’ll underline there all that is described by “way of doing”, now, considering things we can’t stop and have to cope with.

Did you ever live, the incredible speed of information spreading, as you first have an idea, start to tell to a friend…and what becomes next: the one tells to a friend, who tells to a friend…six degrees later world knows all about it. That shapes what is to be said: living in a connecting world allows us to save time, moments and whole phases in building innovation. You can now make work a huge diversity of people, around the clock, in a single project, getting insights from the best of them, challenging everything from seeds to concrete plan. And it changes the vision we have on anything is possible or not: speed of sourcing, evaluating and throwing an insight, our ability to get information on marketplaces, competitors or competition in a larger view. Branding or modeling prototypes and viewing them in “real” second world (3D, social games, virtual environments…). Thrilling isn’t it. Not at all but a strong opportunity.

And if it’s for us, it’s for competitors, too. Competition keeps us awake (must?), and dangers come faster than ever: from stakeholders to suppliers, or even closer partners, anyone can, without having it in mind, leak on important secrets. And for a time-based competition, connectivity might probably change the game: speed of renewal cycles, defining, correcting and sourcing make markets more demanding on the service level and innovation. Being faced in daily life to digital shift, consumers have to adopt, learn and make them, the opportunities of technology.

In production fields, the reduction of wastes, mistakes or return, driven by a more accurate forecast of volumes, needs and trends go directly on the bottom-line. Engineers can have a close feedback with marketers, for model design, duplication, customization…and on-the-go modifications. That’s an incredible change in the process, always wired, and the ability to evolve, on ongoing periods, and raise the sustainable facet of production: less wastes, less energy, less stress, as it takes part of the whole shipment way of delivering goods or services.

Don’t you know that in poor areas (like described in BOP markets with books like), 7% on the income of poors is dedicated to connectivity expenses, often before cleaning, safety water, health or food…? The only step for isolated zones to be linked, bankable and start a tiny commercial activity is to be…connected. Connectivity changed the way farmers for example, can set their prices for their crop, because they’re connected (e-choupal system) with bid marketplaces and stocks for the raws they have: they can choose quickly to do or not and with who, they are going to deal.

Hold on for the second part and “connectivity effects on resources”. Stay tuned, and meet the following part soon, here…

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Innovation hurdles: still hard work for mindset changes…

Research for innovation is something like the graal, for companies. They are always tempted by stay in their comfortable position, or try to get out of the box and create a new field of business. But that’s not supposed to be easy…And makable. For most of them, innovation stay a wild dream, where they hope for a new easy start, while employees have not really ways to make it real. If we could resume for a short and simple idea, the concept of innovation, “Innovation is a change in the thought process for doing something, or the useful application of new inventions or discoveries. It may refer to an incremental emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations”. Something simple, shaping and describing the whole circle of play, for considering a thing, action or process could be considered as an innovation.

As far as we can define it, it seems far more difficult to live an entire story of innovation. Few brands or companies or built-in successfully to achieve such goal. Why? Because Innovation is not something that you can impose to customers. Innovation goes to customers as far it’s been recognized and adopted as such. Innovation meet the needs of a market, a demand, a customer. It has to be devoted to serve a useful value purpose or change with relevance a product, service with significant change to be asked (payed because innovation means business too…) by a whole community. I would underline “whole community”, because innovation is sometimes recognized by early adopters or innovators, but doesn’t cross the chasm and fails to the big hole…

Well it seems so complicated that we understand why it’s so rare and why there is so much “shy” companies to launch anything really “out of the box” that is not only a fake move, test or something aside the “real” business. Innovation is in fact, not a toy, but makes part of the whole company, breathes with it and need a whole change of mindset, but process and operating too.

In this simple picture, see how company is in fact struggled between “forces” (no not Porter’s one…), that bury it into complexity and supply lots of reasons to stay in comfortable positions.

Outside the walls, a certain willingness to move, like a flow that could support innovation and drive motivation…But outside this “river of change”, the hard times with hard competition with tough guys…with the traditional niches with blue oceans, where life is cool and creative…for a while. But seeing inside the walls and considering that this company has motivation and some abilities to innovate, walls keep this whole force inside…Why, how?

