« Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast »

This comment, assigned to Peter Drucker (crazy that once you are famous, every good quotes are attributed to you), has been mainly used by Mark Fields, FORD president, who posted it on the wall of the executive committee.

Three information to remind from Marck Fields

1. 1 His conviction that a culture can change: the leadership has the impact
2. 2 His challenge to go from the current Ford World (often with mistrust and fear) to a creative World (with innovation and responsibility sense).
3. 3 His result: Ford is the only car manufacturer from the “Big three” which has not asked money to the US government and with a positive brand image of quality according to customer expectations.

These three information are the core of our World method that we invite you to discover in your firm

•             I notice every day that the culture eats the strategy from the beginning on!
•             It is very silent. The official communication is full of strategy: your conviction, your internal newspapers, your executive committees… Rigorous your teams will say “Yes” and will translate the strategy into their World.
•             Like a solar radius through the water, the target is not reached in spite of efforts

Our book “changing World” (page 211) goes further when illustrating the link between World and Strategy

·         If your World is the lever to realize your strategy, are you aware that your World is the matrix of your strategy?

·         Indeed you think when being in your current World and it is usually hard to think your strategy from “somewhere else”

Laurent Dugas

A new project which fails looks similar to an old project which failed

A modern IT project fails for the same reasons than an old IT project failed, even in cloud computing or mobile phone era.

Pierre Hessler, advisor of Capgemini CEO, thinks so. He said so on the Oracle Cloud World stage in Paris. He started his career in 1965 in Switzerland as commercial engineer for IBM where he worked for 27 years. Afterwards he was part of Capgemini board from 1993 to 2003.

Failure reasons according to Pierre Hessler?

They can be explained by three words COMPLEXITY – SKILL – OBJECTIVE which give the characteristics of our projects World, yesterday as well as today. Three topics structuring our consulting-coaching-training missions on project management.

1. 1 “We underestimate what we have to do, we underestimate the complexity”

This difficulty is inherent to the pro-ject concept: what is before “ject” does not exist for now.

This original problem is emphasized by project teams practices. Two main facts :

•          A budgetary bias. To launch the project the manager tends to underestimate costs and risks which could have an impact on the launch. P-Val answer: having an ROI that the manager will be in charge along the project.
•          A dogma Quality-Cost-Period. Trying to optimize all these topics means to not chose anything. In the contrary, it is important to favor one of them and our experience at P-Val shows that the main item to favor is the period. If this one fails, the other ones will join and fail as well.

The idea is therefore to put your project in a Simple World around three ideas:

•           Shrink
•           Hide
•           Embody

1. 2“People do not have skills and abilities to do“

Project skills and behaviors are very different from what’s expected in an operational functioning. People need to overcome cognitive hurdles to be efficient in a project World.

Companies, like the Société Générale with its Project School, make a lot of efforts in that sense and we guide them in their training offers, based on PMI.

Practitioners share with us their difficulties between the theory and the practice: ability to do.

Indeed, project governance always faces the power of the organization already implemented. A Chinese quote explains that “projects are like fishes, they start to decompose from the head”. In that case, it is often the high level leadership which fails. This brings us to the next point:

1. 3“and project objectives are not clear enough”

How to analyze this sentence? Objectives are more and more shared. However, they remain in the old World, the one the project intends to change. For instance, if our project tends to create an internal department like HR and the objectives are based on the current World, they are far from your target, the expected World. This situation leads to ambiguous information.

During your project, elements are changing and you notice that these objectives do not give the right solution to the expected World.

To get clear and sustainable objectives, they have to be thought in the expected World and not in the old World.

Here is a summary of the three ideas to succeed your transformation project:

•          Being simple first
•          Engaged leadership
•          Target = expected World

Laurent Dugas

Top-managers, do not forget to be open minded to conflicts between your strategy and the World of your teams

True story from this week. I start a new project with a new client who invites me to the annual commercial kick-off with all the commercials, before-sales and experts. This firm is a real success in a new IT field, specialized and business oriented.

At the middle of the morning, a Business Unit boss says when talking about a new innovative offer “let’s sale it first, we will figure out afterwards how to perform the project”. Hearing that, an expert explains why he disagrees: “We will not be able to properly charge based on a new business model”. The BU boss answers “We will figure out at this moment” and carries on his speech.

World translation:

This Business Unit boss lives in a World where selling is a normal start to offer a new product on the market. In his mind, no offer would be sold if we should wait 3 years before his delivery teams figure out how to implement this new offer; the first client would be the opportunity to deal with that.

The expert lives in the industrial World: there is no way to sell a solution before the delivery process have been designed and tested…and it doesn’t matter if we need to spend three full years before selling the solution.

