Recently in Results Category

BP crisis: our shared responsibilities toward a new path to success

By Francis Cholle on June 9, 2010 10:22 PM | Comments | TrackBacks
bp_oil_spill_nearshore_trajectory_june18_2010.jpeg
BP oil spill nearshore trajectory june18 2010


The tragedy in the Gulf continues. By now we’ve all seen the horrendous images of seabirds, fish, dolphins, and other forms of aquatic life - dead or dying, helpless as they slither about covered in oil, an agonizing sight for all the world to see.  We’ve seen the Cajun shrimpers bemoan the loss of their lifestyle, and we are witnessing a slow, lingering devastation - as the sea itself seems to be gasping for breath.

As the spill keeps gushing the questions keep coming:

  • Will Florida be soon deeply affected as well?  
  • Will a hurricane stir up the oil even further?  
  • Will the oil flow around the Florida Keys and wash up on the Eastern seaboard? 
  • When will it end?
  • Will BP pay?
BP is certainly to be held responsible. Some conniving political alliances of the past probably as well. No doubt such a catastrophe could have been avoided if more preventive thinking (North West Blue Quadrant of The Intuitive Compass™) had been involved in the management of this underwater well and if decisions had been made based on sustainable value as opposed to shareholder value. Of course there is nothing wrong with compensating the financial risk of a shareholder or an investor. But the sole focus on financial ROI can easily lead to very unbalanced situations. BP and the oil spill in the Mexican Gulf is one more proof of such limited thinking. The many other global sustainability issues as well.

But rather than focusing on BP as the scapegoat of our anger and sorrows few key facts need to be remembered though in order to draw deeper lessons from the current situation in the Mexican Gulf and bring forth a call for meaningful change. Let’s look at the diagram below.

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Average annual contribution to oil in the ocean (1990-1999) from major sources of petroleum in kilotonnes. 
From Oil In The Sea, Ocean Studies Board and Marine Board of the National Academy of Sciences (2003).

Statistics show that above nearly 85 percent of the 29 million gallons of petroleum that enter North American ocean waters each year as a result of human activities comes from land-based runoff, polluted rivers, airplanes, and small boats and jet skis, while less than 8 percent comes from tanker or pipeline spills.

So what BP’s mistake is revealing is that all our  human operations and our system of wealth creation need to be reconsidered when it comes to oceans preservation. 

Not only BP but most of us in business still base our decisions on a very limited perspective and understanding of progress. By focusing primarily - and at times exclusively even - on the North East Yellow Quadrant and the South East Green Quadrant of The Intuitive Compass™ we essentially destroy the foundations of our existence and upset the fundamentals of life on the altar of logic and linear efficiency.

We leave out our best instrument for adaptive and sustainable decisions: Instinct. Simply put neuroscience has now proved that there is intelligence in our guts and we all know that instinct is responsible for our survival; that is its main function.

So even if our brilliant human logical mind has been able to invent amazing technological and scientific solutions all around it is yet very limited when it comes to shift paradigm and emancipate from its own way of reasoning. Logic only knows what’s logical. This is why in the name of logic one can become totally illogical because logic leaves out the part of life that eludes our logical mind. And as we can all testify from experience: life and logic don’t match! It takes imagination and courage to go beyond logic. To engage in a new path status quo needs to be challenged. It costs more effort, more risk taking, more energy and requires independent and creative thinking.

Today that level of in depth and courageous thinking is required. That level of commitment and determination to change is unavoidable.

The good news is: it is possible!

Muhammad Yunus proved it with microcredit. He challenged the status quo. He claimed that poverty is not a necessity of our system of development. He showed that it can be efficiently dealt with. He imagined and thought out a powerful way of empowering poor people to go beyond their limits. He organized lending money for the poor and showed that poor people can be more reliable that solvent people by traditional standards. He shifted the paradigm of credit and made a huge impact: nearly 8 million individuals are members of Grameen Bank (a total of 40 million people impacted when you count their family members). Since its inception thirty three years ago Grameen Bank has lent more than $ 8 billion US dolllars to the poor in Bangladesh. 

