Leadership | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

No matter your organization is an elephant : it can dance too !

January 26, 2012 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

Summary : What makes a social business project successful ? To what extent question the existing and transform the culture ? Is success possible when top managers are not much concerned ? If we observe three major cases, there’ something obvious : the project was tied to an organizational change wanted by deeply involved CEOs. They become social business projects afterwards because they eventually used some new tools to support a years old approach. The example of IBM in the 90s shows that there are little limits to what’s possible and that arguments that “our culture doesn’t make it possible”, “that won’t work here” or “we’re too big to change” are not relevant.

Whatever the way we consider the problem, there is no example of an enterprise dramatically changing the way it operates without a strong leader deeply attached to a vision of business. Nothing new there since this has been proven right for decades even before words like enterprise 2.0 or social business became trendy.

Successful projects have a couple of things in common : a visionary CEO who is deeply involved, a goal at is not about social business and the courage to challenge the corporate culture. And those who fail ? Top executives that are not concerned and not very involved, projects aiming at implementing a social network and a moto looking like “don’t be rough with people, we’re not ready for that”.

Let’s have a look at a couple of cases.

Alcatel-Lucent. Whoever knew this enterprise 5 or 6 years ago should have been surprised when their project came under the highlights. If there were a place where such a thing could not have worked this should have been Alcatel-Lucent. Yes but…one day came Ben Verwayyen. We all know the story. First an email adress so employees could directly interact with him. Then an internal blog. Then, as his own approach was beginning to influence people in the organization, the need for a social network. All of this because his vision of business is made of words like transparency, accountability and that’s the way that he things a business should be run.

Danone. When a CEO (Antoine Riboud) states, in the early 80s, that “The most successful companies are those that think jointly technological change, work design and the changes in internal social relationships.” much is said. The rest is about sustaining a strong corporate culture. In th 2000s they started a program called “Networking attitude” to favor interactions, ideas exchange and problem solving. A program that was only about behaviors, management and the human side of the organization at a moment when web 2.0 and social networks did not exist. Technology will come years after and won’t be a break but a way to reinforce the corporate project.

Then IBM. Looking at the success of IBM, not as a vendor selling social business solutions but as a social business itself, is very instructive. But a large part of the lesson is missed if we don’t step back in time to learn from the Louis Gerstner era (1993-2002). I just reread the book he wrote about the time he spent at IBM (he also worked for American Express and Nabisco before), Who said elephants can’t dance. This book is very instructive for the very reason that, at this time, internet was not what it is today…and concepts like social networks or “anything 2.0″ where not even a dream. But, in some ways, Gerstner perfectly set the cornerstones that made social business possible ten years later.

This is a very important lesson for all those who think that “it’s not possible in our company”, “we’re too big to change” or “we don’t have to change…we’re the biggest, we’re the best”.

Social Business should become structural

November 1, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : there is no change without people and social business or 2.0 projects are not exceptions. WIthout a good sponsor and passionate advocates, failure is often at the end of the road. But people change, come and go, and old systems often come back to life once the bright leaders are assigned to another mission. At a certain moment, projects must be able to survive the people who initiated and lead them to become perennial. It needs to implement the social model in the deepest layers of the organizational model, what prevents from having two models fighting together in the same organization. As long as social is not more than a surface phenomenon tacked on a structure that is not, there will be few chances to demonstrate wide-scale benefits and secure the future of the project. There is not one “normal” enterprise and a social or 2.0 one working on the edge. There’s a one and only enterprise that needs clear and strong leading principles as well as common foundations for all employees.

I recently wrote on the risk of not turning the social potential released by enterprise 2.0 and social business into structural capital, the danger of projects stacked on top on the official organization or playing against it and, most generally, on the unproductive and even counter-productive nature of changining without changing. This post follows the same logic and speaks in favor of making social business or enterprise 2.0 projects structural ones.

First, I’d like to make clear what I need by “structural”. It’s about implementing social and 2.0 ways or doing things and behaviors in the deepest layers of the organizational models, creating common foundations shared by all on how to manage people, behave, process information and live with others. Foundations that should be mandatory and non negotiable. A kink of “here we work this way and not in any other”.