Analysis: the topic is not to determine the right statement. The real topic is that the manager probably did not understand that the expert might not help him to sell the solution before the industrialization has been achieved because of a lack of confidence. The manager did not get the point that the World of the expert is too far from his own.

P-Val advice remains the same: when you launch a new strategy, a new offer or a new idea, take your time to understand if the World of your teams matches your strategy. If you have no idea, give a call to our awesome consultants.

Bruno Jourdan

Undercover boss? What about taking some time to understand your co-worker’s World?

A late evening, I had a look at the show called “Undercover Boss”. I directly noticed the link between the program and what we daily live with our clients.

What is the purpose of the show?

A boss becomes aware that his is far from the reality of the field and thinks he needs to match again with it. He decides to dress up and spend 5 days under covered in his own company pretending to be an unemployed person trying to find his way during a television coverage on his path.

The reality show can annoy or distract, this is not the issue.

What interests me is the gap between the manager and his teams, and the importance to live it to be able to introduce this in his strategy and his management: having some empathy to the job of the other one.

The show presented the 5 days of the CEO of Colombus Café: one day to make the sandwiches in the kitchen, another one at the bar making the coffee, another at the cashdesk…

What are the points which question me?

•          The interest that co-workers gave to this unknown added person, who asks a lot of questions. They notice his mistakes as a beginner but they do not care so much… Many other managers would be annoyed in that kind of situation?
•       They brightness in the feedback: “he talks more than he does”, “he is not precise”, “he is really slow according to what he has to do”….
•      The concrete lessons the boss learns : “Yes, knowing by heart prices of a whole range is not easy…Should we make it easier?” Or “the kitchen is not tidy therefore the production is limited…but people are always under pressure therefore they cannot step back and organize their job better…”
•       The boss feedback is mainly that the pressure from the management is due to blindness to reality and to a high constraint for the teams without any added value: a useless stress.

Without playing the reality show, a lot of managers would improve visiting the World of their indirect co-workers:

•          From the N-2
•          In a “do it together” style
•          With a transparent and positive feedback

Within our cabinet, we have a process to be immersed during one day on the field with operational workers:

•          With postman during their job, commercial from Essilor, SNCF ticket inspector, reception banking…
•         This enables us to challenge during the executive committee established images and to sometimes know more that the person in charge for many years

Act, open your calendar and fix a meeting to experience that, you will be thankful!

Do not wait for the contrary show “I replaced my boss”, the candidate could keep the job!

Laurent Dugas

Fire on a project… why don’t you inform your client? … I have no time !

This story has been related to me by the boss of a customer service in an important project board.

One of his client called him shouting “there is a technical problem on your platform which obstructs all our transactions, and your project manager never calls me to keep me in touch!!!”

The customer service boss says to the project manager:

“Why don’t you never inform him?”

The project manager, angry:

“the client has nerve : I have no time! Moreover, ask him to not call me every 5 seconds … when I answer him, I cannot fix the problem”

Debrief: a World structurally inconsistent with the client expectations

The greatness in this company project managers’ World is not to satisfy the client but to fix the problem. Especially when it is complex and technical. In this World, project managers do not even understand why the client is not satisfied.

In other words, the recognition is not given by the client but by their colleagues to whom they could say “It took me a while but I finally got it, the protocol G56.3V8 blocked everything”.

The recommendation:

It is useless to show a nice PowerPoint presentation explaining why the client is not satisfied.

The solution (if the problem is collective and regular) is to help the team to change their World.

…Without losing the strength of the current World translated by the unlimited commitment to solve the problems.

Bruno Jourdan

General Casey? A World Maker Leader to which the others want to belong to?

Who knows general Georges Casey?

We guess not a lot of people. He was the head of the army for the multinational force in Irak before he became the chief of Staff of the US army until 2011.

The American army is an example usually used in the management to describe extreme situations to manage and tight relations between the management board and the business world: leadership, execution culture, supply chain, decisions and motivations... this organization provides managerial inputs on these topics. 

General Casey, during his lectures on leadership at Cornell University, shares a very interesting experience on the transformation of complex organizations. Reader, this is your main field, and this is P-Val daily job!

How to define an efficient Expected World vision?

At the beginning of his four years mandate as the chief of the army, General Casey wanted to use his operational experience in Irak to reform this too bureaucratic system.

His testimony on how to create the expected World to synchronize again this organization and its environment is a humble example of the main flaws we face with our clients. Their expected World is often:

•          Either too closed to the current World, lacking stepping back and projection, as well as collective dynamism “nothing will really change”
•          Or very dreamlike, corresponding to the external World expectations, but completely disconnected from the current World transformation abilities

The general Casey knew how to listen to his teams and his organization, without losing the desire to transform… even if he needed to wear a Christmas hat.

When he arrived at his position, he had a flashy ambition and he said: “The American army, an agile and disciplined war team, dominating during all 21^st century conflicts”

After four years wandering through the current World, he understood he could not be more wrong !

