HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 !

I wish you all the best for 2016. May this new year be full of JOY for all of you, and your families and friends. 

I can only hope that we are more and more inspired and connected in 2016 to make the world a better place, together !

UN MESSAGE PERSONNEL … AU LENDEMAIN DU 13 NOVEMBRE 2015 A PARIS

« Ce matin, j’ai un petit peu peur. »

Ce furent les mots déchirants de notre petite fille, Philomène, 9 ans, ce matin, lorsque nous nous retrouvâmes pour le traditionnel petit-déjeuner en famille du samedi matin.

Ce petit-déjeuner avait un goût étrange, amer, comme jamais avant avec nos 4 jeunes enfants. Ce petit-déjeuner était chargé … de silence et de bruit ; d’émotions et de réflexions ; d’appels extérieurs et de dialogues intérieurs ; de peur et d’espérance (si, si, toujours) ; de colère et de joie (pour ceux qui n’étaient pas touchés) ; de questions et de réponses ; de stress et de calme … mais surtout de prière, sans équivoque, intense, pour les victimes et pour leurs proches, et pour notre pays en deuil !

Notre petit-déjeuner était certainement similaire au vôtre, et à celui de millions de familles à Paris, en France et dans le Monde.

Mais il était aussi très, très, très différent de celui des familles des victimes, décédées, portées disparues ou blessées — dont le nombre reste encore très incertain, et qui sont confrontées au pire des visages de l’humanité, celui de la haine aveugle, et au plus haut degré possible de chagrin et d’incompréhension.

Alors, ce matin, tous ensemble, nous voulons dire une prière ardente pour toutes ces familles meurtries, ou au moins avoir une pensée pour elles, pleine de compassion, de charité, de solidarité … et j’oserais aussi ajouter pleine de fraternité, valeur fondatrice du peuple de France aujourd’hui.

J’ai reçu de très nombreux messages des amis d'ALPHA, de l’INSEAD, de DELOITTE et de bien d’autres horizons ce matin, qui démontrent bien la force et l’unité de toutes nos communautés fraternelles et bienveillantes en ce jour, comme une seule famille éplorée. Ces messages sont très précieux pour nous tous, et je vous en remercie ! N’hésitez pas, continuez à envoyer toujours plus de messages d’espérance et de courage, qui sont tellement réconfortants au cœur des heures obscures que nous vivons à Paris.

J’espère que la date du 13 novembre restera à jamais gravée dans nos livres et nos mémoires, non pas comme une pierre tombale, mais comme un message fort et retentissant, adressé à tous les peuples, aux victimes comme aux terroristes, qui proclamera pour toujours :

« En cette sombre date du 13 novembre 2015, le peuple de France a été blessé et anéanti, mais il a aussi réalisé que la compassion et la charité peuvent briller dans nos pires obscurités, comme un feu allumé qui ne s’éteint jamais. »

Avec toute l’assurance de mon affection et de ma prière fervente, pour vous tous, pour la France et pour tous les hommes et les femmes qui souffrent du terrorisme dans le monde.

Jean-Marc

#PrayforParis

A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM PARIS — THE DAY AFTER 13TH NOVEMBER 2015

« Ce matin j’ai un petit peu peur. »

« This morning, I am a little bit afraid. »

These were the heartbreaking words of our youngest daughter, Philomene, 9 years old, when our family gathered for the traditional Saturday morning breakfast together on 14^th November.

Our family breakfast had a strange taste today, like never before with our 4 children, plenty of … silence and noise ; emotions and reflections ; outside calls and inner talks ; fear and hope (yes, still) ; questions and answers ; anger and joy (for those we learnt were unharmed) ; stress and calm… and prayers, unequivocally, intensely, for the victims and their friends and families, and for our bereaved country.

Our breakfast was most likely similar to your own breakfast, and like millions of family breakfasts in Paris, in France, in the World.

But it was also very, very, very different from the mornings of the families of the dead and the wounded — whose number still remains ‘bloody’ uncertain, and who are confronted to the worst possible visage of humanity, blind hatred, and to the highest possible sorrow and incomprehension.

So, this morning, we want to say a vivid prayer for all those wounded families, or at least to have a profound thought for them, full of compassion, of charity, of solidarity… and I would also dare to write : full of “Fraternité”, the most important value of the people of France today.

