Category: Career in the Collaborative Age

Why Would We Admire People More for Trying than for their Successes?

That’s Pixar storytelling rule #1: “You admire a character for trying more than for their successes“. Hence Pixar characters spend the entire movie trying (though they often succeed at the end). Why does it elicit such admiration?

Pixar Story Telling RulesI think that comes from the fact that we are all trying, and we know it is hard. Thus when we see others trying and eventually succeeding we know that they have had to overcome many self-imposed barriers and many other obstacles created by their environment. If characters were to succeed too  easily, we would of course just take it for granted – and we would know that it is not how life really is like. We also tend to connect more easily with a person that is visibly struggling to achieve hard stuff – like us.

In our life, showing that we are struggling (and the associated vulnerability) is difficult but is probably rewarding, as many examples abound of people who have decided to share how they feel inadequate and still succeed (for more on this, refer to the books and the TED presentation (one of the top 5 most watched ever) of Brene Brown).

Personally, like many of us, I tend to try to hide my difficulties, my struggles. I tend to believe it does not fit social and professional life, as we always strive to look perfect and with everything going well. Maybe it would be worth showing a bit more how imperfect I feel sometimes – avoiding whining of course? Food for thought for the new year. You might hear more about my struggles!

HT to bitrebels.com for the illustration.

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Why a Working Business Model is One of the Ultimate Creative Endeavors

A working, effective Business Model is probably one of the ultimate creative endeavors. It is often the result of a long-winded development effort, including many trials and errors. It reflects a relationship between a number of stakeholders with the aim of creating value to most of them. It can be shown and described like a piece of art. And it is a practical, real-life invention.

Business Model Framework
The Business Model Framework from the book Business Model Generation

The interesting observation here is that as a creative endeavor, the most successful, disrupting business models are those that go beyond the conventional, that reflect ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. Thus those that develop those business models need to be somewhat unconventional and able to see beyond the obvious practice.

It also requires the business model generation process to be highly creative, without bounds, and highly iterative as well. Specific brainstorming situations need to be created accompanied by data retrieval or generation. It can sometimes take years to come up with a workable business model, and many trials and iterations.

And when it works, what a marvelous creation! And what really makes it an ultimate creation, for me, is how it creates value for a large number of stakeholders, not to mention that fact that it creates strong links and experiences for the same many people!

A business plan is one of the most powerful contemporary works of art.

Note – the figure is from the highly recommended book Business Model Generation – A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers.

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How True Leaders Focus on Growing People

What makes the difference in terms of leadership is how true leaders focus on developing people.  They understand it is vital part of their duty, and how only this behavior creates the conditions for great work.

true leaders creates more leaders“The leaders of great organizations do not see people as a commodity to be managed to help grow the money. They see the money as the commodity to be managed to help grow their people.” – says Simon Sinek in ‘Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t‘.

But that should not stay at the level of lip service and budget assignment, or even the creation of company university. A clear symptom of this is when true leaders go themselves to teach classes to their managers and employees; from the company introduction to newcomers to advanced classes about managerial and leadership skills.

Actually, the question merits to be asked. If a leader does not spontaneously involve himself in mentoring and training, and spend a significant par of his time in these activities. can he really be a true leader?

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Why We Should Welcome Uncertainty in Our Lives

“It’s funny that when people look back at their careers, the moments that stand out the most – the things they’re most proud of – are often the times that were the most uncertain” says Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid.

big chasm illusion
How do you feel in times of uncertainty? And if that was an illusion?

He continues about an example of great success (Netflix when it moved in video streaming instead of sending DVD through the post): “When they were stressed and afraid and not really all that sure anything was going to work out for the best…in fact, they were quite sure it wasn’t. But they kept pushing, until something gave way. That’s the thing about success. It doesn’t appear until it’s over and the results are in.”

It is obvious that it is when we push beyond our comfort zone that things feel uncertain for us. It is when we  persist in our idea even if it looks weird that we are able to cross the chasm and reach a new state that seems more stable.