Of course, that’s a middle/long term goal. At the beginning, hesitating, proceeding by trial and error is logical. But having this goal in mind from the very beginning is essential and, as Roma was not built in one day, it will take a long time to get there. The risk of not doing ? Either not making the most out of social projects or see them decline over time.

Why ?

First, it’s just a matter a logic. If something is good and beneficial it should be applied to the whole organization. If it has a negative or even neutral impact, it’s better to do nothing and save resources for more worthy things. Second because no one need to be a genius to understand that an organization where some people work in one way and some in another have many chances to loose on both sides.

Let’s make a simple analogy. Let’s consider a sport…basketball for example. There are rules that makes that it’s impossible for some players to play with their feet while other are playing with their hands, that makes that some things are allowed and other prohibited. Then inside a team, there are strategies and systems that apply to all players to make the collective effort productive (the whole having to respect the above mentioned rules). If half of the players don’t respect the rules and/or does not apply the team systems it’s easy to understand how messy things may get. That’s the same in business.

These rules apply to all and, when people move, rules and systems are still applied (with more or less talent…but the basics stay and are shared by everyone). That’s also a lesson that lots of 2.0 project teaches us.

How the myth of “superman manager” causes organizational stagnation

March 17, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : nearly everybody knows that the role of manager will have to evolve. But there’s still a gap between words and action. The fact is the common mental representation of managers, that’s been been built when people were students and is predominant in the workplace, which, combined with a culture of visual control makes people prefer visible activity. By sustaining the myth of the instant-action man versus systemic-oriented people and mistaking hindsight for inactivity, organizations make the germ of stagnation proliferate in their core.

Whatever we can do, some images die hard and stay deeply anchored in our minds. Among them, the “superman manager” that saves the enterprise every time something goes wrong. Of course this image comes with many other ones in the background : someone who do things, someone who acts, someone always busy.

Of course, few managers are still convinced by this image. On the contrary they often say that they can’t do anything more, that they’re overwhelmed with work. But, even if t’s surprising, it seems that this image is still very present for younger, most of all students. But that’s quite normal while they have few experience of the reality of work, tend to idealize their future and are not very comfortable with the difference between omnipotence and leadership.

Note that this is clearly the opposite of all the conclusions that are drawn, nowadays, about the future of managers. Someone who’s more focused on leadership and facilitation, who operates in a subsidiarity model…in short, the antitheses of what’s in people minds.

So what ?

What would you think of an applicant saying, during the job interview : “I want to empower my team so they’ll be autonomous in their day to day work and would only rely on me for things that need me to intervene as a hierarchical support or decision maker. By doing so I’ll have more time to help and support those who need and take hindsight to think about how to improve our performance tomorrow. By doing so, not only I’ll improve both their performance and employability but I’ll trigger a continuous improvement system ” ?

Attractive at the time of enterprise 2.0 and social business, isn’t it ?

I had this discussion with a couple of people last week and they told me : “of course, this is an unavoidable future. But no one will give a job to someone with such a program because they’ll understand “pay me a high salary for doing nothing”. Moreover, in the open space, this manager who would avoid being overwhelmed to take hindsight would lokk lazy because not looking hyperactive and busy. Anyway, who would say “My purpose is to be less and less indispensable in day to day operations to have the means to work on sustainable performance improvement”. People are paid to be indispensable. If they are not, why hiring them ? And the snake is biting its tail once again…

We came to the conclusion that we were not able to understand the difference between “do” and “act”. We need people who act but we also want it to be visible so employees tend to focus on immediately visible actions rather than on things that may have visible results…later.

In fact the mental image of managers and culture of visual control makes us mistake :

• business for busy-ness

• acting for doing

• leadership for inactivity

and makes us think that

• A supportive attitude is not management

• leadership does not deliver anything

In other words, tomorrow’s managers, even if many organizations would like them to emerge as soon as possible, are not acceptable in the open-space today and have many chances to be dismissed after the first job interview.

The whole representation of managers has to be rebuilt because it has an influence on people’s choices and behaviors even if they’re convinced that something new is needed and, sometimes, are missioned to implement it.