I have received lots of messages from friends and members of ALPHA, INSEAD, DELOITTE communities across the world, and from many others. These messages are priceless, as it shows the unique feeling of being a strong, united, family-like community globally. Please do not hesitate to send more of those words of hope and courage, they are so comforting and precious in the dark hours we live in today!

I hope that the date of November 13^th will stay engraved in our books and our memories in France, not like a tomb-stone, but like a loud, resounding message to the people of the world, victims and terrorists alike, which will forever proclaim:

“On that sad date of 13^th November 2015, the people of France were hurt and annihilated, but they also knew that love and compassion can, more than ever, shine within our darkest nights, like a fire that never dies away.”

With all my best regards and humble but fervent prayers, for France and for all the people suffering from terrorism in the world.

#PrayforParis

A NEW MISSION ... SUPER "VUCA" : ALPHA !

Dear readers,

Long time no see ...

Indeed, the past three months have been amazing, and quite busy :-)

I even had to apply to myself the great principle of time management — 86,400 — which I had written about a couple of months ago in this post : http://jmliduena-insead.blogspot.fr/2013/01/86-400.html

Basically, I embarked on a new super VUCA mission : not "volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous"... but Vibrant, Ultimate, Cool and Astounding !

I was recently elected Chairman of ALPHA in France. Over 23 million people have experienced an  Alpha course in the world.

It is a course attracting people who are asking the question "is there more to life than this?", and introducing those people to the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Alpha is a series of interactive sessions that explore the basics of the Christian faith. In those sessions, no question is too simple, and no answer pre-packaged.

About 66,000 courses are running across 169 countries globally, in 112 languages.

One of the key outcomes of Alpha courses is to train Christian leaders whom, in turn, can help evangelize the nations, revitalize the Church, and transform the society.

We held a fantastic global reunion earlier this week in London: The 2015 Leadership Conference with 6,000 Christian leaders from around the world, including entrepreneur Jo Malone, banker Ken Costa, franciscan Raniero Cantalamessa, and archbishop Justin Welby...

More to follow on Leadership in the coming weeks...

Alpha ... inspire and connect !

2015 Leadership Conference in London, Royal Albert Hall

BEST WISHES 2015

Where there is no vision... the people perish (Proverbs)

I wanted, after several days of silence and darkness in France, to wish you all the best for 2015 !

I strongly suggest that we all use 2015 as a milestone to make the world a better place.

To do so, we will need to find a new vision for the world - political, economical, social and spiritual.

So, let's all have another look at the world, starting today... full of joy, hope, faith, and radical optimism.

Bonne année 2015 !

Let's be inspired and connected.

DIGITAL, DIVERSITY, EDUCATION - BECAUSE IT'S WORTH IT !

Because She's Worth It !

I had the immense privilege to interview Lubomira Rochet, Chief Digital Officer of L'OREAL, a few weeks ago, as a key speaker for INSEAD Essentials 2014.

Our topic was "How to Make the World a Better Place through Digital, Education and Diversity".

I must admit that Lubomira really managed well to summarize this rather complex theme into a couple of inspiring ideas which I wanted to share with you here.

i. Digital can truly make a difference on the lives of billions of people. For example, Digital can make the world better by helping people to choose, e.g. to make informed choices from an amazing array of offers in mature markets for instance. "Smart personalization" will allow consumers to find the right products/ services meeting their needs at the right price.

ii. Diversity does not necessarily mean gender or generation. Rather, it is often about "being different", e.g. with a non-conventional background in the corporate world. Lubomira used her own example, diving straight from the Service industry (Microsoft, Valtech) into the Cosmetics industry (L'Oreal). The benefit of such diversity is the disruptive agenda it creates into the company.

iii. Succeeding in Diversity often requires to make bold decisions in terms of leadership appointments. Such boldness in promoting "different" people will spread more creativity and self-confidence into the ranks and ultimately will create more value.

iv. Making the world better actually starts at individual level. The times of macro-systems, like capitalism or communism used to be, are probably over now in a super-connected world, in the Digital ecosystem. It is now in the hands of anyone to change things, to act in a responsible manner, and to induce a better world with confidence and courage.

v. To succeed in your personal and professional life, there is a clear and concise recommendation to the younger generation:
     - Learn fast
     - Be yourself (and believe in yourself)
     - Speak out
     - Never compromise with your values and what you believe in

Thank you for this inspiring and connected conversation !

Watch the interview online : https://vimeo.com/106174742

BUSINESS IS A FORCE FOR GOOD : 6 LEADERS' ATTRIBUTES

May the Business Force for Good be with You

I am back on line!