So how does one start an enterprise that reaches nearly 40 million people in one’s own country and improves the lives of tens of millions more in replications around the world? How does one create socially sustainable prosperity?

Through imagination, intense feeling, courage (i.e. rage of the heart), and deep thinking while not being afraid of paradoxes and commending a holistic view of life where all count, paying attention to unusual cues into powerful creative solutions, by humbly accepting that we cannot control life but committing to influence our individual and collective destiny. 

This exact same approach also applies to our relationship with Nature, seas and oceans. This equally applies to business model reinvention and innovation. In other words we can innovate and create prosperous businesses even in recession times and their impact can be positive, meaningful and economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

It is time to rethink the way we think… Not from a fragmented paradigm where logic and linear efficiency prevail in an exclusive manner but from a holistic and inclusive paradigm that is both creative and sustainable, intelligent and relevant. This is why Intuitive Intelligence and The Intuitive Compass™ were invented. This is why i do what i do.

Michael Schrage and the Intuition Fallacy

By Francis Cholle on June 6, 2010 7:06 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
There's a post on the HBR blog - Tell Your Gut to Please Shut Up - by Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan School's Center for Digital Business, in which he denounces the current trend about intuition as the key to quick, effective, successful decision-making.

Although Schrage's argument seems to make perfect sense, and his ideas are well articulated, I think this is just another false debate about intuition.

To be intuitive does not necessarily make any one a better decision-maker, as much as having access to a lot of data is in and of itself not enough to make a good decision.

Schrage's view is a common misrepresentation of intuition. 

In reality, intuition is not about being right or wrong. Instead, intuition is a human aptitude that allows us to take in information that is not obvious to the conscious part of our mind that responds to logic. In other words, you may perceive something or feel a certain way about someone or a situation, and this perception and/or feeling may seem very real and yet simply does not make sense from the point of view of logic. But the fact that it does not make sense logically does NOT mean that it does not have any value... far from that, actually.

This phenomenon is often the foundation for many meaningful scientific breakthroughs. It is also the reason for great art, and even successful medical diagnoses!

What do you do in the face of information that does not seem to make any sense yet keeps your attention?

This is when your imagination and your capacity for induction as well as your sense of discrimination, your analytical mind, and your experience are all at once put to test.

Our analytical mind and our instinct work together to make successful choices.

Let's remember that a few years ago research at MIT Picower Center for Memory and Learning showed that parts of our reptilian brain (or instinctual brain) participate in sophisticated decision making: simply put there is intelligence in our gut instinct.

For this to occur, we need a medium to exchange data between the conscious and the non conscious planes of our mind. This is the function of intuition: to inform (not to decide). And this is why Intuitive Intelligence is defined as the ability for our analytical mind and our instinct to function in synergy thanks to our intuition

Now why is Intuitive Intelligence a fundamental concept in business today? And why is intuition an important subject that must be well understood, not misrepresented? Why? Because logic alone cannot bring the level of creativity and reinvention we need to innovate and win in the global economy. Breakthrough ideas can only come from our unconscious mind (otherwise they would not be new ideas!) so we need to access the part of us that is beyond our conscious mind. And what's beyond our conscious mind does not respond to logic!

Every entrepreneur who launched a successful business would tell you that at some point he or she made a critical decision based on gut instinct, because when you create something meaningful that does not have any existing equivalent you will have to rely on your own judgement beyond any logical framework of reference. That's the difficulty of launching a new business. You have to step in the unknown.

So to answer Michael Starge's question at the end of his HBR article: "So did I write that based on empirical observation? Or because I'm trusting my gut?

My answer is loud and clear: hopefully, both! Otherwise - with all due respect - "that" runs a high risk of being just another platitude.

The Future of Magazines & Newspapers: A Conversation

By Francis Cholle on June 6, 2010 6:21 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
Not long ago, at the airport, I had a conversation with John - a business man in his early 40s. 

Since I consult in the highly-challenged paper media industry I asked him how he feels about reading magazines and papers.