Meanwhile, organizations keep on replicating behaviors that makes them stagnate.

At the beginning of the servant leadership era, organizations will have to understand that Superman, with his tight blue suit and his red cape, is both outmoded and square.

Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: Human resources, leadership, management, manager, servant leadership, subsidiarity

Enterprise 2.0 : who’s the good sponsor for your project ?

February 2, 2011 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Summary : you need high level sponsor to start what is a processus that will deeply transform your organization. Hierarchical position and budget are not enough : the sponsor should be able to carry and embody the project, show by the example and, most of all, have courage.

No one questions anymore the fact that any enterprise 2.0 or social anything project needs a strong internal sponsorship. It’s essential when a project that was born under the radar wants to become mainstream as well as when a top-down enterprise wide project needs to meet end-users. So it’s important that a top executive takes the lead to be sure that things will work. In fact, that’s not enough : we often can see projects with high-levels sponsors failing.

So, what should a good sponsor look like ?

1°) He’s a high-level person

Despite of his good-will, a local manager will only be able to achieve local projects. He will even suffer from it his superiors don’t agree and he won’t be able to use all the levers he would need. At a given moment his project will stay local or he’ll have to find a real sponsor to help, provided that, meanwhile, his initiative did not cause him too many enmities. In most of the cases, the right, good sponsor is a C level person or a director of something. But, as we’ll see, that’s not enough.

In fact, to know to what extent the project can spread, you just have to rely on the “highest common hierarchical superior” rule.

2°) He’s not necessarily the person who had the idea

Such people may have many other things to deal with and, most of the times, they don’t know what is now possible and may have a poor understanding of some issues or opportunities (generation matter). On the other hand they have a macro vision of the situation and of the corporate strategy. If they understand that such a project may be a catalyst to execute the strategy, they quickly support it.

3°) He embodies the project

Being a top executive and understanding the benefits of enterprise 2.0 is not enough. The person in question has to embody the change. Once he understands that such a project may help him, saying “I’m ok, do it and come back when it’s done” is not enough. He has to understand the levers, the message, understand it, make it his and carry it. If it’s not natural for him, workshop sessions will be needed to help him. Maybe he’ll need an “expert” close to him.

4°) He shows by the example

Advocating new behaviors, new ways of doing things is nice but doing things in this new way is better ! Saying “yes, it’s essential but I won’t myself play the game, that’s not my thing, not my generation things” means you have nearly 100% to fail. The sponsor discusses corporate issues on his blog, listen to what employees say and answers them. He walks the talk. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: adoption, courage, Enterprise 2.0, leadership, management, sponsor, sponsorship

Many challenges and lots of progress to make for HR according to IBM

October 21, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

IBM recently issued a study after having gathered insights from more than 700 Chief Human resources officers, titled “Working Beyond Borders”.. I let you peruse this long and interesting document but here’s in a few lines some of my takes from it.

Let’s start with te conclusion. As we could expect, it confirms what many people have been knowing for years : in today’s economic context and makets, HR’s main challenge is to develop work “beyond the borders”. What does it mean ?

ability to work out of the enterprise silos and collaborate acrosse functions, departments, countries.
ability to work out of the enterprise boundaries with partners, clients
ability to work out of one’s own competence boundaries : mobilize expertises one don’t have and acquire new ones in a flexible and responsive way.
ability to mobilize out of one’s comfort and authority zone what implies to develop new forms of leadership.

These are creativity, agility and flexibility challenges that CHROs want to address in many ways

Develop creative leaders that will tackl challenges and opportunities in a new way that’s more adapted to our times. Kind of “intrapreneurs” able to react in an innovative way and engage people around them.
Develop speed and flexibility by simplifying processes and making employees more responsive.
Capitalize on collective intelligence by finding new ways to connect people

Even more interesting, one of the many illustrations of the study

It’s the evidence that while there are domains where CHROs find themselves efficient, some remain where about which they acknowledge not being effective although they will be critical in the future : fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing, developing leaders and developing workforce skills.

Now that that’s everybody know in what direction to head…the only thing to do is to work on that. The road seems very long but the amount of opportunities is more than worthy.

