I am profoundly grateful to those wonderful people who manage to summarize otherwise long and repetitive business books, in an article of 4 to 6 pages. A great company for this is obviously “Executive Book Summaries” (and now you know how consultants appear to find the time to read so many books…) Recently, I received from our partner Ben Clayton-Jolly…
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Change & Leadership
“What the children of Panyee have to tell us about challenging orthodoxies”
Sunday April 10th, 2011 1 commentI am always proud when hearing one of my partners explaining to a client that his/her background is “atypical” for someone working in our industry… Ben Clayton-Jolly has spent years as an officer in the British Army in the Parachute Regiment… He now runs Inspiring Leadership[1], an organization which, on top of change consultancy also organizes amazing leadership journeys in…
Fear of loosing or fear of winning?
Sunday February 13th, 2011 4 commentsSports coaches know it: the fear of loosing is a powerful stressor for athletes and they do their best to keep them out of it. In an earlier post, as well as in our book[1], I commented on the picture below (inspired from the works of Daniel Goleman, Henri Laborit or Paul McLean): In short, it suggests that when a…
“Those who can do, those who can’t… teach”
Sunday January 23rd, 2011 5 commentsMy rebellious side fell in love with this quote of G. B. Shaw, brought by Nick McRoberts[1]. We now have wonderful Enablers “intelligent fibers” shirts (Rhodia FiBras) on which the wise words are proudly worn. There is be a profound need for evolution in the world of teaching. I find the following clip below quite compelling: My daughter has the…
"Improvisation takes a lot of preparation: What Samba Schools can teach us about leadership"
Sunday December 5th, 2010 1 commentJimmy is professor of Strategic Marketing in São-Paulo (USP and ESPM). He is a dedicated member of the “Vai-Vai” samba school and has decided to bring lessons from this world to the corporate world… “Is samba serious or just leisure?” The “gringos” (non Brazilians) as I am, respectfully consider samba as a pleasant diversion, a nice and pagan way to…
“Are you happy to outsource your strategic thinking process?”
Sunday November 7th, 2010 2 commentsWould you find wise, as a leader, to outsource the most critical, educational and engaging process of your organization? This is what happens though when we delegate our strategic reflection to third parties. Nick van Heck (our partner from ELP Network) has come up with a word: “Strategizing”, or the process by which organizations engage the widest possible number of…
“Everybody wants to “Grow”: the biggest blockage is our orthodoxy!”
Sunday October 31st, 2010 4 commentsI don’t breach any confidentiality by sharing that wherever I travel in the world, “Growth” has become the central strategy piece of all organizations I speak to… at the point of wondering if un-grow couldn’t be a really worthy disruptive strategy! So everybody wants to grow? Those who truly will, in a sustainable way, will put energy behind that intention…
“Concrete steps to lead in a complex environment Part. II”
Sunday October 17th, 2010 2 commentsNick van Heck and Berend Jan Hilberts, our partners from Executive Learning Partnership[1], recently shared with me an excellent HBR article[2] from David Snowden founder of “The Cognitive Edge”[3]. Snowden suggests an interesting frame for preparing ourselves to lead in the new emerging Open Economy, whilst keeping on track in today’s uncomfortable aftermath of the financial crisis. The model particularly…
"Concrete steps to lead in a complex environment"
Sunday October 10th, 2010 0 commentsIn the (not so) old days, problems were solved through a four to five steps approach: Problem definition and scope Root cause analysis Selection of solution Implementation Monitoring and feedback It is clear, one-dimensional, sequential, linear and reassuring: For each problem there should be one solution. By now, we all have realized that globalization, “technologization”, acceleration and growing complexity made…
“From passive consumption to active co-creation”
Sunday July 11th, 2010 4 comments“This was the best experience of my professional career: the program you designed kept external interventions to the minimum and allowed us to share our own experiences, learn together and from each other. We now feel that our future does not depend from consultants but is entirely in our hands!” This was one of the most moving feedback we received…