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:

- increasingly, online destinations attract the attention of large audiences
- most paper magazines have a hard time retaining their audience
- advertising dollars shrink as a consequence
- media company try desperately to expand revenues on the web repurposing a somewhat irrelevant editorial legacy

So let's come back to my conversation with my fellow traveler at the airport. He's a best selling author, considered as a thought-leader in his field of expertise. To respect his privacy, I'll keep his name and further details about his profession confidential.

He tells me that he has not spent a dollar on a newspaper or a magazine for months, probably years!

So I asked him to share with me his reasons for this. He tells me that he already has access to more information than he could read: he receives the NY Times online newsletter everyday, as well as the Economist weekly; he checks the news on Google and the Daily Beast. Three times a week, he watches CNN at the gym for 45 min. as he runs on the treadmill. He browses the web constantly.

Overall, he prefers e-newsletters over online subscriptions because of time constraints - with a subscription he has to wait for the entire digital edition to download on his screen, but with an e-newsletter is only one click away from the information. Time is of essence for him and much more important than the marginal information he can only have via electronic subscriptions or paper versions.

Besides, he flies internationally very regularly and enjoys access to more magazines and newspapers - both US and international - than he could wish for.
He tells me that he prefers electronic information because he can save articles and send them easily to his clients or his assistant.  Simply put, he does not need to buy any general information - a pretty gloomy statement for traditional media owners!

But further into the conversation, I find out that he pays $150 to receive the McKinsey Quarterly. For $150 he can get a yearly online subscription with Newsweek and receive in the mail GQ, Car and Driver, and FT everyday!

So, where's the solution?

As always, the solution will not come from a financial equation alone - there is no imagination in 2+2 = 4 - yet most traditional business thinking comes back to : "what's the business model?" meaning "how do we make money?"

These questions are obviously necessary questions but they're also paralyzing! That's the conventional north-east quadrant approach in the Intuitive Compass™.

The appropriate questions are: "how do i bring value to my readers?" and "what is my reader trying to achieve?"

Let's go back to the roots. What does "media" mean? It means "in the middle" - media stands between people and information and facilitates news and information sharing.

If we come back to my conversation it's not difficult to see how to bring value to John, i.e to stand between John and a world of information in a way that's relevant and significant! He needs:

- cutting edge information to keep ahead of the curve in his business
- quick access and very easy repurposing of information
- a search engine that is customized to his very specific profile (profession, cultural background, revenue, age, lifestyle, consumption preferences, payment modalities, hometown and preferred destinations, travel patterns, etc.)

The media would help him thrive if they could deliver a customized version of their online magazine everyday with information that speaks to him, his lifestyle and saves him time.

it would not take much more content development from the media because in actual facts a lot of this information is already available online and for this he would be willing to pay obviously since we know he pays for the McKinsey Quarterly.

Two other essential complements would bring real added value to John's experience. One, is advertising: what if John could switch on and off access to customized advertising on his page? We let John decide when he wants to see an ad - tough, you'll say! ... how do you sell this to an advertiser?
Well actually, this is what Google does basically - we're simply pushing it one step further. John has control of his exposure to advertising in the same way as people decide if/when they want to sit in the sun. It would mean a pay-per-click type of revenue or even pay-per-lead. But John's perception of the media would be so enhanced - it would clearly raise drastically his loyalty to this medium

The other? User-generated content. He tells me he's looking for a new car; he's considering buying a Porsche Cayman or Boxster. He prefers the line of the Cayman, but living in LA, he thinks a convertible would be really cool, so he's debating between the two.

He tells me he goes online to find info about the cars. John says he'd like to know how green these cars are and how much it actually costs to drive and maintain them. Here are his three choices:

- the official Porsche website
- car magazines such as Car and Driver or Road and Track
- blogs and users generated reviews

The first two don't really answer these questions in a straightforward way.

Car magazines usually write about the new features of the car and in a style that's supposed to be appealing to the largest audience, while the Porsche website gives data that don't match up with real life.

