Category Archives: Disruption

Why allowing your team to fail can help it succeed

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Francis

From the mailroom all the way to the C-suite, employees have developed an exceptional capacity for reading between the lines. The boss or the shareholders may say they want innovation, but the unspoken message may be, “but only if it’s risk-free.” If we want innovation, we have to tolerate risk, and we have to make it safe for our employees to take those risks. When corporate leaders make it clear in their words and actions that employees aren’t expected to be perfect–that “mistakes” are not only acceptable, but are indeed just part of the process of getting to winning ideas and products–then employees can relax in a way that supports their own creativity. And when employees get creative, innovations can happen.

Cirque du Soleil, which reinvented the traditional slow-growth genre of the circus and in doing so became a multinational company with four thousand employees, twenty simultaneous shows running worldwide, and one hundred million spectators in less than twenty-five years, embraces risk taking and sees occasional failures as simply part of the creative process. In an interview, Lyn Herward, president of their Creative Content Division, explained that at Cirque du Soleil “employees are offered the protection and support that they need to take risks on the company’s behalf.” Successes and failures are seen as the result of a team effort, and this reduces the fear or shame that is associated with personal failure. As a result, individuals feel encouraged to take risks and even protected from adverse consequences

Making failure an acceptable part of the creative process is also a core value at Mango, a men’s and women’s fashion company. Founded in 1984, Mango now has the biggest design center in Europe in a highly competitive industry, and is present in ninety-one countries, with 1,220 stores and 7,800 employees. Mango explicitly promotes, “the practice of a culture of mistakes” in their written policies, or more explicitly, ”our organization encourages a climate of trust and communication, working in teams, and learning from our mistakes.” They acknowledge that the final design for a dress does not always manifest in the designer’s first draft. And they go as far as to recognize that not every single final design of the eighty million articles shipped out throughout the globe will necessarily become a success. Mango executives know it is essential to acknowledge this important part of their business, because not accepting it and denying the possibility of human error can become very stifling to the creative process of fashion designers.

How can you encourage “failure” in your company to allow your employees more room to innovate?

Why Play Is Essential to Results

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Bianca Le Mouël

Startup Stock Photos

Imagine yourself driving to someone’s house for a surprise birthday party. Every guest has been asked to arrive at a certain time to keep the surprise a surprise. You left home late. You’re in a hurry. You’re now focused on the road in order not to be late. You don’t want to miss the face of your friend completely surprised, between tears and laughter. You’re completely absorbed in one goal: to get there as soon as possible. You don’t have “time” to notice the surroundings. You’re all about the destination. There’s no real journey, because you’re not taking in what’s around. And if someone asked you whether on your way over you saw a house under construction a mile away from your friend’s house, chances are you’d say that you had not seen it because you were too focused on trying to be on time.

Now imagine yourself this time driving along the same road. The road goes through the Colorado Rockies. You’re here on vacation. This is the first time you’ve ever been in Colorado. It’s Sunday. You don’t have to be anywhere at a particular time. No real plan for the day besides reaching your next destination at some point, whenever you get there. You set out early. You have plenty of time ahead of you. Chances are this you will enjoy the spectacular scenery, very aware of what’s around you; you’ll notice the particular light on that day, the colors of the mountains, the vegetation, and many other minute details.

Same road, same person, two totally different attitudes; one is about the destination (result): the other is about the journey (play). So if we accept that creativity is essential in life in order to adapt to change and to keep evolving (whether as individuals or organizations), then we need to allow for and cater to the journey, the playfulness that defines the creative process. Being obsessed with results leaves out the playful, imaginative dimension of life. Our tendency is to focus too much on results, because our rational mind tells us that focusing on results is the best way to make good decisions. This focus also feels more comfortable and gives us a sense of control over the situation we’re in. This is why we tend to approach efficiency in a linear way. Yet in a highly complex environment, linear efficiency is not the answer.

It’s really not about results and play being in opposition. It’s about understanding the need for a collaborative synergy between play and results in order to reach a creative outcome. Obviously we need to get things done. But without a balance between the two, we run the risk of either never getting anywhere or getting someplace but not being aware of the changes in our environment. This is why it is important that in our approach to life, or a project, we keep a dynamic relationship between linear efficiency and the random nature of creativity.

The Value of Intuition in Business

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Francis

We attempt to interact with one another and arrange our institutions in hierarchical pyramids because we have been taught that the world fundamentally operates according to physical laws that believe that our minds can and should operate in a hierarchical way, with reason directing feeling and instinct. But that thinking doesn’t match up with reality.

The hierarchical view of the world only tells part of the story. It is a reflection of the classical physics of the atom: a limited, finite, separate, stable entity that is always precisely identifiable in space and time. But in the 1920s physicist like Niels Bohr discovered that we cannot describe the reality of subatomic—or quantum—particles. These entities are not separate and stable, but random and chaotic. Subatomic particles cannot be precisely identified in space and time except within certain probabilities, and they are entangled in mysterious ways, that Albert Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance.”