A few weeks ago I opened the third edition of INSEAD Essentials in Paris with the unusual claim that the role of business is to make the world a better place, and to be a force for good.

Many people out there are saying:
- Business is about making profits, and financial markets don't care about long term...
- Business leaders cannot be truly seeking to make the world better as they must make profits...

Well, I dare to say that the quest of "value" is now over, as the world has lost confidence in the financial and corporate world.

It is now the time of the quest of "values".

I mean "values" in their broadest sense: respect ; sustainability ; trust ; long-term focus ; ethics ; corporate responsibility ; integrity ; employees first ... The sort of values that Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, explained at INSEAD Essentials last year, describing how values drive his vision and strategy for Unilever (50 billion euros sales ; 200.000 employees), through the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

The big question then is HOW the business leaders must think and act consistently, to address the permanent dilemma between making profits and making the world better.

I have listed 6 attributes of top leaders who are authentically seeking to drive the business as a force for good:

1. Adaptability:  We need to understand the context and the ecosystem which we live in.
2. Creativity:  We need to be creative to invent new ways of doing business.
3. Humility:  We need to be humble to face the huge challenges of the 21st century.
4. Empathy:  We need to show genuine interest in others, and to understand them.
5. Charity:  We need to develop a real and authentic love for mankind and society.
6. Benignity:  We need to start seeing the world with benevolence and positive attitude.

Such leaders are authentic, inspired and connected !

See the full speech online:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B74WgOngp7hIU2RtQ05nbjI5M2M/edit?usp=sharing

LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF INSECURITY

How to lead in times of insecurity ???

Many readers asked me about a post I published in March on the blog of my former firm about Leadership in times of insecurity... Here it is.

When I reflected on the theme “Leadership in times of insecurity”, I immediately thought about the popular acronym that’s used to describe the world we live in: VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). I find this is a pretty clear and concise definition of “insecure times”.

Many different skills and attitudes are required of leaders in such an insecure world. From my experience in working with successful CEO's as well as religious and political leaders, I can list four critical qualities:

Creativity. Information flows at incredible speed in the digital era. Ideas emerge and fade rapidly, and only the great ones survive and thrive. Therefore, rapid and efficient innovation is the key to succeeding in such a world, and creativity is the fuel. Leaders today must become (and remain) generators of cutting-edge ideas.

Adaptability. The world changes from day to day. On September 14, 2008, anyone in corporate finance would have been thrilled with a job at the prestigious Lehman Brothers. But it was a completely different story on September 15, when Lehman collapsed. More than ever, leaders must adapt to (instant) change. They must seek change and they must love change. In fact, leaders must become agents of change and be able to take command of it. Adaptability is the best leadership attitude in a perfect corporate storm.

Capability. It is not enough for leaders to be creative and adaptable in our insecure world. They must be capable, too. Needless to say, corporate life equips people with leadership tricks, management toolkits, and best practices, among others. Every day at work is a learning day: capability becomes deeper and broader as you get older. The only trick is then to figure out how and when to use it properly. And remember, in today’s insecure world, pure strategy is meaningless – only strategy with good execution, based on real capabilities, will succeed!

Humility. In February 2013, I wrote on my blog about what I see as a leader’s greatest strength – humility. I believe that, in insecure times, the best leaders have to admit that they do not know it all. Most certainly, leaders will fail at some stage in a VUCA world. Only the greatest leaders will learn from their failures and their mistakes, and they will recover fast by fixing the problem. The CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts, sums it up very well: Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast. You can read more about humility, the trait all successful leaders must have, in this blog post.

The four characteristics above are necessary to succeed in insecure times, but they may not be sufficient. Leaders need to do many other things in order to handle insecurity. For instance:

- Making bold and courageous decisions without having all the facts and figures at hand

- Defining and implementing the right purpose and following it whatever the obstacles

- Being resilient no matter what degree of pressure and insecurity they may face

- Acting together, playing a collective game, rather than trying to optimize locally on your own. There is a great African proverb which says: “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together.” Setting up partnerships is the key to succeeding in an insecure world; NGOs, governments, corporations must act as one, with a common vision and positive attitude

There is a lot more to say, but I will end here and leave you with two ideas to trigger further thoughts on this blog, and hopefully an active online discussion:

First, in times of insecurity, true leaders do not simply seek to thrive and succeed. True leaders inspire and connect people to make the world a better place.