Don’t be afraid of uncertainty. Welcome it even if that is not comfortable and even if it exposes you to the critics of those who remain on the safe side.

Just go for it.

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How to Make Commercial Departments More Creative

Following our post ‘How Commercial Is One of the Most Creative Activities‘, let us dwell a little bit into the organization of most commercial departments – and how these organizations seem to be designed to stifle creativity rather than fostering it.

Boring PresentationI am always amazed at how many commercial departments are run in a very bureaucratic manner, with a focus on compliance to procedures, requirements to report continuously and long-winded PowerPoint presentations even on the topic of marketing efforts or even on the status of negotiation with some prospects.

Of course, compliance is needed to make sure that certain limits are not exceeded; reporting and creating databases of commercial efforts is useful. But there needs to be space for creativity and I can’t find it in a number of commercial departments. Clever solutions need to be found to create the most compelling (and competitive) offer. This requires time to think and experiment; time to brainstorm and produce quality work (note – quality work is generally in the form of a text document, not of a set of slides). Where is that space for creativity?

Create a formal space for creativity in your commercial department and ensure for your organization a definite competitive advantage! And for my sake, reduce your addiction on PowerPoint slides: get to the work of creating real documents that will force you to put your ideas in order!

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How Commercial Activities Are Part of the Most Creative Activities

I have come to realize that commercial activities – from business development to the development and the negotiation of a commercial deal or even the implementation of a general commercial model – are among those activities in a company that require the most creativity.

Commercial creativityIt requires creativity because first, it is all about creating something. Not the product of the company, of course, but another tangible deliverable that is essential: the commercial proposal, a document that will describe how we create value to the client or to the market in a way that will fit its needs.

It is also creative because it requires to develop a solution to a particular issue, often while discussing with a client to understand its particular needs. And depending on the situation, our usual commercial approach might not be appropriate, and we need to demonstrate creativity in setting up a solution that will fit the constraints and the needs.

This observation about the fact that commercial activities are fundamentally creative activities have a lot of consequences on how they should be implemented – and on the profile of the people that should do them. Did you realize it?

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How Employee Engagement though Empathy is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Hugh McLeod at Gapingvoid says: “Employee engagement is the ultimate competitive advantage. Unlike other advantages that can be bought and sold, this one is a bit trickier. It has to be inspired“.

empathy competitive advantageAnd true enough I lived through a number of instances where employees where fully engaged in the organization – often through decisive acts of leadership from its leaders, and that really made a difference.

Where Hugh makes a point though is that engagement is not just about leadership and inspiration. It is about creating empathy between the participants to the adventure. And thereby creating stories, the stories of the adventures of this group of people.

“Stories in business are especially powerful because they can unite everyone on a common mission. Tell everyone the story of how you got to where you are – and they’ll likely take over the rest. After all, the best books ask us to imagine our own endings…”

What about creating your own ending to the project you are on, together as a group full of mutual empathy?

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Why Your Organization’s Strategic Change Starts With Your Calendar

“Strategic change doesn’t just start at the top. It starts with your calendar.”  says Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel, in his book ‘Only the Paranoid Survive‘.

calendar-changeIn that he means that the change of focus from executives must immediately be reflected in the way they spend their time. The accustomed committees of the past might not make so much sense in the new picture. More time might need to be devoted to more pressing issues related to the new direction of the organization.

In addition, people will know immediately which are the meetings which are now removed from the calendar of the executive and which are the new activities that retain its focus, and this will induce change throughout the organization notwithstanding deeper change in processes, systems and products.

Changing one’s calendar or time usage requires tremendous discipline, will power and ability to change one’s ingrained habits. Not all leaders are capable of such feat.

If you have decided to transform the organization you lead, have you actually changed your calendar? Have you at least decided to stop going to half of your previous regular meetings?

