Category: Economy and society

Economy and society, entrepreneurship, innovation, Society

Disruptive Innovation: Ignore the Elite, Bet on the Underdogs

History is full of unfortunate predictions. However, the New York Times’s claim in 1903 that human flight would not be possible for another one to ten million years is one of the most striking examples. Is this a classic case of pessimism from an era unable to anticipate technological progress? Not quite. The story is far more interesting. It’s about an elite that uses its own failure as proof of impossibility while underdogs persist in trying and ultimately succeed.

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Economy and society, innovation, Management

AI and Productivity: The Key Lesson from the Textile Industry

The rapid advances in artificial intelligence should lead to significant productivity gains. Yet, this is not always the case. Why? Technology alone is not enough. There is no direct, linear relationship between technological use and performance gains. In some cases, technology can hinder productivity. It all depends on how technology is integrated and used. To better understand the challenges of AI, it is helpful to look back at the introduction of mechanical looms in the 19th century.

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Economy and society, Society

Progress versus the environment: the toxic belief that condemns Europe

The causes of a society’s decline are often internal. It declines because it maintains or adopts beliefs that prevent it from adapting to a changing world. When a crisis weakens its model, it is tempted to adopt external beliefs that promise an easy solution. These can prove fatal. This is what happened to Europe. Over the past twenty years or so, it has convinced itself that it must sacrifice its industry and agriculture and abandon technological progress to save the environment. This belief is toxic and must be reconsidered if Europe is to halt its decline.

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Economy and society, entrepreneurship, innovation, Society

Europe’s competitiveness: the missed opportunity of the Draghi report

Electroshock. Emergency call. Existential threat. The report on Europe’s competitiveness that Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank, presented to the President of the European Commission on September 9 has caused quite a stir, to say the least. The report marks a salutary awakening to Europe’s decline, the symptoms of which it clearly identifies. But the proposed remedies remain conventional – a plan, a loan and an industrial policy. It’s a missed opportunity, or almost.

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Economy and society, entrepreneurship, innovation, Society

In praise of indirection, or how problems aren’t always solved by problem solving

Problem solving is a universal paradigm, and a very dangerous one. We believe that the world is full of problems and that we can solve them if we really try. But this is not true. Many problems are solved indirectly, thanks to a solution that was not imagined by those who faced them. That’s why it’s important to allow free innovation, i.e. solutions without problems, no matter how absurd they may seem.

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Economy and society, uncertainty

The Pitfall of Assumptions in Forecasting: Lessons from “Losing the War with Japan”

In the realm of economic and geopolitical forecasting, the pitfalls of assumptions can prove both humbling and enlightening. A striking example of this can be found in the Frontline report titled “Losing the War with Japan,” which takes us back to a moment in 1991 when prevailing beliefs about Japan’s economic supremacy and America’s decline were pervasive.  

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Economy and society, innovation

Why rich peoples’ whims are useful for innovation

What do rich people do when they are bored? They embark on an innovation project. Conquer Mars, cross the Atlantic, extend human life, invent fundamental artificial intelligence, create a robot, etc. As an expression of their promoters’ ego, these projects are often considered useless and qualified as whims, i.e. a capricious and unreasonable envy. But is it so sure? What if (some of) the whims of today were the useful innovations of tomorrow? What if we should be careful not to pass moral judgment on both what is being done (useless!) and on those who are doing it (the rich and their whims)?

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Economy and society, entrepreneurship, Society

The performance of organizations is a societal issue – My new piece on the Drucker Forum blog

Business performance is often perceived as having no societal impact. It seems to be a strictly financial matter and to concern only its shareholders, and nobody else, and as such is even morally suspect for some. We are happy for the company that has good results, and we may suspect that is at done at the expense of society. Yet, the performance of businesses, and more generally that of organizations, is a major societal issue, an observation made by Peter Drucker, and still relevant today.

Read the rest of the piece on the Global Peter Drucker Forum’s blog here.