With Covid-19, a giant wave of uncertainty swept the world. The life of billions of people, including mine, changed in just a few weeks. Good leadership has never been so needed and so difficult. It’s too early to say what’s coming next, but I find it helpful to share observations and connect perspectives. What are yours?
Read MoreIt’s been a blast. A year has passed already since I’ve started getting involved in an amazing people-centric transformation project. Now is a good time to look back and reflect on the progress that happened, what remains to be done, and what I’ve learnt along the way.
Read MoreVolunteers decide by themselves. They can say no. That’s why “volunteer” is a rarity in the corporate world, that loves nothing more than orderly management of resources. Yet, they bring invaluable energy and ideas... provided organizations learn to mobilize and leverage volunteers. Here is an example, taken from an on-going movement for quality improvement. Based on Kotter's 8-Step for leading change, it is about enabling massive volunteerism to help the organization improve.
Read MoreOn December 2nd, 2013 I was awarded the Tribune Women’s Award. This French leading economic daily newspaper acknowledges every year the talent of women entrepreneurs and top executives. I was lucky enough to be recognized in the “international” category, a good fit with my international career path. But in this particular case, the trophy rewards a collective story of changing mindsets and organizations.
Read MoreA short while ago, one of my tweets was favorited and retweeted more than any of my previous tweets. It made me curious to understand why. Was there anything in its content that was particularly appealing? Any learning I could draw from this?
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Corporate newsletters are hopeless. They are expensive, time-consuming, top-down and hardly read. Is there a possibility to re-invent newsletters? How can we make them better, using collaborative approaches?
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Adoption is the pain point of social enterprise. While adoption rates linger at staggering low levels, critical success factors are endlessly identified, dissected and commented.
Among those is the “top management support”, often seen as the key to success. But is it really? Is it true that, to succeed, social initiatives must have a high level champion, possibly the CEO? Can a company become social if it hasn’t got its Michael Dell, a Chief Social Officer, or at least highly convinced top executives?
Read MoreSo…you’re a Disruptive Thinker. You work at a big company. And you want to make change happen.
I won’t dwell on the fact that you may be at the wrong place – a start-up may offer a better ecosystem for your disruptive thinking – but here you are: for many reasons, you like your job, your company, and you’re here to stay. You wouldn’t actually mind being even more recognized than today for the great value you bring
Read MoreCompanies love Good Corporate Citizens. You know them, they never doubt the corporate strategy is the right one, never complain about their hierarchy, they always find the CEO "inspiring" and take pride in being positive.
GCCs blame or pity their colleagues and team members who dare to express any dissatisfaction with how things work – "immature" people that have to "grow" through better frustration management. Companies love those good soldiers and gratify them with all sorts of rewards.
Read MoreLarge companies are going through challenging times, both from a business and organizational standpoints. These turbulences are hitting in a particular way old, large corporations because of their limited appetence for change.
Top-down / hierarchical / controlling and risk-avoidance company cultures but also lack of diversity in executive teams, intense competitive and financial pressure for short-term results, an increasingly complex legal and regulatory environment and stringent procedures for products development & production, are all contributing to the situation. Employee disengagement is reaching worrying levels, as if the current work environment didn’t provide the motivational aspirations and perspectives it did in the past.
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