News:
Not long ago, at the airport, I had a conversation with John – a business man in his early 40s.
I assist a major firm identify the fundamentals of the media of the future, facilitate a culture of innovation and accelerate the reinvention of their business model. For those of you less familiar with the challenges of this industry in the US let me tell you what they are in this digital age: Continue reading
The “Intuitive Intelligence” conference I put together for HEC MBA – first business school in Europe per FT ranking over the past 5 years - has become one of the top global downloads for iTunes U.
One of the latest ideas to hit the buzz circuit is the concept of “digital intuition” – introduced by my6sense, a company which has developed a tool that serves up the most relevant
information for us. They’ve developed a recommendation engine which TechCrunch says “separates
the signal from the noise and helps users shift their attention to the
content they care about most.”
The application learns what you like, then finds more. Continue reading
How does an analytic company like Google make its
most important
decisions?
If we are to believe the Google myth, we learn,
first and foremost,
that they test everything:
We test everything at Google. While Continue reading
Hats off to Grist‘s David Roberts for putting together a thought-provoking line of thinking in Why Bill Gates is wrong. And no, he’s not talking about Bing.
At the core, Roberts challenges the hubris of viewing all society’s problems through the lens of innovation. Continue reading
A while back, I published a short article on the strategic role of Human Resources in the new economy. The article: Le rôle stratégique des DRH dans les 10 ans à venir is in French, but since I get so many requests to talk about this issue, I’ve translated it here for you. The main point I’m making is that in today’s disruptive economic climate, HR can and must become a critical differentiator.
The strategic role of Human Resources in the coming years
To generate creative added value is one of the surest ways for companies to win in the global competition today. Innovation is the new imperative. Continue reading
A short article in Les Echos:
Translated:
Another way to manage and lead
Neurosciences in the service of business
Francis Cholle author of L’Intelligence Intuitive recommends to executives to combine their analytical mind with their intuitive aptitudes to gain further consumer insight and improve business performance.
From our correspondent in the Sillicon Valley, Laetitia Mailhes
For beauty and fashion executives time has come to reconsider every aspect of business. “The economy is changing consumers’ behaviors, independently from the evolution of incomes, explains NY Fashion Institute of Technology Professor Stephan Kanlian. To open their wallet consumers today want more than brand prestige. They demand more and more added value and a greater match between products they buy and their own values.” But the business community is not well prepared to adapt to such a radical change.
“Obsession for financial return has led leaders to often forget they share a common humanity with consumers,” says Francis Cholle, author of L’Intelligence Intuitive, innovation consultant for large corporations and advisor to their C-Level executives. A graduate of the best European business school, HEC (Ecoles des Hautes Commerciales) Francis Cholle insists that sustainable value creation requires the necessary synergy between analysis and ROI on the one hand and play and instinct, on the other (see graph below of The Intuitive Compass™).
The role of intuitive intelligence
“Neuroscience showed in 2005 that parts of our brain traditionally associated with our instinct are involved in our most sophisticated decisions” says our expert in reference to MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory research on our reptilian brain aka instinctual brain, published in the scientific journal Nature. “It is very noticeable in consumer behaviors. For this exact reason if a company wants to understand its market and meet its expectations, it is necessary that they understand how intuition works and integrate an intuitive process in their business approach,” adds Francis Cholle. His message is well received. “My daily conversations with Francis Cholle greatly deepen my thinking at a particularly critical time for our company” says Ralph Lauren Fragrances and Beauty President Guillaume de Lesquen, based in New York to orchestrate the brand development on the world stage.
Long before the economic recession Francis Cholle started to advocate the role of intuitive aptitudes and their impact on value creation. Biotherm for Men global marketing director, Charles Haddad is quite satisfied that he could attend one of Francis Cholle’s seminar and acquire tools that explain in a simple language many key aspects of brand development and marketing that he could confusedly feel but could not clearly understand even less so replicate. Today Charles Haddad encourages in his team ” free and spontaneous communication. We then select what we feel is relevant”. “It is not about leaving behind our marketing objectives but rather about dissolving automatic censorship mechanism often inherent to corporate structures.”
Armand de Villoutreys, CEO of Firmenich in Paris and president of Firmenich Fine Fragrance World Division, asserts that he has “learned to approach differently his leadership role in a creative corporation.” And it showed very tangible results! “We started four years ago to integrate into our management practices the principles of Intuitive Intelligence,” says the French executive. “We have been happy to see an accelerated growth of our financial results across continents well above market average.”