But when it comes to users' reviews it's not easy either:  John has to go through a lot of shallow comments and irrelevant information before he can access what he needs: mpg data, maintenance cost, etc.

So what about a media company that develops a system to collect user-generated content and sort it out and find a way to establish a hierarchy so that shallow comments go to the end of the list and relevant serious information comes to the top?

This is something John would really value. It would save him time and give him access to real conversations with like-minded people who own and drive the cars he's considering. And this could be done on all other topics John would tell his media company he would like to hear about.

So why not including in the media of tomorrow a way to curate content?  To feed readers with user-generated content filtered and organized in a way that's relevant to the profile and aspirations of each readers.

This is typically a north-west quadrant / south-east quadrant type of approach grounded in the south-west quadrant: open creative thinking applied to improve performance based first and foremost on consumer value creation.

So the media still has a critical role to play.  There's still a lot to do and a lot of potential to enhance the media industry for both readers and magazines.

But please don't start your internal conversations talking about how you're going to make money; it will not take you very far! Start thinking about value and meaning to reach deeper long lasting creative solutions that will eventually lead to profit without a doubt.  

"Intuitive Intelligence" on iTunes U: Top Download

By Francis Cholle on June 6, 2010 6:13 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
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.  

You can download it for free >>


iTunes U gathers more than 250,000 free podcasts of lectures, films, interviews from 600 prestigious universities and institutions from all over the world. The weekly statistics provided by Apple, routinely show 60,000 to 70,000 visitors.

Intuitive Decision-Making: How Google Bought YouTube

By Francis Cholle on March 7, 2010 6:31 PM | Comments | TrackBacks

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 any company would prefer real-life data to hunches and guesses, Google is more focused than most (or any) on getting conclusive proof that a new feature or function improves the user experience. We release many of our products in beta on Google Labs to get this kind of feedback early in the process so that we can influence the design and iterate quickly.

The ability to test lots of products and features on hundreds of millions of users is enormously valuable. This test-bed of users (otherwise known as google.com) provides Google with an incredible advantage over enterprise-only search vendors. Bad ideas can be discarded quickly and great ideas can be implemented rapidly, because we have confidence and data to show that they'll improve the user experience.

Of course, when all decision-making is data-driven, it can lead to "madness."

 Here's how Douglas Bowman explains why he quit Google:

When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.

In the end, said Bowman, he "won't miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data."

The testing culture doesn't end there.  On the Google Testing blog, James Whittaker describes the testing frameworks he's observed among the job applicants he's looking to hire:

  • Input Domain Framework
  • Divide and Conquer Framework
  • Fishbowl Framework
  • Storybook Framework
  • Pessimists Framework

Which one of these frameworks will be best for Google, asks Whittaker.

 Which leads us to the topic of this blog post: Just how do the executives at Google make decisions?

Do they base their decisions on the data?  Let's look at one well publicized executive decision and the executive decision-maker: Eric Schmidt and his decision to buy YouTube.

On October 9, 2006, in a deal valued at $1.65 billion, Google outbid a number of other competitors to snag YouTube, the online video site which was growing at a rate far outpacing Google's own Video site.

The official Google line was as follows:

The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google.  "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers."

 So how did Eric Schmidt value Google?  Was he analytical, precise, objective?

By his own admission, Schmidt says, in a deposition by lawyers in the Viacom copyright lawsuit, that there was very little revenue coming into YouTube to justify the price his company paid.

Schmidt says that he told his company's board of that YouTube was worth $600 million to $700 million.

Via CNET, we get Schmidt's own words:

Viacom attorney Stuart Jay Baskin: And what was management's valuation?

Eric Schmidt: Much lower than we paid for it.

Baskin: And how was that communicated to the board?

Schmidt: I told them.

Baskin: So why don't you tell us what you remember telling the board in connection with the valuation?

Schmidt: I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million.

...
Baskin: What methodology did you use to come up with that number?

John P. Mancini, an attorney working for Google, objects.

Schmidt: My judgment.

Baskin: Was it based on cash flow analysis? Comparable companies? What were you using as the basis for your judgment?

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: It's just my judgment. I've been doing this a long time.

