THE ROLE OF BUSINESS IS TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

I believe that the role of business and leaders is to make the world a better place.

Bad news: Not everybody in the corporate world thinks the same.
Good news: Many top leaders in the corporate world share my belief!

Looking around, and being in the most catastrophic economic crisis of all times, it is obvious that political, financial and regulatory institutions have failed to make the world a better place. Actually, they made it worst, undoubtedly.

Therefore, if we forget the religious institutions for now, the only viable way out of the crisis is a collective action (not just a reflection) of the business world towards restoring economic stability, creating employment, relaunching consumption, addressing bottom-of-the-pyramid poverty, funding innovation and education, subsidizing health and elderly care, managing environment, ensuring sustainable progress...

All this can only be done in a rapid, inclusive, action-oriented, leadership-driven inclusion of all business/corporate positive efforts towards the "common good" of our society. In this difficult period, the collaboration between the corporate and political worlds is critical... But the leaders must also be constantly reminded of their mission to make the world a better place (and not just to cope with the crisis). Leaders will now be judged on values rather than value only.

I said above that many leaders of the corporate world shared my belief. It is true and will be made visible in a formidable event held tomorrow evening in Paris : the INSEAD Essentials, at Collège des Bernardins, "How to Make the World a Better Place", with inspiring speakers whom I will have the immense pleasure and honor to introduce:

- Clara Gaymard, CEO of GE France
- Kate Robertson, Chairman of Havas Worldwide UK and Founder of One Young World Summit
- Mgr Dominique Rey, Bishop of Frejus-Toulon
- Prof Dipak C Jain, Dean of INSEAD
- Antoine de Saint-Affrique, President of Unilever Foods
- Jacques Garaialde, Partner at KKR and Chairman of Ecole Polytechnique Charitable Trust
- Gonzague de Blignieres, Chairman of Equistone and President Reseau Entreprendre IDF
- Marc de Leyritz, Partner at Egon Zehnder and leader of their CEO Succession practice

These emblematic leaders do share the view that our role is to make the world a better place.

Do you ?

To register go to:
www.howtomaketheworldabetterplace.eventbrite.com

COMPANIES WITH "IDEALS" GROW FASTER... AND YOURS ?

It is always difficult for an ex-Unilever man like me to publicly praise an ex-P&G man...

But I must say that Jim Stengel, former Chief Marketing Officer of Procter & Gamble, has published a fabulous book about  growth and best-in-class growing companies : It is called Grow ... so simple.

Stengel studied 50,000 brands performance over a 10-year period, identified the 50 fastest growing ones, and derived some thought-provoking conclusions. For example, there is a direct cause-and-effect relation between great financial performance and the ability to connect with fundamental human hopes, values, emotions and purpose... In a word, brands/companies with higher ideals and inspirational dreams outperform the index.

It may sound obvious once written, but dreams and ideals are the NUMBER ONE source of value, progress, growth and success: Someone once had a dream that all men, black and white, should be treated equally; Someone once had a dream that men would walk on the moon; Someone once had a dream that music would be sold on-line rather than on CD...

Now, look at those brands forming the Stengel Index, those great performers with an ideal: Dove exists to celebrate every woman's secret beauty; Pampers exists to help mothers care for their babies; Red Bull exists to energize the world; Zara exists to democratize fashion trends... It is obvious that all these brands and their employees share a common dream to improve lives, in a way or another.

Hence the question for all of us: What ideal, what dream, what greater purpose does my company serve and promote? And the same question applies to us personally: What ideal, what dream, what purpose do I share to inspire my fellow workers, my customers, my students, my suppliers?

So, today, look at your company's dream and ideal, and ask your boss what he/she thinks the ideal is about... Be prepared to ask yourself too what dream and ideal you bring to the world...

Focus on your ideals and you will grow.
Pursue your dream and you will inspire and connect people!

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL...