To describe reality fully, we need both classical Newtonian physics and quantum physics. Likewise, to understand how our unconscious and conscious minds work, we need to account for instinct and feeling as well as reason, for both chaotic thinking and linear thinking. Even well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, many scientists remain only dimly aware of the implications of quantum physics for the nature of reality, from the makeup of the physical world to the operations of our minds and their creative processes. That doesn’t leave much hope for the rest of us.

The good news is that you don’t need to fully understand the theory to understand how to be successful in our chaotic world. What you do need isIntuitive Intelligence.

Intuitive intelligence is a set of skills I designed that uses intuition to get to the instinctual and nonconscious parts of our minds. It can be learned and developed. But because instinct does not operate in the same way as reason, intuitive intelligence requires unusual forms of learning and thinking. This is why understanding intuition is key.

Intuition doesn’t seek “the truth” or even “sense.” Intuition is completely open to non-sense. It dives down into the depths of the unconscious where reason and instinct collide in unexpected ways, and it latches onto hidden connections and contradictions. Then it brings this information—via an unusual sign, a rare sensation, an unexpected feeling, or a seemingly irrelevant fact—to the surface of consciousness to feed the rational mind and enable logic to work with paradox. Intuition empowers us to operate in the zone of ambiguity and change, the exact place where imagination and genius occur.

Intuitive intelligence helps us survive in new and changing environments by incorporating intuition and instinct into our thought process and our business endeavors. The purpose of instinct is survival. Its ultimate mission is to ensure the sustainability of our species. It understands how to collaborate with and adapt to our ecosystems. This is its inherent wisdom. This is why intuitive intelligence is so needed today.

Thrive in Disruption at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Francis

“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!

Dealing with Chaos and Uncertainty

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Francis

Excerpted from Francis Cholle’s The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass

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.

3 Key Steps You Can Take Now to Deal with Disruption

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Bianca Le Mouël

According 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.

The Intuitive Compass™: a model for creativity and agility

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Bianca Le Mouël

Excerpted from Francis Cholle’s The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass

The business world has been turned upside down by the rapid adoption of technological innovations and the globalization of many industries. Today, the creativity of corporate executives is increasingly called for in all areas of business, and courageous behavior is needed as much as creative thinking. Increasingly complex market scenarios laden with erratic disruptors require executives to have the confidence to step into the unknown and make decisions even in the face of confusion. Although traditional business thinking typically focuses on three- to five-year strategies created with sophisticated analytical processes and logical reasoning, this approach is no longer ideal. Because the future is uncertain expert systems software or scenario planning methodologies are at best limited tools. Today’s fast-emerging, often unpredictable scenarios call for an agile imagination to seize emerging opportunities, and a new model that allows for such.

The Intuitive Compass™ was designed to help us develop new behaviors and new ways to make decisions. It is a tool to help us access our instinct and leverage play in order to innovate, develop disruptive ideas, imagine new sustainable business solutions, and reinvent the way we approach value creation. The Intuitive Compass™ was invented to help organizations thrive in the new economy while enhancing the sustainability of our practices.

We’ve already begun to look at the influence of play in our approaches to innovation, the role of instinct in leadership and value creation and the tension that each faces: play lives in tension with our need for results, and instinct lives in tension with our cultural inclinations toward reason and logic. Play and instinct are the roots of creative imagination, and they both influence our behaviors at their core. We are instinctual beings by nature and logical beings by culture. The Intuitive Compass™ simply shows that linear efficiency and logic do not have to dominate our approaches to life and work, and it provides alternative ways to conduct business. It indicates how to balance and integrate the best of what both logic and instinct have to offer.

The Compass is organized around the usual four cardinal point one finds in a navigation compass: north, east, south, and west.

In the north you find reason (our capacity to conceive ideas and analyze data) and opposite, in the south, you find instinct (our capacity to survive and adapt). In the east you find results, representing the outcome of linear efficiency, and opposite, in the west, you find play, which represents an erratic process comparable to the creative process. This diagram shows play and instinct coming together in the southwest quadrant, where creativity can be unleashed. The Intuitive Compass™ is designed to help people better understand where creative ideas come from and how to access their own genius and uncover meaningful ideas. It make the complexity of the creative process simple to see and it provides a clear roadmap to creative problem solving.

Dealing with Chaos and Uncertainty

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Disruptive Thinking is Really the Way We Are Reinventing the Future

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Disruptive 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

Play Leads to Breakthroughs

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Very often, scientific breakthrough turns out to be an accident. Here is another example of how play and fun mood can lead you to great discoveries.

In fact breakthroughs must disrupt the logic of what we know; because they bring new knowledge, breakthroughs can come only from parts unknown to the conscious mind and therefore unknown to reason. So breakthrough — even the most intellectual and sophisticated ones – can manifest only at times when we disengage from what we know and from what we understand logically. This is why play is so crucial: it disconnects us from reason and logic and opens us up to new and different thoughts we wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

An 18-Year-Old Intern Who Kept Screwing Up Brain Surgery On Mice Accidentally Stumbled On A Scientific Breakthrough