© Les Echos n° 20486 dated 08-13-2009 p. 06 (Authorized translation by Peter Camo)
In their recent article Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation [Harvard Business Review September 2009], Ram Nidumolu, C.K. Prahalad, and M.R. Rangaswami argue that sustainability isn’t a burden on the bottom line; instead, they make the case that going green can lower costs and increase revenues.
In our experience, we find most that far too many companies view sustainability as a “corporate social responsibility” and not as an engine for growth.
Let’s call this STAGE 0: GreenWashing – paying lip-service to sustainability. In this phase,companies view sustainability as a PR exercise, as a community building initiative, but they let it fall far of its true potential. For them, this is corporate citizenship, not competitive advantage.
At this phase, we also see that there is no accountability for sustainability. Often, it is the CEO’s job. This is a cop-out of course, but the data is clear:
To add insult to injury, the next step often ends up with the “coronation” of a corporate “sustainability officer” – which again is simply the wrong approach.
Fortunately there are examples of companies that are using intuitive intelligence to challenge their traditional assumptions and create real solutions for lowering costs, eliminating waste, creating new products and services, and even changing their global business models.
Wal-Mart, for example has taken the greening of its supply chain very seriously. The release of data on its scorecard for the environmental
friendliness of its vendors’ product packaging, is a clear, measurable initiative which is already impacting over 2000 suppliers.
The Wal-Mart scorecard evaluates the “green quotient” of product packaging based a number of attributes, such as:
Wal-Mart also announced plans for an
similar scorecard for their electronics suppliers in 2008. Criteria for the electronics scorecard includes:
View a Wal-Mart green supplier scorecard here>>
Then there’s GE. Of course, we’ve all seen their “ecomagination” campaigns on TV and print, but they have have taken that all important real step to transforming their product innovation process in ways that can only be described as radical.
Instead of appointing a GE Tsar of sustainability, Jeffrey Immelt brought in Professor Vijay Govindaran as their Chief Innovation Consultant. His job, to work with specific divisions to identify real opportunities for global products and services.
The approach they created “reverse innovation,” is outlined in How GE is Disrupting Itself (Harvard Business Review, October 2009). VG describes their thinking as follows:
More information on the process here >>
Why does intuitive intelligence help you think in sustainable terms?
The answer is very simple.
Our instinct is responsible for the survival of our species. We can reasonably say that human instinct is pretty reliable because it’s helped us survive successfully for thousands of years.
Our modern thinking, however, relies on our analytical intelligence. It’s brought along the prowess of the scientific mind. The problem with this approach is that without genius scientific thinking can be very linear and very exclusive – to the point that it excludes our instinct not complying with reason.
Intuitive Intelligence blends our analytical mind with our instinctual aptitudes. Necessarily, it brings balance to our thinking. The Intuitive Compass™ facilitates sustainable business thinking and helps us design sustainable business models.
Intuitive Intelligence can be learned and developed, provided we accept that today most of us are not thinking but simply being logical, we can open up to this new mindset.
Why is it necessary to use intuitive intelligence?
Because we will not be able to solve current problems with the outdated way of analytical thinking that created these exact problems.
We face a sustainability imperative. We have to develop and use an intelligence that can think in sync with our ecosystems – in other words an intelligence that understands and respects the creative process of life.
All great scientists recognize that the history of our universe is the consequence of a number of fundamentals laws explained by science as well as a long series of unexplained accidents. Logic alone cannot explain everything. The same goes for business.
In order to help you engage the creativity of your teams, in order to inspire long lasting respectful relationship with consumers, in order to design innovative, sustainable and profitable business models, in order to lead organizations into a successful and sustainable future we developed an original model: The Intuitive Compass™.
How does the Intuitive Compass™ help companies achieve breakthroughs in sustainable innovation?
We use the The Intuitive Compass™ as a tool to assess and
chart progress as companies (and executives) learn to harness intuitive
intelligence in four key areas:
Strategy: how to employ
intuitive intelligence to create sustainable, innovative business
models which deliver real value to customers in their local environment.
Leadership: the transformative power of intuitive intelligence energizes and builds movements – with clarity of vision and purpose.
Work Culture: the ecosystem health of your business culture is reflected in your bottom line results. The Intuitive Compass™ helps create the open culture you need to succeed in the intelligent economy.
Consumer Needs: map your customers needs and wants using The Intuitive Compass™ – creating a value innovation agenda for your customers.
We help companies and leaders get a “southwest” perspective, and focus on creating sustainable value. Our mantra: sustainable business is a the core of future business success.
Intuitive intelligence can be a matter of life and death.