...
Baskin: I'm not very good at math, but I think that would be $1 billion or so more than you thought the company was, in fact, worth.

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: That is correct.

Later...

Baskin: Can you tell us what reasoning you explained?

Schmidt: Sure, this is a company with very little revenue, growing quickly with user adoption, growing much faster than Google Video, which was the product that Google had. And they had indicated to us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be a competing offer--because of who Google was--paying much more than they were worth. In the deal dynamics, the price, remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or discounted cash flow. It's set by what people are willing to pay. And we ultimately concluded that $1.65 billion included a premium for moving quickly and making sure that we could participate in the user success in YouTube.


What this tells us is that even in the most analytic company in the world, the big decisions are still made on intuition.

Here's why. Analytics can only tell us about the past. We have no data on the future.  So Eric Schmidt was making an intuitive decision about Google's own future through examining the intangibles.

For example:

1. YouTube's popularity was sky-rocketing, making it the runaway market leader among video-sharing sites.
2. It was crushing his company's own site, Google Video.
3. YouTube was up for auction and would be sold to a competitor unless Google jumped first.
4. Google overbid to ensure YouTube didn't fall into rival hands.

And that doesn't take into account two other points which made the deal a winner.  From the very beginning, the Google philosophy has been - get attention first, then monetize it.  And that is what this bet was all about.

Schmidt saw the attention trajectory in YouTube's growth, and he knew that if anyone could monetize that attention it would be Google.  To leave YouTube for Murdoch, Microsoft, or Yahoo was not an option.

In hindsight, it may have been a brilliant move.  Although the monetization has proved difficult, Google is breaking even today, which is far better than what has happened at MySpace, for example.

Strategic Intuition: Lessons Learned from Iraq

By Francis Cholle on August 15, 2009 10:53 PM | Comments | TrackBacks
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.  

The Army views the analytic approach as follows:

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.

Case Study: Creativity versus Results at L'Oréal

By Francis Cholle on May 28, 2009 10:21 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
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According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, L'Oréal SA, the world's largest cosmetics maker, reported flat sales for the first quarter of 2009 as consumers shied away from its luxury skin creams and shampoos in favor of its cheaper brands. The maker of products ranging from Giorgio Armani perfume to Lancôme skin cream and Maybelline eye shadows said sales increased 0.3% to €4.37 billion ($5.83 billion) in the first three months of 2009. Jean-Paul Agon, L'Oréal's chief executive, said that he would not offer specific guidance for the year but that results would "improve" during 2009.

After accounting for the effect of currency fluctuations, sales fell 9.3% in Western Europe and 5% in North America. This shortfall was partly offset by an increase in revenue in Asia.

Sales at L'Oréal's luxury cosmetics division fell, while sales of its consumer drugstore lines increased slightly.

This is an unfortunate turn for L'Oréal which has always been known for its commitment to scientific research and exceptional financial results.

In fact, you might say there is an unresolved tension in its culture between creativity and business results. This tension is visible even on its website. If you read about the "profiles they are looking for" under the marketing category, here's a description you'll find:

Creativity, imagination, openness to new ideas - coupled with the highest professionalism.
• Project-oriented, natural team player, at ease working with others in an environment of entrepreneurial challenge.
• Global-minded, flexible, able to juggle multiple priorities.
• Strong analytical thinker, excellent communicator.

You have a keen eye on the latest fashions, a finger on the pulse of emerging consumer and cultural trends. Highly developed interpersonal skills, a passion for results. The personality to make a difference.

Diagnosis: L'Oréal - When East dominates West...                

For the past few years I have been working with L'Oréal to change this dynamic.

The challenge: help marketers and managers develop a sensitivity to the creative nature of the beauty product development process and specifically gain an understanding for the process of research and development.

When the cosmetic group decided to develop a world wide talent appraisal process Sir Lindsay Owen Jones articulated the need to develop a competence key to the success of the group in the eye of the CEO, and that is: sensitivity to métier. What Sir Lindsay Owen Jones was aiming for was to develop a global, shared understanding for beauty products development, for L'Oréal customers, and for a number of other confidential important characteristics identified by the CEO as key factors for success in the beauty industry.