He discovered an organization at the end of six years of war and with a 10 years ongoing troop deployment. This organization counted more than 3000 dead soldiers and 25 000 injured, without mentioning post-traumatic disorders impacts. He took stock of an unbalanced army, so focused on short term demands that it cannot take care of its soldiers and prepare its future.

Therefore he deeply thought over a transformation strategy around a new vision of the Expected World.

When you live a crisis, unbalanced, there is only one strategy: to restore the balance. His expected World became: «Put the Army back in balance"

It was not as bright as the initial thought, but this vision was very clear and was honored by meeting the team expectations. An important four years work enabled the US Army to find a good position.

This story is the perfect example of the leadership issue “Making a World that people want to belong to”.

The manager – World maker – needs to be able to understand the current World of his organization. He also needs to step back and to move into an expected World that he wants to embody and to explain clearly.

For those who would like to go further into the P-Val meaning of leadership, I encourage you to read the chapter 13 page 185 in the book “Changer de monde pour réussir votre stratégie” (change your world to achieve your strategy).

Laurent Dugas

Procter & Gamble, there is no ambiguity, the company is merchant

Procter is a typical example for someone who wants to understand a World… and even a case of first grade because this World is easy to get.

I would like to remind you that a World is described trough words used by its members. Let’s analyze together how Bob Mc Donald, CEO of P&G, explains his strategy in an interview on the 4^th of July 2011 to the Figaro (French newspaper).

Bob MCDONALD. – Procter & Gamble has products in 38 categories, but not all of them are everywhere where we have a business. We only have 15 categories in China, 20 in Mexico and just as much in France. I set up an objective in 2009 to reach until 2015-2016 to have 19 to 24 categories on average per countries and to be more active on an international basis. Therefore we will be able to jump from 3,8 to 5 billion consumers reached every day, to increase from 12 to 14 dollars per year their average expenses per product and to boost from 77 to more than 100 billion dollars our worldwide net revenue.

13 numbers in 8 lines, who can say more?

The strategy? Objectives based on numbers, precise, detailed and with milestones.

Let’s admire these numbers together. There are not numbers for financial guys but more for operational guys. They are concrete enough for everyone, either for experience managers or not, to be able to know what to do.

P&G is merchant and his CEO is a symbol of its World.

In this merchant World, one of the 6 “pure” World established by Boltanski and Thévenot, these numbers are obvious criterion and the greatness will be the benefit.

It was the first time that Bob McDonald came to visit his French branch… no manager should have been surprised with the conversation he had with his boss.

Bruno Jourdan

Danone 2020 : More than a strategy, a new world

During an interview the 3rd of September to the Figaro (French newspaper), Franck Riboud explains the Danone strategy for 2020.

We could have expected some sayings like “becoming a leader…” or “reach a profitability of..” or even “develop this or this market”.

Not at all.

Franck Riboud strategic lines are way more powerful.

More than a strategy, Franck Riboud proposes a new World for Danone and his teams.

Here is his answer at the question “What are your strategic lines? ”:

Firstly, Danone will be a company with a position on feeding issues of the tomorrow World aligned on the economic and social issues and public health.

Secondly, a company which thinks again its upstream relations (to better manage raw material…) and its downstream ones (to take benefit of new distribution ways).

Thirdly, a company with an adapted organization to new working styles and to new business models based on alliances.

Why do we say that an Expected-World-Strategy for 2020 is more powerful than normal strategic lines?

Explaining the Expected-World-Strategy will allow teams to understand the new synchronization with the clients, providers, partners and co-workers… If the company succeeds in turning into the expected World then the objectives will be reached easily.

To summarize: an expected World is more than a simple sentence “what we want to become”, it is also “what we want to be in order to be synchronized with the evolutions of our environment which are described as well”

I guess many readers of this blog are designing a strategy for the next years. Think about the way to do it. We can help you.

Moreover, do no forget that after designing the Expected-World-Strategy, you need to manage the matching transformation.

Your company is not aligned with your 2020 expected World.

A simple convention will not be enough to reach it…

Bruno Jourdan

Changing your strategy is changing your World

Securing or developing turnover is often the task of the big boss. Facing this goal, there are two potential difficulties.

His first challenge is to come up with a new strategy.

Easy? Not that much, because the World he belongs to filters his ability to design a new strategy. In other words, his World limits the strategy he could access to.

His second challenge is to involve his company into the implementation of this new strategy

…. Apart from an incremental strategy, it is unlikely that the World of the company he manages will easily implement the new strategy. Why? Because the execution capacity cannot be claimed, it is only the result of a World, close to the new strategy. Just to remember, introducing many times the new strategy to the employees does not work.