One more point to conclude :

I think there’s nothing to add. Just do it…

Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: chro, collaboration, collective-intelligence, competences, Human resources, IBM, intrapreneurship, knowledge, leadership, learning, talents, training

Your manager is not “2.0 minded” ? No reason to blame him !

June 24, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 2 Comments

Some weeks ago Oscar Berg raised an interesting question on twitter. I can’t exactly remind his words but it was something like “what to think of a manager that fears social media, transparency, who’s afraid of seing his staff exchanging more easily without refering to him ?”.

One of my fellow-countrymen immediately answers : “it must be a french manager”.

In all seriousness I thought about it again and again and come to this conclusion : “Nothing. And there’s not reason to blame him”.

Let me elaborate.

People are what they are and we can’t blame them if they reach a management position for the reason that, most of times, they have nothing to do with it. They can neither be blamed for working for an organization that does not help them to embrace this new dimension of their job.

On the other hand we can wonder what at the HR methods for evaluation, promotion, training that allow such situations to happen. Many organizations know they have to think about new ways to create values and implement them in day-to-day operations but if the internal mechanics is not aligned the risk of wasting a lot of energy going nowhere is obvious. Managers are often blamed for internat dysfunctionning but they are seldom responsible for the system that set them there and that they must obey.

But things are not that simple. While many people were agreeing with me, Oscar told me that he this very “automated and unpersonal way” of promoting people was not what he was used to in Sweden (but that he experienced it with some French companies in the past). This was an undisputable evidence of the difference between scandinavian and french models, one being more consensual and the other mor mechanical, one beeing more about about and the other about systems that govern people.

Let’s even go one step further. While we’re stepping into knowledge economy (or service econonmy or even service innovation economy), where mobilising, developping and harnessing knowledge and expertises is more essentiel than ever, while HR people are aware of it, businesses are facing a dangerous paradox

- one can’t built his career on expertise : even the best expert can’t make is way in the organization without climbing the hierarchical ladder and taking management positions.

- doing so he loses his specific expertise and knowledge while improving his management skills

- the paradox of this system is that it’s designed to kill knowledge and expertise to turn it into control skills. Exactly the opposite of what organizations need today.

- last but not least : the best expert in any field won’t necessary be a good manager (and in some cases in doesn not want to reach such a position but it’s the only way to progress and be recognized). On the other hand there are people who are not the best at any operational thing but have this “little thing” that makes all the people around them do a better job. But these last ones seldom meet the requirements that would allow them to manage a team.

I don’t know if HR have to be in charge of enterprise 2.0 projects, if they have to lead the project alone or share the leadership. But what I’m sure of is that they are responsible for putting the right people are the right place, develop expertises and help managers to develop management and leadership skills that fit today’s needs and context.

Designing the best systems and procedures is one thing….but running them successfully will always depend on people.

évaluation, capital organisationnel, carrière, Entreprise 2.0, leadership, Management, management 2.0, Ressources Humaines, ressources humaines 2.0

Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: career, Enterprise 2.0, evaluation, Human resources, human resources 2.0, leadership, management, management 2.0

Some collaboration lessons by John Chambers (Cisco)

April 29, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

I already mentioned CISCO’s collaborative experience a long time ago. I’m taking advantage of a recent article to share a few things about the “Chambers method” for collaboration.

I’m tempted to say that there’s no miracle and that what the article says is only common sense. Anyway, it’s helps to identify the main lines of any successful change project :

• Start with the “human matter”. A leadership change is not something one can improvise. It needs explainations, people need to be reassured and to be able to imagine themselves in the future situation, to make the change theirs.

• Align systems and remuneration. I often say “tell me how you’re evaluated and I’ll be able to tell you how your work”. Trying to make people collaborate while they’re given bonuses to ignore or even fightt againts each other is useless. In other words, in many cases it will be hard to avoid thinking about evaluation models.

• Think about “articulation”. Chambers talks about structure change, but what I can see beyond that is the necessity not to eliminate the hierarchical structure but implement systems that will help hierarchy to articulate with more horizontal and adhoc work models.

