Category: Management

entrepreneurship, innovation, Management, strategy

A trade-off between conformity and differentiation is the key to successful innovations

What determines the success of an innovation is rarely its intrinsic quality, its technical or economic performance. The graveyards are full of “brilliant” innovations that were not successful. The success of an innovation rather depends on its capacity to conform to the existing institutional framework in order to be accepted. But how do you stay different if you conform? This difficult trade-off determines the success or failure of the innovation. A historical example is that of Thomas Edison in his promotion of electric lighting over gas.

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innovation, Management, strategy, transformation

How declining organizations create an imaginary double

Organizations in decline tend to create an imaginary double in which they lock themselves. This double is themselves, but in an idealized version. It is a mask that they create to hide and to insulate themselves from a reality that they refuse, letting the world go without them, even against them. The dissolution of this double, i.e. the acceptance of reality, however unpleasant it may be, is a prerequisite for any recovery. A good illustration of this is provided by the Apple turnaround in 1997.

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decision making, Management, strategy

Why mental models should be the key topic of your next executive seminar

The Covid-19 crisis completely disrupted the strategy of all organizations, reducing plans to nothing. Like any disruption, it corresponded to a process in development whose consequences unfolded, and continue to unfold, progressively on all levels: sanitary, social, economic, but also political and geo-political. It was followed two years later by another disruption, the invasion of Ukraine, which had a similar effect. For organizations, such disruptions impose a complete revision not only of their strategy, but of the way it is defined and of the fundamental beliefs on which the process is based, and in particular on how decisions are made in an organization. It requires a rethink of strategy, management and leadership.

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Management, strategy

Start with why? Or start with you?

Start with ‘why’! Having a big ‘why’, a noble and ambitious reason for being (purpose), is the secret of winning business strategies. That’s what Simon Sinek, author of the best-selling book Starting with Why, explains. According to him, all organizations know what they do, and most of them also know how they do it. But very few know why they do what they do. Only those with a big ‘why’ can really succeed, and defining that ‘why’ is therefore a prerequisite for any ambitious strategic thinking. It sounds logical, it’s certainly appealing, and it’s a widespread belief today, but it’s wrong. Let’s see… why.

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decision making, Management, strategy, uncertainty

Building the Organization for Uncertainty: Lessons from The German Army’s Prewar Leadership Model

[version en français ici]

How can an organization not only protect itself from uncertainty, but more importantly take advantage of it? The question is a hot one these days. It preoccupies many strategists, jumping from one crisis to another in a world that has become highly unstable and full of surprises. One source of inspiration, perhaps unexpected, is the German army, which built, from the end of the 19th century, a very powerful leadership model from which we can learn a lot.

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entrepreneurship, innovation, Management, uncertainty

Is Meta the new Kodak? Eight history lessons on the necessity and risks of big innovation bets

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is doing badly. The announcement of its poor results was very badly received by the stock market. The company lost 25% of its value in one day. The weakness of Facebook and the doubts about the relevance of the colossal investment made in the metaverse, a system creating a virtual world, question the strategy of the company. The weakness of the legacy activity, and the difficulty to launch a new activity, the situation of Meta is not unlike that of Kodak twenty years ago. A look at the history of the major bets made by companies to launch or renew themselves is useful to better understand the issues facing Meta and avoid hasty judgments.

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decision making, Management, transformation

How declining organizations get used to mediocrity

[version en Français ici]

Companies rarely collapse all at once. The collapse is often only the visible phase of a decline that started long before and developed insidiously. Like the famous frog that does not react when the temperature of the water in which it is placed rises, this slowness makes it more difficult to react: the signs of decline seem disparate and it is difficult to link them together to build a picture of danger. At the heart of this difficulty is the silence about the situation within the organization, and the tacit acceptance of mediocrity.

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entrepreneurship, innovation, Management

Innovation: why the distinction between exploration and exploitation is problematic

In the field of innovation, the distinction between exploration and exploitation is universal. It is clear, it seems obvious, and it has become gospel in the world of innovation. Yet it is counter-productive, as it rests on questionable assumptions. It illustrates how the way we formulate a problem, i.e. our mental model, determines our ability to solve it. The wrong mental model locks us in, while the right one opens up possibilities. It’s time to let go the exploration/exploitation distinction.

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Management, transformation, Uncategorized

Do you need to build a cathedral to give meaning to your employees’ work?

Our era is in search of meaning; at least that is what we hear over and over again in companies and in society as a whole. The absence of meaning leads to disengagement, and the human resources departments of large companies are engaged in a great race to “recreate meaning” under the leadership of visionary leaders. The idea is that an ambitious vision, a noble purpose, a great narrative, will give meaning to wandering souls. This idea is illustrated by a famous tale, that of the stonemason who builds a cathedral, motivated by something greater than himself. However attractive it may be, this tale plays on questionable beliefs, and the fact that it has become a reference for motivational seminars is regrettable. In fact, it is not necessary to build a cathedral to give meaning to one’s work.

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