1) Process and policies: keeping barriers of justice, legal and rules…Necessary, for sure…but hard to move and make them evolutive and flexible. Managers like them while it’s the best way to say “no”, with no regrets…easy to say no, easier than taking risks and new directions?

2) Fear paralyze anything. And anyone. And there’s no exception that in companies, those ones are built with certainty and are scared with anything that is unknown, troubled or uncertain ; environment of fear or “fear policy” (eg lose his job), doesn’t facilitate the taste for innovation…the only case is to survive, scared by his competitors…

3) unskillness: how could we do if don’t know how? innovation asks for a perfect mindset and behavior, to avoid huge failures. Knowledge to identify real innovation from fake, knowledge to swim among several hurdles: value environment, identify niches, product development, trendsetting…And the ability to answer to question: what premium fee for me if I’m leading the bulk now, with my new product, expensive, full of bug and a whole work of buzz to convince and recruit early adopters? Nerves had to be strong…

4) the “no” school: from any situation, any people will have a defensive reflex saying “no” to unknown. Kind of sport you could fall in love with, a kind of culture for some companies. We can even imagine there’s some hiring programs for “no people” and some training session for those who say “yes” too often…In fact innovation need envy, ambition and positive attitude. Staying beyond the walls, with strong positions only drive to “no”, facing the simple idea of “changing” anything…Chose the “yes” DNA to rise chances of success!

I told you from the start how hard could it be, until a conscious and bright path to innovation could born. Unchain what we know, free ideas, collaborative and social power, people just want to express itself and focus energy on “new”. All you have to do is to lead/drive this awesome energy in doing business and brand building, while you’ll be the king of HR improvement. Yes companies have silent forces they prefer ignore because it’s more comfortable and less dangerous, but standing like this won’t lead to manage talents, skills and innovation mindset. All you’ll generate is a twirl in people turnover…giving the best resources to competitors and losing your innovation workforce.

Time to harvest and educate the best seeds: prolific leaders will get prolific innovation and loyalty mindsets.

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A matter of change

It is. We’re facing a new world, a world that shapes itself, confronting our abilities, but our failures too. We used to live with “leaders” showing the way, inspiring us and guiding the bulk to success and notoriety. If it’s just like to be more confident, it used to show limits in the efficiency to novelty and renewal. Last article from Nancy Lublin at Fastcompany, described a whole period of charismatic leaders, forgetting teams and organization. Time is now to recover the thrill for working in team project, creation task forces and so long.

Times are changing because we’re changing. Times makes us changing, in the race for competitiveness, strong competition between old established players, and new generation with new ways of thinking, new methods, and new mindset: be considered. Nothing else but being an active part of the company, building the success and the future, with the whole group, being understood and listened, because intelligence and initiative can be shared, with pleasure, motivation and success.

We even can think that in 140 characters, collaborative thoughts, can be more productive than ever. Staring at design, and lots of bright conferences like TED, Lift, SXSW and so much more, seems that bunch of people try to reinvent and innovate, with design, entertainment and technology. Taking some times to draw what changed in someway, found myself in the know: leading is not only sourcing ideas, deciding all and give the bad steps to teams. “followers” as they could be called in the past, are the essence of the creation, in the way, nothing could be done without execution. Let’s see as “things” are done now, in a more complex and collaborative processus than ever:

Then, what HAS to change: the way we can choose our working environment, workmates, lean management and some “freedom way of working and doing the things we are payed for”. And we can see huge and successful companies use to do it, as they are involved in waiting more participation, creation from their employees, because they let them doing so, encourage them and set some moments to do it true.
Social revolution is not an ordinary change. It’s an unusual way of mobilize huge parts of power, mavens and motivation, organized with heart, sensibility and trust. And that’s not usually found in modern companies, while matricial organisation and too much levels of management lead to complicated and centralized process of “making things”. But innovation needs to be close to customers, reactive and accurate listening of “what’s going on” to get all the juice from the efforts. The question now, is “how do we get the best juice, with motivation and without negative stress?