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Why You Can’t Transform a Company Without Changing Its Management

When it comes to real, fundamental change, you can’t change an organization without changing its management. This applies both to changes due to the external environment (such as a major change in the key market serviced by the organization), or simply to changes linked to the change in size and nature of the organization as it grows or shrinks significantly.

changeThis has been my constant observation in all the organizations which I have known deeply enough, when they were faced by major changes.

“I’m not saying they have to pack up their desks and be replaced. I’m saying that they themselves, every one of them, needs to change to be more in tune with the mandates of the new environment. They may need to go back to school, they may need a new assignment, they may need to spend some years in a foreign post. They need to adapt. If they can’t or won’t, however, they will need to be replaced with others who are more in tune with the new world the company is heading to.”, says Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel, in his book ‘Only the Paranoid Survive‘.

Indeed, the most mature executives will know when to change move beyond their comfort zone; some will do the effort and some won’t; at least they are then conscious that they need to move on. The worst situation of course is when executives are not even aware they need to change; or when they languish in the reminiscence of a great, cozy past. This can lead to disastrous situations.

If the organization you lead has to go through a major transformation, you need to change. Or to move on. Don’t think you can continue being what you were before!

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How to Deal With Rumors

Why are we so often spreading rumors when not outright gossiping? “Sociologists explain rumors as collective sense-making. In each case, there is a gap in the authoritative explanation for some period of time, and rumors filled in that gap” – says Dan Zarrella in ‘Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas‘.

rumors spreadingHence creating and spreading rumors would be a mechanism for us to make sense of events or situations for which we would not have a satisfactory explanation. Sometimes this exercise degenerates into conspiracy theories, however it generally remains at a more innocuous level.

Rumors disappear instantly when a clear and unambiguous explanation is given, which is the right way to kill them.

With the Fourth Revolution our capability to spread rumors has increased dramatically on the social networks, which is sometimes destructive. Giving as soon as possible an authoritative explanation is the best way to destroy them.

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Why You Should Be Scared Sometimes – It Shows You Are Thinking Big Enough

“If you’re not a little afraid, and the other vendor in the room is telling you you shouldn’t be, then either ‘one of us is in the wrong room’ or you’re not thinking big enough” – says Matt Ridings in this post, written in the context of a small company’s sales efforts. Growth will necessarily happen at the expense of fear.

dreams_scare_not big enoughMatt Ridings continues – “Fear is a good thing, it’s almost universally true that ‘the larger the opportunity the larger the challenge’”. That says it all. If you’re not a little bit afraid, then maybe you are not going after the right size of opportunities.

Not long ago I grasped a great opportunity to grow significantly my company. It came with some risk associated. The risk was quite high, just not so high as to bankrupt the company after some risk engineering. I decided to go for it. Time will tell whether the opportunity will materialize.

Funny, I was about to write ‘time will tell if it was the right decision’ but that is absolutely wrong. Whether the opportunity materializes will be the result of my effort (a little bit) and of luck and other external factors I can’t control (a lot). So, the decision was the right one. Whether the opportunity materializes is something else.

It’s tough to ‘think big’ and when I re-read my post on thinking big posted in June 2012 a few months after I started my company, I see how much a way remains for me to be comfortable with the fear it entails. It is getting better though – and growth ambitions for myself and my company combine into an exciting mix!

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Who We Surround Ourselves With is More Important Than What We Do

“It’s often the case that the people we surround ourselves with (and the tasks we do) have far more to do with job satisfaction and performance than the subject of our work.” – Seth Godin in a blog post on Staples.

Group_working_together
What can give more satisfaction on the long time than the people we surround ourselves with?

Being a consultant I change probably much more often than most people who I am working with. The more it goes, the more I find that: a particular topic can be exciting to discover and develop, but that is a short-lived satisfaction. Long-lived satisfaction comes from working together as a team with people you have in high esteem and with which we feel we work together to produce worthwhile outcomes.

The same goes in personal life of course, where truly the people we surround ourselves with for that major project of our lives are the key to personal satisfaction.

When you look for your new job or assignment, how exciting it looks, consider first the team you will be part of. It is much more important than the topic or the role.

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