If it was enough to choose the best people to have the best team, we’d all know about it. So what are the main ingredients, those that have the most impact on the performance on a group of colleagues? That’s the question Google’s HR department tackled, with the help of a lot of data. The answer can be summarized in 5 points. Read more
We most appreciate what we know how to do (well). So we do it even more and become even better. To appreciate it even more. This feedback loop is a drug that prevents us from (truly) progressing. Read more
Work is health. The greatest servant of Louis XIV would be the last to contradict this. Deceased at the age of 73 in 1707, Vauban worked his whole life to remain an undisputed and undisputable master. He never stopped cultivating excellence in order to stay free. A fine lesson (of history and humility) for all innovators. Read more
When we make a decision or act in a certain way, it’s then very important for ourselves and others to be consistent (at least in appearance) with what we have decided or done. It’s a dual personal and social pressure that will usually push us to act in such a way as to justify our past actions. Read more
Back in the mid-70’s, Jim Womack was the first to come up with what’s called “the Lean”, an agile production and management mode, respectful of customers and employees. After Industry and IT services, the Lean extended its sphere of influence to the rest of the economy: hospitals, banks, large retailers, airlines… It’s a (proven) alternative to the still-prevailing Taylorist dynamics and reflexes. Are-you ready? Read more
By 2025, you’ll be recruited through an algorithm. By 2025, your current daily work will most certainly be performed to a large extent by another algorithm. In fact, by 2025, you will probably work in tandem with the latter, adapted to your personality, to your professional habits and goals. But you, what will you be doing in 2025 (in just 6 years)? Read more
Everything goes, above all the feeling of satisfaction, the positive emotions linked to a decision. It’s what psychologists call “adaptation”. It’s inevitable. You end up getting used to everything. This is what drives some of us on an unceasing search for this short feeling of satisfaction, wanting ever more. Some tips on how to get out of it. Read more
Changes. Speed. Complexity. Networks. Connections. Technologies. Infobesity. Vertigo. How can you (re)gain the upper hand and best accompany your collaborators? What are the key skills and know-how you need to acquire to develop your superpowers? “To Infinity and Beyond …”, as Buzz Lightyear would say. Read more
Life emerges. It belongs to no specific organ, no specific function. It manifests itself. But if it is to exist, it needs certain crucial, simultaneous conditions. We can’t work directly on the emergence, only on the conditions of its expression. Creativity, trust, even respect (…) emerge in the same way as life does. And what emerges is not decreed. There’s no point in calling on your collaborators to be “creative next Tuesday between 2 pm and 5 pm”… Read more
Legend has it that the Native American didn’t see the conquistador’s boats coming. Or rather, that they couldn’t see them. It was impossible for them to conceive of such mass floating on water. A few hundred years later, it was equally impossible for US automobile executives on a study trip to Japan to imagine a factory without stock: “The Japanese made fools of us with their ghost factories …”. In the end, it’s all a question of eyeglasses. Or rather, of paradigms. Read more