While diversity can be a awesome fuel design to innovation, organization of decision, thinking, ordering and planning is too. Now, tools, platforms, networks exist, are useful and need to be used with professionalism. To do so, HR have to make their own revolution, and allow using them, behalf the company’s welfare. Too many executives mistrust social web (Facebook, Twitter…), because they don’t want to understand it, think it’s wasting time, worst when they think it’s giving secret information to competition. Nevertheless it’s a never ending source of learning, sharing and confronting ideas, projects and know-how. Hr, yes, but management too. Leading doesn’t only mean “deciding” but showing direction more than deciding the whole picture.

Isn’t it more pleasant for a leader, to be chosen to support a main innovation, speak about it and be the respected tycoon who allows everything behalf his teams? Or be the tyrant who struggles innovation with narrow mindset?

Now, it’s time to chose who you want to be, and where you want to work. For all, be the reason to change, be the modern guru of managers social revolution…

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Freeness, Freedom, Free us!

I was scared about French claims about web, according to new idea of taxation of…Google (or whatever search it could be). I ‘m wondering why, each time a company, a man, an idea makes money, it’s unbelievable to see what kind of jealousy it draws, and in the same time, seeing lack of innovation running…but criticize, steale or law sues. It seems like everybody is jealous about his neighbour, ready to kill to spread on his wealth.

I can’t see any reason why old skills or traditional sectors, have to complain about web, that gives us so much freedom, reduced social fracture, gave access to information all over the world and so much more. Complains from creators, authors and editors, that always search to build walls to protect their business (with sometimes and local politics agreements…), while there is so much opportunities, when they only see threats…What a pity, a lack of imagination (remember lack of imagination was the FIRST reason why the 11th of september terrorism’s attack has been possible…imagination), when imagination can make all the walls disappear, send us back hope, ideas and innovation. Does business only consist to copy, be jealous or sue competitors? Is this the only level of motivation right now?

I can’t see why music, newspapers, books, all these traditional markets, complain about the web: they didn’t while they were referenced and googled so many times, rising their notoriety for free…They didn’t while that boosted some unknow artist like never, for free. They didn’t while their “pagerank” and fame indicator was green. But now they deny the one that put them at their level. Why? Because they lack imagination, the constant key able to think of future, tomorrow, and invent their future business. They want cash for free. But they don’t want freeness. They want service for free, but want to be payed for their notoriety…that costed nothing for them.

I like Chris Anderson’s point of view, not why he wrote a book, but because his vision lives with the market: he’s clever about what’s going on, and probably what could exist tomorrow. And many of companies don’t even try to understand how disruptive they can be in the future, because they are followers, and just hope to make a good M&A with their competitor.

My shout was really about, waking up, “let’s reinvent our ability to re-learn”, to think and give value to future, not in lazying so far, but doing the necessary efforts, to value customer service, and have an award from him. What can be more pure than, rise the level of purpose and satisfaction, creating a new field of business…

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Exploration in digital worlds : NetXplorateur Forum, 14 and 15 Feb, in Paris

We must live with our time. And must admit, at each step beyond, ask ourselves if in real, we don’t step back…Because technologies storms are really disruptions states for us. I was involved in two stunning days, at NetXplorateur Forum, with such interesting matters ; you’ll find here, the menu (!)…

Took place in Senat, Paris, high place for political topics in France, organized by HappeningCo, I made my two days, really, skip to spaces from others, meeting with personnalities from innovation, future, and digital world. A time warp, but things are already there in our daily lives, we just have to admit it. There’s no way anymore on “web consideration” ; web is all around us, it’s not just a tool anymore : it makes part of our lives.

Good initiative for France, not really known to be right advanced on web starts-up (!), and first edition of this event. 3 goals were revealed in fact :

• stare and explore future possibilities
• reveale skills and rising-up talents in world scale
• help web-mutation in French corp

Can we call it, “French-Web Davos” ?

Introduced by senator Louis de Brossia, and with organization, with few words by Joel de Rosnay, awareness has been developped to these topics which are main goals for the future : private life and entry of social networking behaviors, effects of 3D developments in daily lives, “the mobile way”, consider the “chips” law enforcement to avoid big brother situations, open source behaviors, UGC, “web-syndicalism”, and so long.

