Tag Archives: disruption

Thrive in Disruption at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference

“Wisdom 2.0 is a conference tackling one of the biggest challenges of today’s age. Connect through technology, but do so in a way that supports a person’s well-being, work effectiveness, and is ultimately useful to the world.”

— Inc Magazine

I am very excited to announce my participation in the Wisdom 2.0 Conference (Jackie, attach link to “Wisdom 2.0 conference”: http://www.wisdom2summit.com/) people’s stage contest.  The conference will take place on February 20-22, 2016 in San Francisco.

The initial voting process is open to anyone and everyone. In order to vote, you will first need to register for the People’s Stage voting system here in order to log in and cast your vote.

Here is the link to my video on the wisdom 2.0 page: http://wisdom2contest.com/?contest=video-detail&video_id=198

I’ve included the summary of my video below.  Please take the time to check out the video contest and vote.  I believe that it is an interesting and essential conference and that I can truly help people by spreading our message there.

Thrive in Disruption and Create and Sustainable World

We are The Human Company, a unique management-consulting firm. We work in a very original way that makes organizations fit to thrive in disruption. Beyond a successful business approach for our Fortune 500 clients, it’s a practical philosophy for creative sustainable living, grounded in real science. To make it actionable we designed a model for decision-making: The Intuitive Compass® and a skillset for true leadership: Intuitive Intelligence. It can be learned and applied to anything, from education to politics, to science or simply to daily life. How does it work? It brings out the universal in everyone, the part in us that lives beyond ideology and culture. That’s how change, breakthroughs and innovation can happen. That’s where we all need to work from together to create a sustainable world. It’s actually quite simple. Everybody can learn it and apply it!

 

3 Key Steps You Can Take Now to Deal with Disruption

Screen Shot 2015-07-25 at 6.32.28 PMAccording to a 2013 Oxford Martin School study, nearly 50% of jobs in the US today will have disappeared by 2025 due to artificial intelligence and automation.

Many middle management positions will disappear as a consequence.

This is the new reality.

Disruption, which we define as a problem of such amplitude that it interrupts an activity or process, seems to be everywhere:

  • Radical evolution of business models. Netflix, Uber, Airbnb.
  • Digital hacking. A July 2015 Fortune magazine article documents the debacle hackers created for Sony at all levels of the organization.
  • Regulatory changes. In an interview with Charlie Rose this past June, GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt talks about having to be really paranoid in the face of change. In the case of GE, he refers to regulatory changes being an even greater source of disruption than business competition.
  • Technological failure. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011 was deemed “manmade” by an independent investigation commission. According to the results of the investigation all of its direct causes were foreseeable because the plant was fundamentally incapable of withstanding the 9.0 magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and resulting tsunami.

So what should we do?

20 years ago former Intel CEO Andrew Grove wrote Only the Paranoid Survive. He wrestled with one of the business world’s great challenges in 1994 when a flaw in his company’s new cornerstone product — the Pentium processor — grew into a front-page controversy that seriously threatened its future.

More than ever we need to be hyper-cautious and invest and monitor closely business intelligence, as well as carefully and regularly do scenario planning.

But in a volatile and complex world that’s not enough. These are chess player’s strategies when we need GO* player’s responses, i.e. constant interaction with a moving environment when the pace of change is such that analytical thinking is no longer enough

In his book “How Google Works” Chairman Eric Schmidt says the same thing in another way. He explains that if you want to deal efficiently with disruption, don’t ask your senior strategist to join the brainstorming sessions, invite your smart creative.

Today we need to tap into another form of intelligence that bridges the gap between the rational mind of the strategist and the instinct of the creative. It is called Intuitive Intelligence.

That’s what soldiers and officers have to master for the battlefield, what the greatest performers have to learn to move audiences of thousands, and what athletes need in order to break Olympic records. High performance professionals are required to do both a lot of analysis and minute study as well as to grow their ability to respond instinctually to unforeseen circumstances through continuous practice and exploration. They all have to develop Intuitive Intelligence to be able to perform at their best in a very unpredictable environment: a war zone, a performance stage or a stadium.

Business life today is very similar.

Today it is no longer as much about strategy as it is about quick adaptation and constant experimentation.

I would recommend making disruptive change the new normal and the instinct of the creative the necessary attribute of today leadership, both in your own way of thinking and throughout your organization. To apply this effectively my three recommendations are:

–          Explore with your team what this means for your business model, marketing strategies, organizational design, management culture and leadership style.

–          Describe in detail what all of these changes will look like: what are the competencies needed, behaviors to adopt, industries or competitors you can learn from, new products and services likely to appeal to consumers, and new distribution models to leapfrog competition.

–          Apply these changes in increments. You will not be able to apply them all at once. Start somewhere, and crack open the new code of business within a limited area of your company.

And if you cannot implement it internally because your current way of doing things is too essential to your existing business, create a sister company, experiment in it with new ways of doing business, keep the link with the parent company tight and learn from it.

I have helped leaders apply all of the above in a number of organizations, of varied sizes and in different industries and continents. It works and delivers results. Contact us if you struggle with these ideas.

*An ancient Chinese board game that is the most popular game in the world today.

Dealing with Chaos and Uncertainty

In my seminars at L’Oréal, SAP, and other companies, I often recount Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” a story that beautifully illustrates this aspect of chaos theory. It describes how three brothers go out on their fishing boat only to be caught in “the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens.” The storm drives their boat into a powerful whirlpool, the maelstrom of the title. One brother is thrown over board into the whirlpool and quickly carried under. Another brother goes mad with terror. But the third brother is suddenly struck by the awesome beauty of the maelstrom. With an inner calm he notices that some objects are being spun around at the top of the whirlpool rather than sucked into it. Unable to convey this to his mad brother, he submits himself to the sea, cling onto a barrel, and rides the maelstrom until it subsides and he is rescued. In the meantime the mad brother, because he fights the chaos rather than submitting to it, drowns when their boat spirals down to the depths. Although the experience turns the surviving brother’s hair white and makes him look older that his age, it give him a deep insight into the working of nature, and an enduring serenity.
I always remind participants that Poe’s story shows that the way each one of us chooses to handle confusion and chaos may have a huge impact on the final outcome for everybody. Each brother acted his own way and by doing so chose his own final outcome. In Poe’s story, when the third brother decides, in spite of his fear, to give up the fight with the maelstrom, he actually facilitates the organizing principle creates all the marvels that have evolved in nature. In our minds, it brings reason, feeling, and instinct into balance, if only we have the wisdom to trust it and stop trying to override it.
Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Disruptive Thinking is Really the Way We Are Reinventing the Future

Screen Shot 2014-06-24 at 5.17.39 PMDisruptive thinking often meets with resistance from those who encounter it; nevertheless it is this way we are reinventing the future and shaping our path to new breakthroughs and discoveries. Elon Musk is someone who epitomizes transformation. From his first of a kind space company, SpaceX, his trailblazing electric car company, Tesla Motors, to his proposed solar-powered Hyperloop intercity transporter, Musk’s ideas are intended not merely to challenge convention but to shatter it.

SpaceX Just Unveiled Its Brand-New Capsule For Taking Astronauts To Space