The Human Company was commissioned to research how to define this specific aptitude and how to develop it and train for it. We developed an international training track that is seen today as one of the most successful and inspiring training program available at L'Oréal.

Our approach consists in helping marketers understand how to engage and inspire creative people to contribute the best of their creativity.  We used the The Intuitive Compass™ to highlight the tension between results-driven managers and creative teams.

compass_loreal.gif

Our analysis: L'Oréal has a product innovation driven business model whereas most of its competitors have often a market-driven model. The company believes in scientific innovation to promote growth. Its founder was a scientist. It is how L'Oréal sustained 20 years of double-digit growth and became the world leader in cosmetics. There is, as I mentioned earlier, a tension in its culture between creativity and business results.

Results: We helped L'Oréal's teams understand the perspective of the different teams.  The creative teams learned about the business aspects they had neglected, while the managers and marketers were helped to understand the creative process. The bridge is intuitive intelligence. Our training program is seen today as one of the most successful and inspiring training program available at L'Oréal. (Average rating: 19.5/20) because it is very relevant with the innovation imperative prevailing in the beauty Industry, articulated by the CEO Jean Paul Agon in his mandate. 

FIT: New Intelligence for the New Economy

By Francis Cholle on May 13, 2009 7:06 PM | Comments | TrackBacks
I just got back from delivering the keynote at the Fashion Institute of Technology's 2009 Capstone Presentations and Graduation Reception.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen how teams of students have used the ideas we discussed, both on creativity and applied intuitive intelligence, to learn more about the possibilities for exploring new avenues for growth. They are full of enthusiasm and passion for their work - and that is what true education is about. May they keep the fire with them always!

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Thanks to everyone for such a wonderful evening: FIT's Dr. Joyce Brown and Professor Stephan Kanlian, our gracious hosts;  my industry colleagues: Karen Grant, Marc Gobe, Candace Corlett, and Mark Pritchard; and of course, Ellen Byron from the Wall Street Journal.

And most importantly, thank you to the students.  Yours is the task of building a tomorrow that keeps us alive, hopeful, and yes, sometimes, truly joyful!

My keynote presentation is available here >>

The Intuitive Compass™: A Framework for Intuitive Intelligence

By Francis Cholle on May 13, 2009 11:24 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
We know that innovation is more about people and culture than it is about process and structures. Yet many executives find themselves unable to inspire their teams and foster a culture of innovation. This is not a new theme in management thinking, but it is one that has never been more important.

Early on, as my work took me deep into this realm - the world of intuitive intelligence -  I struggled to build a model to explain why this was so.  And so it was by accident, and by now we know that there are no accidents, that the model of The Intuitive Compass™ took shape:

intuitivecompass.gif

Oddly enough, I was using Cartesian coordinates to explain the flaws in our linear thinking. The two principal axes, Play-Results and Instinct-Reason, give us four quadrants (NE, SE, SW, NW). Each of these quadrants represents a function or even a mindset in an organization. Let's make a few generalizations to explain the framework:

The NE quadrant is the area where reason and results prevail. This is the realm of business administration and management. Most companies excel in this department, led by teh twin beacons of "maximizing shareholder value" and "cost management."

The SE quadrant is the area where instinct is at the core and results are the rule of the game. This is the mindset one finds in a sales department, or in an athlete.

The NW quadrant is the area where reason engages in a creative thinking process as in strategic planning or marketing (think of an architectural firm or engineering company).

Finally, the SW quadrant is the area where instincts are at the heart of the creative process to invent and create from the unknown and the depth of the unconscious. This is where creators, scientists, researchers, and inventors experience eureka moments. Most executives and almost all companies, even those engaged in creative fields, lack a way to connect this quadrant back into the rest of the business.

The Intuitive Compass™ becomes a tool we can apply 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.

The bottom line is convergence - with customers, employees, management and leadership.