One can easily say that small things can cause maximum pain or damage... Look at the examples of: Sleeping in a room with a 7mm mosquito ; Agonizing from a 3mm kidney stone ; Receiving a 9mm bullet in the stomach... Is small horrible then?

Not in the modern corporate world.

A lot of prominent business books or professors often promote buzzwords such as "economies of scale", "size matters", "competitive advantage of large corporations" etc. Well, it is interesting to see that small also means: Speed, Agility, Responsiveness, Innovation, Pioneering, No Politics...

Small start-ups have been proliferating in the past two decades, leading to unprecedented changes and improvements in our society. Hundreds start-ups are really small but fully contribute to making the world a better place, through improved education (2tor), transportation (Betterplace), charity (global giving), communication (instagram) ... And the list goes on. Forbes Magazine has recently listed those start-ups changing the world.

That said, event start-ups grow in size and successful ones will become larger, or will be acquired by large corporations - see the recent purchase of Instagram by Facebook for almost $1 billion...


The key question then is:
How to always preserve the pioneering spirit, the one that really spurs creativity and world-changing innovation?

I believe that maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit in a fast-growing business is possible, by:

1/ Giving freedom within a framework to the employees. This is achieved by allowing 'out-of-the-box' thinking, within the general guidelines of the company. Too heavy processes, reporting or budgeting will progressively asphyxiate the company, and entrepreneurs will soon die. You'll be left with the accountants on board, and growth and innovation will fade away.

2/ Retaining top entrepreneurial and creative talent. You cannot force 'eagles' to fly in formation like 'ducks'. So retain your 'eagles' by not forcing them into a hierarchical, old-fashioned, authoritative culture. Just cocoon them, feed them with what they cherish most: Space and Freedom - not necessarily money and job titles.

3/ Preserving the sense of purpose, the dream. The world's most important transformations have not been accomplished by anything else than dreams. Someone had a dream that all men would be treated equally in the US. Someone had a dream that an astronaut should be able to walk on the moon. Someone had a dream that music would be sold on-line rather than on CD. What's the dream of the start-up? What's the dream of your company? What's the founder's dream? Is it still alive?


Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, gives a very good example of "small is beautiful" leadership approach. His group is composed of nearly 400 small companies. He prefers to spin-off a separate entity rather than growing the original one - for example, Virgin America is the infant spin-off of Virgin Atlantic. Branson explains his "small is beautiful" approach well : "smaller companies can stay both more nimble and more customer-focused. They can also maintain the style and cheekiness of their early trailblazing if they stay relatively compact."

So my last words for today :

Grow Fast, but Remember : Small is Beautiful and Can Change the World.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE... A LEADER

www.xpand.eu

I spent the past two days in a great leadership program, led by a fantastic team (Xpand) and their master-chief coach, Paul Donders. It is always useful to pause and reflect on the critical topic of leadership, particularly in the context of the crisis, as we struggle to juggle and take control...

So let's think a minute on leadership and what it means today. In fact, I think that the word "leadership" is often misused by consultants, executives, MBA's... Most individuals love to be seen as leaders, whilst they usually fall in one of these 3 categories :

- Managers: Those are the ones who run well their teams, programs, projects et al. They manage using toolkits, milestones, budgets, reporting and the whole lot - Things progress well and steadily, but frankly, where is the spark of creativity, the burst of emotion, the foresight, the out-of-the-box thinking?

- Directors: Those are the ones who act as if they were commander-in-chief, who always direct, give orders, set instructions, tell the plan... and are in great need of "followers". This is a bit old-fashioned style for generations Y and Z, who need heroes and success stories, not generals and authoritative dogmas.

- Influencers: Those are the ones who advise, counsel, coach, teach. They can exert fabulous influence (and thus power) over business or society leaders; But they are not true leaders themselves, they are thought-leaders and influential gurus. In French we say "les hommes de l'ombre", i.e. the men in the shadow...

