In my office, well in sight, are the remains of a bed’s part coming from a concentration camp with a profile of the Virgin Mary engraved. This is all that the nazis returned to my grandfather, about his best friend, a catholic priest, caught by the Gestapo for hiding Jewish children. Father de Soil had no family left and he…
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The emergence of Talents Networks
Saturday September 17th, 2011 1 commentIn the true spirit of P.F.E. (Proudly Found Elsewhere), so typical of the Open Source Economy, I borrowed the title (and a lot of the content) of this post to Neil Perkin, one of my colleagues in Gerd Leonhard’s “Futures Agency”. I’d like to thank him for the source of inspiration his article was for me and hopefully will be…
My best interview on the future of Leadership
Saturday September 3rd, 2011 5 comments(NEW CLIP OF INTERVIEW IN PORTUGUESE ADDED AT END OF THIS POST) During my recent stay in São-Paulo, I was interviewed by Patricia Bispo, who runs an excellent site dedicated to people and leadership issues. Her questions helped me clarify my thoughts on the future of leadership. Here are, in English, the key parts of the interview: Patricia Bispo –…
"Youth is a State of Mind"
Saturday July 9th, 2011 2 commentsBen Clayton-Jolly, one of our partners running Inspiring Leadership, sent me the following poem by Samuel Ullman. I found it profound and moving and chose to leave it with you, as a hopeful inspiration during the few weeks during which I will be traveling and unable to write on this blog. Thank you Ben, I hope you all enjoy it!…
"Adding my own signature to the job!"
Saturday June 18th, 2011 3 commentsMy team and I were invited to support The Dow Chemical Company’s LATAM region in implementing a strong initiative blending local reality with strategic direction coming from headquarters. To that effect, Pedro Suarez, the President for the whole zone (covering from Mexico down to Chile and Argentina) and his leadership team had invited their top 300 leaders to engage them…
"Leading ourselves to exhaustion!!!"
Sunday May 15th, 2011 0 commentsIs it because everybody agrees, in private, that the fundamental problems of the recent crisis still have to be addressed, that most Boardrooms resonate with the same sacred word: GROWTH? Is it like a desperate and collective blind attempt to cash in before a tremendous after shock erupts? Whatever the answer to that question, some firms will succeed in disrupting…
“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…
"In Praise of the Handshake"
Sunday March 20th, 2011 2 commentsWhen asked by a new client to describe the Enablers Network, I usually explain that we are no conventional, pyramidal organization but far more an organic and connected community. In our team, seniority is not superiority; we have no contractual agreement between us although we are highly engaged and dead-serious about our values (which we prefer to call “a permanently…
“What the Catholic Church can teach us in terms of being disrupted?”
Sunday February 6th, 2011 2 commentsAlan Moore and Gerd Leonhard[1] came up with a great metaphor in terms of illustrating the concept of disruption: The Catholic Church and Gutenberg’s invention… The clip here below summarizes the situation before and after the printing press invention in a short and convincing 4 minutes: The internet is probably the biggest technological revolution since Gutenberg’s printing press. And it…
“How the janitor saved our company”
Sunday November 14th, 2010 0 commentsSRC Holdings[1] was founded in 1983, when 13 employees of International Harvester (at the time a leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery) bought that part of the company that was into the business of maintenance and repair of diesel engines. That subsidiary had failed to perform for years so it had been decided to divest it. The new management team of…