Two operational examples to make the two difficulties concrete

The traditional circuses collapse – first example of the difficulty

Why? Mainly because boss-owners of companies cannot understand the expectations of their potential audience. Their greatness is to keep what their grandparents created. The audience thinks totally obsolete the sight of a few animals obeying to a trainer holding a whip, or watching acrobatics less impressive than Tom Cruise’s in any american blockbuster.

On the other side, new circuses understood they could deal with the strategy differently, talking about dreams and poetry, so obtaining record attendance.  However these new managers do not come from famous family circus and the World associated.

Changing your strategy is changing your World!                 

The DCNS has difficulties to convince its managers to agree with the new firm project – Second example of difficulty

An Echo (French newspaper) article from 2010 summarizes this issue: “One year after the launch, the big DCNS development plan called “Championship” has difficulties to gain a foothold. This project, which aims to a 50% growth in the next 10 years and a competitive win of 30%, should increase the power of the military shipyard building against the worldwide competition.”

“How managers see themselves reveals an operational culture, which does not give the priority to the result” says Patrick Boissier, DCNS’ CEO. He summarizes perfectly the necessary World change of his company.

The same article adds that “In respect to the 30% competitive win, this is the net revenue growth which will reveal it”… this quote seems wrong to us: in a World where the greatness is not the result, no one will be interested in productivity benefits. Even worse, this goal reveals a lack of greatness because the actual World productivity is the opposite of the operational performance.

Changing your strategy is changing your World!

Bruno Jourdan

Nelson Mandela, Madiba, has been an ideal and inspiring World maker

For 10 years we have used Nelson Mandela as a great example in our leadership seminars « Act as a World maker ».

Because no one acts on his own, Frederik Willem de Klerk has to be associated with him.

He does not smile like Mandela on the picture but he is the one who understood that the external World changed and that he had to lead his people to something else, even if it meant sacrificing himself.

According to me, both of them are perfect examples of leaders because they are makers of a World that people want to belong to.

What are the qualities to be a World maker leader?

You need three qualities:

1. Be in accordance with the current World of your teams, of your people. It means giving a realistic diagnostic on the current World and knowing how to communicate your understanding of the situation for your team to think : “I am (finally) heard”
2. Designing and embodying an expected World resolving issues. It is important to be out of the current World to develop an independent thought and to live the expected World. This World is not a theory but a World others are ready to embody.
3. Negotiate and build bridges to take your teams from the current World to this expected World. It is still to be built but its principles, greatness, recognition, interactions and decisions, are already defined.

What I admire the most in Mandela is his ability to build bridges, because he succeeded where political people often fail.

The behavior of Mandela in the rugby environment is a great example. He chose the most famous “white” sport in South Africa, a country who had been barred from every competition for years. He chose to organize the world cup in South Africa and to show his commitment wearing the Springbok jersey.

This bridge is perfect:

•        This bridge is obvious in the current World : Whites and Blacks noticed his decision, even if they were shocked at it.
•          It embodies the expected World. Everyone understood the meaning of the decision: “we are a reunited nation”, “there will not be any reverse apartheid”

We do not all have Mandela’s fortitude and lucidity qualities. However we can all try to become World maker where people would like to belong to.

Laurent Dugas

Which kind of motivation after the financial crisis?

Companies, especially business and investment banks, have been impacted by a huge crisis in 2007. They are just emerging now from this period. During that time teams and management boards dealt first with emergency tasks, like a sailing crew trying to fix a boat before it definitely sinks, without any time to think again their actions.

Today, even if the sea is still rough but the storm gone, the crew starts thinking about their motivation: cost reduction, regulatory constraints, low brand image, stress… and no more incredible bonus!

Questioned by many clients about motivation levers after this crisis, P-Val brings a first insight on the strength of their current World. Two main questions have to be asked before any useful work on motivation levers can be initiated.

1.       Is the current World, inherited from the crisis, still logical and efficient? Did this World burst completely?

If the Greatness is to be the most innovative, how to deal with that if the Interactions and Decisions are based on compliance process and costs reduction?

If the greatness is the high growth, how to deal with that in a market under liquidity constraints, full of “de-leveraging”?

This gap between Greatness and Recognition before the crisis and Interactions and Decisions after the crisis generates a disappointment from teams at every level.

2.       Can the current World, or the one under construction, generate performance? Does it totally fit with the Clients’ World and the environment?

The main risk is to transform the company in order to avoid the last storm although the next one will be completely different. Greatness is often built from previous experiences. Are these storms really going to happen again? Shouldn’t we look for the expected World greatness in the client’s World’s evolutions? Therefore an investment bank with a goal to “cleaner than clean” could be a weak competitor because of a lack of efficiency, without avoiding some fines inherent to the job.

Such a World would not perform and could lead to a loss of motivation in the medium term. 

Giving a sincere answer to these questions is the only way to really motivate your teams.