• Frame and explain : explain the future and make it clear. Autonomy and flexibility don’t mean absence of rules. On the contrary, employees who are often mistrustful by nature (and sometimes for good reasons…) need that the rules of the game and the frontiers between what’s allowed and what’s forbidden are clearly set.That’s what will make them focus on their rethought work instead of continuously wondering about “how to work” and “how to implement change”.

• Use social media. I don’t know if it’s done in purpose but even if it’s an essential part of the approach, it comes in last position in the list. Maybe because it’s of no use if nothing is done about the above mentioned points.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: cisco, Collaborative practices, evaluation, Human resources, incentives, John Chambers, leadership, remuneration, Social Networking

Enterprise 2.0 and quality

July 14, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 12 Comments

I’ve always been convinced that enterprise 2.0 had a hudge potential but that it was often wasted because of 2.0 experts’ navel-gazing and a kind of will to marginalize those they consider as backward-looking people. In short, enterprise 2.0 often failed to speak a language that could be understood by the enterprise. It’s in no way a matter of capacity but a matter of languange, a disinterest toward “old things” that were ignored to the extent it was useless to say a word about them, that their very existence was neglected or denied. What a pity, since these things are enterprises’ spine column.

I broached this issue earlier this year and I’m glad to see this was one of the lessons of the ast Enterprise 2.0 conference. It’s encouraging for meany reasons.

In my “let’s talk about old things” series, I’d like to say a few things about quality. For many people, quality is as subjective and…qualitative concept. For other people, quality is about providing customers with what they expect to get. This logic was carried on to its deeper ends by Deming who expressed it this way : quality = (results of work efforts) / (total costs). The consequence is that when quality increases costs decrease, and when any organization focuses on costs, quality decreases automatically. I won’t go further but if you want to know more about this, I advise you to read “Out of the Crisis” which is still very relevant 20 years later and may make us think not all the consequences where drawn from Deming’s teaching. In short, Deming went beyond compliance control and turned quality into a real theory of management. That’s the point that may interest many enterprise 2.0 practitioners.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: deming, Enterprise 2.0, leadership, pdca, quality

Efficiency, performance, constraints and things 2.0

April 16, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

We saw in a previous post that one of the best ways to improve performance was not to push to people to make impossible things but to get rid of the constraints that crub their performance. Once that said, if the vision is understandable by everyone (rather than trying to push something large in a blocked thin pipe, better unblock and enlarge the pipe), it’s still useful to see what can be done in the day to day work.

So let’s find out what those constraints are and how to get rid of them. This will also be a good way to understand that enteprise 2.0 is not a goal by itself but a trigger to achieve organizational goals.

Out of the crisis ! How ? Why ?

March 4, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Rehearsal of some of the problems.We live in a society dedicated to dividends, organization, decision, orders from top to bottom, confrontation (every idea put forth must win or lose) and all-out war to destroy a competitor be he at home or abroad. Take no prisonner, there ust be winners and there must be losers. This may not be the way to better material living.

We live in an era in which everyone expects to see an everyrising standard of living. A little arthmetics sometimes helps to clarify thinking. When cometh the ever-increasing supply of worldly goods that build up an ever-increasing supply of food, clothing, housing, transportation and other serices ? It is gard to understand of a significant economic development could happen in the United States as long as our products are not competitive in our country and in the rest of the world.

How can anyone buy products from others if he can’t manage to sell them his own ones ? The only possible answer is a better conception, higher quality, higher productivity.

Only a better management can bring the necessery improvement. The question is to know how long it will take for managament to assume at last its responsabilities and for a new attitude to bear fruits. The american industry doesn’t have to prepare for restauration but for transformation. Solving problems from day to day and installing gadgets won’t put an end to our difficulties.

[...]

An article in Business Week [...] cited the paradoxal case of an executive who was laid off from his company, even though he had been hired to manage long term planification. The only reason was that the last quarter’s dividends [...] felt off.

CxOs managed to make shareholders believe that dividends were a measurement of management performance. Some business schools teach their students how to maximize short term profits. [...] When will industry leaders learn that they have a moral obligation to protect the capital.

[Read more...]