Going forward, we'll use The Intuitive Compass™ to chart how companies and leaders can use intuitive intelligence to shape the future - both in their industries and in the larger world.

Definition: What is Intuitive Intelligence?

By Francis Cholle on May 8, 2009 1:31 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
How many times do we see a business leader make a decision without a lot of data, seemingly without deliberation, and make the right call?

Not very often, in the "western" world.

But every so often we encounter that rare leader who makes impossible decisions and, time and again, gets it right. This is not an accident, we tell ourselves, as we look for clues to try to understand this phenomenon we are witnessing.

What we are experiencing is Intuitive Intelligence in action.

Intuitive Intelligence lies beyond the boundaries of science and analytics. It bridges the realms of reality and imagination, reason and instinct, material and spiritual dimensions of human existence. Intuitive Intelligence is non-linear, a key skill for success in the new economy, an economy driven by constant disruption and chaos.

Intuitive Intelligence is defined as the combination of 4 abilities:

-  The ability to think holistically

-  The ability to think paradoxically

-  The ability to listen and connect to oneself and others

-  The ability to lead by influence rather than design


THINK HOLISTICALLY

Business is not about money. It's not even about shareholder value (ask Jack Welch!).

Business is about servicing our communities and allowing people to express their talents and genius for the betterment of our society.

Money is one very necessary component of business and it keeps the human engine going but it is not the engine.

Business success is achieved through the power of human creativity and organization and depends on individuals - people - complex beings in relationship with an unpredictable environment called nature. No human experience can be fully represented by a mathematical equation (ask artificial intelligence experts!) and the unpredictability of nature cannot be comprehended, let alone mastered.

Yet we realized only recently that besides the financial bottom line there should be other criteria to set business goals and measure the results of human organizations. The business impact on the surrounding ecosystems and its influence on humans are factors rarely placed at the center of corporate strategy.  Intuitive Intelligence™ helps us move from a conservative fragmented business approach that focuses on financial results as the ultimate goal, to a wholesome business view where people, society and natural ecosystems are all part of the  picture, with money seen as only simply a resource, a means to an end. All aspects of business are inseparably taken into account as a whole for maximum efficiency and sustainability.


THINK PARADOXICALLY

As much as business can be taught, it is still a rather random process similar in this to the creative process of life. Many leaders focus on economic results believing that it is the shortest way to achieve their goals. The paradox is that empowering people and relationships are the key to better financial results. In 2004 neuroscience was finally able to establish a fact known for millennia by ancient civilizations: the human mind is more unconscious than it is conscious. For that matter, engaging the unconscious in people is more effective than focusing on the conscious part of their mind. This is the paradoxical thought process.  As psychologist David G. Myer puts it: "under the surface lies a lot of intelligence above a lot of delusion."


LISTEN FOR THE UNUSUAL

In order to be in touch with the unconscious aspect of our lives we need to pay attention to subtle details and to our emotions, which are indicative of our perceptions, whether conscious or unconscious. Our emotions fashion our thoughts, which lead to our actions; our actions turn into habits that finally shape our character. And as we know, character is essential to leadership. A charismatic leader will communicate without necessarily taking in the other person's emotions, perceptions and environment and will attract dedicated followers; a leader who demonstrates self-awareness and manifests empathy will empower and inspire people with character who are more likely to take risk and think autonomously - two attitudes well needed to succeed in times of radical change.

This kind of sensitivity operates at a fundamental level of equality between individuals and induces trust, respect, and interdependence three necessary factors to foster creativity and lead a culture of high performance. Moreover when a leader is able to listen to others and oneself with such a sensitivity he or she takes in all sorts of creative information about consumers and their environment, about an industry and its trends.


LEAD BY INFLUENCE

Innovation is one of the most critical factors for success in today global economy. It relies on systems and processes, yet it depends even more on the creativity of people and corporate cultures.  Creativity finds its inspiration beyond the motivation of financial gain or economic achievement. It stems from dreams and ideals and pertains more to utopia than pragmatism.

