Demonstrating engagement, being engaged for a cause... Engaging others, mobilizing people for a certain goal... how far should we go? Can we talk about over-engagement? My piece for Inflexions, the French army review.
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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?
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In times of deep change, social media enables leaders to take advantage of the radical cognitive and relational transformations that are taking place everywhere. How, exactly? My piece for Forbes.
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Courage Camp. Tales from a 2-day retreat in Rhode Island, exploring what it takes to become a courageous leader. What if courage wasn't the superpower of a few, but our ability to be fully human?
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How do we do quality? Through processes and exhortations? Or by putting the human at the center of the system, and empowering them to improve it continuously? The pharma industry has misunderstood Edwards Deming for 30 years, but can catch up. An article co-written with Anders Vinther, Chief Quality Officer for Sanofi Pasteur.
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Volunteers 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.
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Isn't it amazing that, while striving for growth and productivity, companies ignore a major resource? One that is already there – at arm’s length? Employee engagement is a poorly addressed, yet fantastic source of performance. Stop wasting your internal talents.
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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?
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So…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
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Companies 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.
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Large 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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