In Iraq, we learn that the use of intuition by US soldiers has led to numerous close escapes. This article in the New York Times gives us a glimpse of how soldiers may use their intuitive senses to avoid danger:
“On one route sweep mission, there was a noticeable I.E.D. in the middle of the road, but it was a decoy,” said Lt. Donovan Campbell, who in 2004 led a Marine platoon for seven months of heavy fighting in Ramadi and wrote a vivid book, “Joker One,” about the experience. “The real bomb was encased in concrete, a hundred meters away, in the midst of rubble. One of my Marines spotted it. He said, ‘That block looks too symmetrical, too perfect.’ ”
These life-and-death decisions must be made instantly, with little, if
any, time for rational analysis. And what’s more impressive, the Army
has discovered that this ability to think intuitively can be improved through training.
Time after time, the Army learns from its feet on the ground, that “the speed
with which the brain reads and interprets sensations like the feelings
in one’s own body and emotions in the body language of others is
central to avoiding imminent threats.”
Of course, intuitive intelligence is not a new idea for the Army. In COUP D’OEIL: STRATEGIC INTUITION IN ARMY PLANNING, a 2005 document produced by Strategic Studies Institute at US Army War College, we see a serious attempt to blend both analytic and intuition.
Analytic decision-making approaches a problem systematically. Leaders analyze a problem, generate several possible solutions, analyze and compare them to a set of criteria, and select the best solution. The analytic approach aims to produce the optimal solution to a problem from among those solutions identified. This approach is methodical, and it serves well for decision-making in complex or unfamiliar situations by allowing the breakdown of tasks into recognizable elements. It ensures that the commander and staff consider, analyze, and evaluate all relevant factors.
It may help inexperienced leaders by giving them a methodology for their lack of experience. The analytic approach to decision-making serves well when time is available to analyze all facets affecting the problem and its solution. However, analytic decision-making consumes time and does not work well in all situations–especially during execution, where circumstances often require immediate decisions.
Intuition, on the other hand, is viewed as a “creative” approach:
Intuitive decision-making is the act of reaching a conclusion that emphasizes pattern recognition based on knowledge, judgment, experience, education, intelligence, boldness, perception, and character. This approach focuses on assessment of the situation versus comparison of multiple options. It is used when time is short, or speed of decision is important. Intuitive decision-making is faster than analytic decision-making in that it involves making decisions based on assessment of the situation rather than a comparison of multiple COAs (Courses of Action). It relies on the experienced leader’s ability to recognize the key elements and implications of a particular problem or situation, reject the impractical, and select an adequate (rather than optimal) COA.
Intuitive decision-making is especially appropriate in time-constrained conditions. It significantly speeds up decision-making. Intuitive decision-making, however, does not work well when the situation includes inexperienced leaders, complex or unfamiliar situations, or competing COAs. Additionally, substituting assessment for detailed analysis means that some implications may be overlooked. Commanders use intuitive decision-making when time is short and problems straightforward. It is usually appropriate during execution.
The Army, especially in light of Iraq, has revised their thinking. The author of the report, a Columbia Professor William Duggan shows how to reconcile analytical and intuitive methods of
decision-making by drawing on recent scientific research that brings the
two together. He applies this new research to the Army’s core methods
of analytical decision-making as found in Field Manual (FM) 5-0, Army Planning and Orders Production. The result is “strategic intuition,” which bears remarkable resemblance to von Clausewitz‘s idea of coup d’oeil in his classic work, On War.
The Columbia professor states emphatically:
This divide between analysis and intuition reflects an outmoded view of the human mind that science no longer supports. Recent advances in how the mind works have overturned the old idea that analysis and intuition are two separate functions that take place in two different parts of the brain. In the new view, analysis and intuition are so intertwined that it is impossible to sort them out. There is no good analysis without intuition, and no good intuition without analysis. They go together in all situations. Some scientists call the new model of the brain “intelligent memory,” where analysis puts elements into your brain and intuition pulls them out and combines them into action.
It is important to note that this ireport does not criticize the Army or its commanders. When strategic intuition was used as a lens to analyze Army officers in action, they tend to comment, “That’s what we do.” The report states: Good commanders use intuitive intelligence. They treat manuals only as guides, and adapt procedures as they see fit.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you need Intuitive Intelligence – it is the bridge between analysis and intuition, and it explains how we, in fact, really make decisions. Despite the limited visibility in these uncertain and turbulent times, we know that Intuitive Intelligence is the necessary strategic aptitude for decision-makers both in the Army and in the chaotic world of today’s business.