I will try to describe a short report, with main speaches :

• Softwares as innovation and social source ; case of Mozilla, with Mitchell Baker CEO ; in adding to UGC and worldwide participation to global and social causes, THE exemple of famous competitor of Microsoft reign
• Worldwide e-democracy, with Psiphon price of Netxplorateur forum, software against censorship, open web to countries stroke by forbidding in access to web, reduicing digital fracture. I guess an amazing innovation, keeping back some hope to isolated people ; and genuine information, too…
• Social objects and communication : 3D and digital objects, like Nabaztag (here with its creator)

if human can’t communicate anymore, objects will take place : it’s amazing how inertial things, can be animated by technologies ; things we thought useless, re-born in some other use face : such like first toons by Disney’s touch ; maybe the next generation will be human animated by things…think about that

 

• Effects of social networking behaviors in corp, change of minds in human ressource jobs and approach, and arrival of generation M, young trouble in classical process ; very interesting how we don’t feel anything before it comes. We changed lots of behaviors, in daily simple things : communication, information, culture and social basics ; technology is an opportunity, not a goal, we must not forget the basics and why we do things before doing them. Sometimes progress is a deception in fact, always masked…

Posted by JP. Rangaswami, about Generation M and his research ; and it’s just the beginning…Excellent paper about how things do change, and fast. Darwin would probably lose his head…

followed by management of talents generation, start-up behaviors, how manage it, the fracture in France between USA, driven by Tariq Krim, CEO of Netvibes ; a former view, brillant demonstration with such simple facts ; he lived in these things, that’s different !

• Facebook, privacy and so long : a never-end topic !

I guess it’s one of the most “touchy” affair of past year, and it’s not over in the way that, more we speak about it, more is developping fight and lost of trust towards such sites. We didn’t create “big brother” again, but we woke it up ; and it seems that we acclimatize most well to such state of things ; as usual, maybe progress is in devil form, hidden by angel face…

• Web and syndicalism : strike on SL

Such a strange and followed by many IBM employees and driven by Davide Barillari (from IBM) and Christine Revkin (UNI), first experience in these fields…breathless !

Let’s be careful of the idea of “virtual employees” tomorrow, more easy to manage, with virtual wages ; we all, employees, can dream about virtual boss…

We had a good experience of Trade Union Congress, with John Wood, on about using such social network tools in syndicalism goals, and on the way how employees and syndicates, change in their relations

• …Then UGC came : a great kick in the ass in producing contents ; intelligence has no goal to be rare ressource. It all makes sense, that we must in a global project, be one day, a contributor, even with something that we consider as minor stuff, to make innovation ; everybody has chance to be a craftman of tomorrow’s masterpieces, like cathedral’s makers centuries ago. But tools are not really the same ones. People has, like no other periods, an endless envy of being consulted, of giving advice, of being an actor of changes. And all these circles of exchange, rise up the final result and global bid. It’s like earth had an invisible mouth, to provide, in one voice, future goals of destiny. Everybody has today its own purpose ; and worth something to other’s ears and eyes…
• Face to cyber-criminality : oh, don’t excite anything that doesn’t need to ; there so much ways to be spied today, not to add a panic wave ; and think that criminals too, are equiped, well even much…; we can sleep quiet, until the next kind of crimes, they are already exist in virtual worlds…
• M is fashion letter,  today : multi-media, mobile, multi-task : everytime connectivity, mobility ; are they cause to change, or consequences of our changes in lifestyle ?
• France, such beautiful place, ready or not for the big jump of digital innovation ; social exchanges, economics and cultural values, to make sense and real place in France. Many corps, politics, people are driven to fast ajustement…or die ?

In France’s history, we can follow and manipulate technologies ; the question is when, and a time-to-market subject, where French people must live in its century, and move faster to precede next futures goals. Great start-up, always come from USA, still a fact. Not really intellect matters, financial or ideas. But other just like goodwill, invisible ability to make the things possible, real ; in many fields, it’s like that. “Change for drive, not to follow”

And as a conclusion, “tomorrow, all Netxplorateurs ?” ; I guess with such events like that, it could help to ; it could make it possible ; and give the flame to want to, give a light to one who doesn’t have…

Want to give a light ? don’t hesitate, comment…

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