In today's world, which needs purpose, guidance and help (more than ever), true leaders in my opinion are the ones who are Connectors and Guides, at the center of the ecosystem in which they live and work. Nowadays' leaders are connecting people and ideas. They are connecting past, present and future. They are connecting generations. They are connecting concepts and reality... Leaders must be solid and respected cornerstones, amidst the tsunami of information that people produce and act upon.

Today's successful leaders will be inclusive, set direction, build trust and kill complexity.

WHAT YOU MUST DEMAND FROM YOUR EMPLOYER

I was speaking at INSEAD a few days ago, trying to give an inspirational speech to the incoming class of 500 MBA students, who will spend their next 10 months on campus, aiming to become top managers and business leaders.

Reflecting on what they should OFFER to prospective employers, I decided to also illustrate the DEMAND side. I do believe that young graduates - those who will shape the future of tomorrow's corporate world and society - must be very careful in selecting their first job after the MBA.

Therefore, new graduates must demand three things from their employers:
The three L's - Leadership, Love and Learning.
By the way, it is valid for everybody...

1. Demand Learning: Upon graduation, all students have become learning sponges, sucking in all the knowledge from their university, day in, day out. If the learning suddenly stops after graduation, and the student enters a daily routine with repetitive work and zero learning, the depression will hit soon! Indeed, the biggest danger for an organization is repetition, e.g. the quarterly reporting which eliminates thinking, creativity, failure and thus learning. Believe me, once you stop learning, just quit.

2. Demand Leadership: When a job is void of decision-making, leading others, framing new strategies, inventing new ideas, changing the norm etc... then it is void of leadership. If a next job only consists in writing Powerpoint charts that no-one would read apart from your boss, or in filling spreadsheets with tons of data that no-one understands apart from bankers or accountants, don't take the role, it is a waste of your leadership talent.

3. Demand Love: It may appear strange to use the Love word here, but the employer/employee relationship is there to stay, like a marriage: Only the ingredients of Love will ensure sustainability of the relationship, i.e. mutual respect, appreciation, reward, recognition, support etc. With those components of Love, then one can find real joy in his/her job, and the desire to wake up every morning to go to work, to excel and to exceed expectations.

Even in times of crisis, do not just sell yourself and offer your talent to the market, but please demand the three L's from your prospective employer. If you find real Love, Leadership and Learning, you will shine at work, and hopefully contribute to make the world a better place !

BLOG LAUNCH - WITH AN INVITATION TO INSPIRATION

Register on:
 www.howtomaketheworldabetterplace.eventbrite.com

Welcome!

I chose September 11th date to launch this blog "Inspire and Connect" with an open invitation to all readers and followers, to the very first INSEAD Essentials - Our theme, "How to Make the World a Better Place", will hopefully show that our world and our hope in the future can be stronger than the most tragic event celebrated on that day.

It is my deep conviction that the role of business in the modern society is to contribute to the fundamental and global agenda of making the world a better place, together with leaders from politics, economics, religions, education... The INSEAD Essentials series, starting on October 4th, will be a unique and unprecedented occasion in Paris to reflect on this agenda, with a panel of exceptional speakers including top leaders of GE, Unilever, Euro RSCG, KKR, Egon Zehnder, Equistone, INSEAD etc.

I want to urge you to attend this event, which will be truly inspirational and change-conducive.

This Blog will try from now on to provide you with daily and weekly topics along the lines of "inspire" and "connect".

Inspire: Because everyone of us can only grow through learning, creativity, insights, foresights, joy, feelings, emotions... all triggered by positive sources of inspiration !

Connect: Because everyone of us can only become leaders through sharing, informing, exchanging, giving, opening up... in a world where information flows at the speed of light - thus requiring to connect people and ideas all the time !

I will aim, with the full support and contribution of the teams from INSEAD Alumni Association (the Board, the Executive Committee, the Centers of Excellence, the Staff...), to give you a daily dose of inspiration and connections, on which we hope you will be able and eager to react.

Welcome again on this blog. Enjoy and be inspired.

Amicalement,

Jean-Marc