Second, do we have to continue to describe our world as “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous”? Couldn’t we see this differently and more optimistically? Why not think of it as “vibrant, unique, cool and astounding”!

THE WAY FORWARD... TRIPLE "A"

Triple A : Agile, Adaptable, Alert

You may have wondered why I did not post anything for a while... unusually.

Well, there are times to write and to act, and times to take a step back, to reflect and to think.

This often happens in times of CHANGE.

Change is good and change must not overwhelm you. In today's world, which is quite volatile (cf. a prior post on this blog), one must be very adaptable, agile and alert - The 3 A's :

- Adaptable means accepting change and taking in the causes and the consequences with no fear and no anxiety. This does not mean no stress, as stress results from unexpected situations and stimulates adrenaline (which is cool and helpful to manage). Leaders must be adaptable to change.

- Agile means being fast and very proactive in the times of change, notably in decision-making. When change hits, one must quickly grasp all inputs, envisage all possible routes and potential outcomes, and make the right decisions to master the effect of change, if not the change itself. Sometimes agility also means creating change, and mastering it. Leaders must be agile to take control of change.

- Alert means being open to all "signals" before, during and after change occurs. Change often makes people focus on their own situation, or the events immediately close to them. On the contrary, in any change situation, complex, uncertain and ambiguous, one must keep all eyes open and actively listen to the outside, focused outwards, to understand and interpret all facts, events, people, news, untold stuff etc. Leaders must be alert and be in control of the full change ecosystem, not self centered.

So in any given change context, do remember the Triple A attitude, and welcome change rather than resist or waste precious time.

Be inspired and connected by change !

PS: Next time I will tell you more about my personal big change... Indeed, I left Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in May to join Deloitte as a Senior Partner, member of the Consulting Executive Committe in France, leading the Consumer Business practice (clients in consumer goods, retail, luxury, travel, hospitality, leisure...) and co-leading the Strategy practice under famoud brand name Monitor, founded by the Harvard guru in strategy, Michael Porter.

TRUST... TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS !

Trust your Team with your Life

Sometimes ago I wrote a post on this blog, and also on the Think Act blog, about an essential attribute of leadership, namely HUMILITY.

I got many positive and encouraging comments about this analysis, but also many questions about it: How can you show and develop humility as a leader?

Well, I strongly believe (and observed) that truly humble leaders demonstrate a difficult virtue in their daily life: TRUST.

Actually, trusting others is quite difficult to achieve in the corporate world, which is by essence competitive and seen as a battlefield... But trust is at the heart of highly effective teams and corporations.

There are several key components required to build highly effective teams for a leader, for instance:
- Recruiting top talents
- Setting an inspiring vision
- Making decisions efficiently
- Communicating a lot
- Holding people accountable

But all these key success factors would be useless if the leader does not empower people. Indeed, the principles of delegation and subsidiarity are considered in most business schools and consulting firms performance assessment tools as the primary ingredient of success. This is easily understandable, even intuitively, as the African proverb says: "If you want to go fast, go alone... But if you want to go far, go with others"...

The most effective teams in the world are probably the US Navy SEALs, the famous commandos who rescue hostages in the most challenging conditions one can envisage. They perform in "fire teams" of 4 to 6 soldiers, trained in perfect harmony to address all types of lethal situations. Each member of the fire team has a role, and fully delegates other roles to the others, assuming they will perform it to the best of their capabilities and training - this is subsidiarity. But the "glue" which ensures this harmony, cohesion and efficiency is only about mutual trust.

Trust is the pre-requisite to empowerment, communication and team-work. Without trust, Navy SEALs would not perform well. Without trust, corporate leaders cannot expect their teams to perform. Without trust in the corporate world, everything can become an ordeal or a problem in the group, and therefore impede progress and performance. Conversely, in a high trust environment, the capable people in the organization will feel that everything is possible, hence perform greatly.

Trust basically enables everything: It frees up creativity; It makes people confident; It allows honest communication; It speeds up decision making; It allows inspiring thinking and actions...

I'd like to share a final thought to summarize all: I have advised dozens of CEO's in my career, and I can definitely write here that the greatest leaders are always the most humble ones - and the most humble ones are the ones who trust their people most !

Back in 2008, Steven Covey wrote in his book, The Speed of Trust, that trust is the one thing that changes everything. He was right, 100%.

Trust definitely leads to inspiration and connection !

"LEARNING TO TRUST IS ONE OF LIFE'S MOST DIFFICULT TASKS"

Isaac Watts