Organizations seeking innovation cannot rely only on a pragmatic leadership model rooted in a purely economic approach (leadership by design).  Such a leadership model sets goals and objectives, covers budgets and schedules and relies on the alignment of teams to execute the corporate vision. Leadership by influence, however, is on the opposite side of the spectrum. It perceives any human organization as a living interconnected web and the relationship with consumers as a dynamic collaborative system. And for that matter it focuses on facilitating and guiding the natural emergence of creativity to reach innovative business solutions. It puts the emphasis on engaging and influencing teams and consumers rather than motivating and controlling them. It conveys a strong sense of meaning within visions and goals to reach that place in each one of us where creativity thrives and can be awakened.  In practical terms, a leader guided by intuitive intelligence ensures that all systems and processes are in the service of the human factor and its ecosystem rather than an isolated attempt to rationalize business and reach financial goals. He or she inspires uniquely magnetic organizations fired up with enthusiasm and a strong sense of possibility. In this way, leading with intuitive intelligence creates virtuous circles and enables teams to believe, manifest autonomy, and succeed.

Intuitive Intelligence is a powerful leadership attribute. It is not a tool to devise the future, but an instrument that points our attention towards the invisible. Intuitive Intelligence brings us closer to understand the transformative and creative nature of our organizations as well as their interdependence with their environments. It is a means to take in unexpected information or paradoxical data and to feed our analytical and rational thinking with subtle creative perceptions. In this way intuitive intelligence bridges the rational and the irrational realms, the conscious and unconscious dimensions, the inner and the outer, the material and immaterial aspects of any business and allows for truly evolutionary leadership.

In our next post we'll introduce a new tool to help foster Intuitive Intelligence, both in organizations and individuals: The Intuitive Compass™.

About This Blog: Using Intuitive Intelligence to Create Sustainable Business Value

By Francis Cholle on May 6, 2009 10:50 AM | Comments | TrackBacks
When I first became involved in researching intuitive intelligence and its relationship to business, I was surprised to discover the disconnect between what leaders wanted to do--innovate and create sustainable value--and what they actually accomplished--scarce innovation and unsustainable value. Often they were doing everything right (by the book) and still failing.

As I studied the root cause of these failures, a common thread appeared over and over again, and still appears today. Executives manage their companies in analytic ways, focusing on shareholder value. By focusing on the business results, they fail to do what is required to achieve the very results they desire. They can't engage their key stakeholders, whether employees or customers.

Two essential truths about human nature are deeply overlooked in most companies:
  • Our minds are essentially unconscious (80% of our grey matter is dedicated to subconscious thinking)
  • Play gives access to our unconscious
Now we know that:

  • Most innovative solutions are limited by our analytical minds, because our analytical mind knows only what it knows 
  • Creativity originates in our unconscious. Breakthrough ideas often elude the rational mind
  • People can rise above their perceived limits when they are inspired
Our western approach to education, work, collaboration, or solutions for the future is dominantly led by rational thinking. We have handicapped ourselves.

Our intuitive aptitudes enable us to notice and take in information which may not make sense to the rational mind. This is our gateway to new and paradoxical information. They are the conduit to creative ideas.

Intuitive intelligence is the ability to combine our analytical mind with our intuitive aptitudes to solve problems in an innovative way and succeed in the new economy.

Because we now live in a network based society consumers have gained an active voice in our businesses. Relationships with consumers are on a reciprocal basis. We need to speak to their minds, their emotions and their guts. Authenticity is now at the heart of commerce. Advertising is about creating relevant narratives for consumers as much as it is about factual information about products and services.

We must respect our ecosystems and understand that business is part of an interconnected global web.

These are the primary reasons why I authored the book Intuitive Intelligence, and its application model The Intuitive Compass™.

In this blog I will share my ideas and findings about how to use intuitive intelligence to innovate and create sustainable value in order to succeed in this new, ever-shifting economy.

We'll look at how and why our intuition is often a better guide to problem-solving than reason alone.

We'll explore ways to use The Intuitive Compass™ and make a difference - in business strategy, leadership, innovative work culture, consumer intelligence, and product development.

Won't you join us on this journey?
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