And for good reasons…

Hello,

Here I am among you. I’m Pablo Pernot, on one hand a coach for organizations, on the other hand CEO of beNext. What would I like to talk to you about? Why propose to talk to you? Probably to discuss organizations. I encounter quite a few. So discussing reflections based on my past experiences seems appropriate. And perhaps to discuss the one that’s mine, and with which I’ve lived for several years, beNext.

Today, to bring all this together, I’m going to talk to you about a fictional organization, that many people know or have known, or will know. This organization is quite large, not very young, this organization has proven itself. It’s a market player. Maybe not the best, but a player that counts, but maybe the best. This organization lives, it’s profitable. It probably even lives well. But will this last? Everyone can feel that the world is full of turmoil, that today’s players are no longer yesterday’s players. We talk about the life expectancy of companies, which has gone from 60 years for organizations created in the mid-20th century, to about fifteen years for those of the 21st century. That changes everything. With 60 years of life expectancy you could have your whole career in the same company, with fifteen years it’s not the same story anymore. Who’s to say your organization will still be alive in five years? Five years no problem, this fictional organization generally answers me. But ten years? No one is as assertive anymore. Can you all imagine yourselves in ten years no longer part of your organization, that it no longer exists? For some it’s easy, for others it’s harder. And then this fictional organization is a market player, it functions, even well. It’s too unfair, but the environment has changed too much to have certainties. And what worked no longer works.

There’s an emotion.

So there you have it, it’s all hands on deck. We’re going to transform ourselves. We’re going to change. We’re going to adapt. Worse it could be “agile”, “lean”, “digital”. And people come to see people like me to be accompanied through this “transformation”. Because we want certainties, to preserve our achievements, our habits with certainty, to have guarantees that it will work. Or that it won’t be our fault if it doesn’t work, we mustn’t forget this variant. Many people who receive the injunction “we must transform” catch it as they should: it’s meaningless. So, putting yourself at risk for something meaningless, not for them, and I understand them. And besides, everything has been working for so long, and everything works as agreed. I follow my career plan, I do my time (that’s it: do my time) in the company, and I’ll be rewarded over time. I can swallow bitter pills, forget my convictions, I have the security of a path. Nothing can really happen to us, we can build a nice little life around the time we have left. We can feel that the organization no longer really responds well to the world around it, that it’s shaken, too heavy, too slow, too bogged down in its habits precisely, but that seems so far away. It will certainly hold for fifteen years, by then I’ll be safe (for the big boss at the top of the pyramid it’s not such a distant posture: I only have to hold on for three years, five years, after that the next one will manage). How can we imagine that people who entered this fictional organization right out of school and who see themselves finishing their time there, imagine themselves transforming radically, or the company disappearing, it’s inaudible. Or those who after braving the horrors of the “consulting” Far West were able to make their nest here by exchanging freedom and acuity for security and perhaps better leverage to change things, or build something. Today most have forgotten, they’ve been cannibalized, sclerosed by security. Since the contract is to do your time, we build our little life on the side with the time we have left.

There are the big bosses who have their networks and who move from one organization to another. And the small bosses who made this bet on the organization for the long term. And now the big bosses (who are there for five years maximum sometimes) engage the small ones who bet on the stability of the structure to transform themselves, to question everything. That takes the cake. For the small bosses quite often it’s enough to wait five years and the next big boss. And for those who aren’t bosses? Huh? Is anyone interested in those?

But what if all this were true? That today, yes, no organization has a guarantee of surviving like it was the case before. That the rules of the game have changed. And what if it were true that large organizations would be like sandcastles if they didn’t adapt to these new rules?

It’s inaudible for the people of this fictional organization we’ve said. They are mostly disengaged, seeking the security of an initially promised path. They don’t understand why what has always worked no longer works. And in this large fictional organization, most are not in contact with the customer, with what the organization exists for.

It’s all the more inaudible that if you ask me the question: will the transformation work? The answer is necessarily: I don’t know. What form will the transformation take? I don’t know. Will the entire organization be impacted in an identical way? I don’t know. What will become of me? I don’t know. How long will it take? I don’t know. Will everyone keep their job? I don’t know. Will the career we’ve started be able to remain the same? I don’t know. Someone who would answer otherwise would want to hide reality from you for a good or bad reason. The one who buys answers, wants to buy security: “it’s not my fault” that’s what they’re perhaps buying.

With all these “I don’t knows” it’s going to be all the more arduous to make ourselves heard. But what do we know, what could we know then? What to hold on to if we don’t know if it will work? What form will it take if it works? What form will it take if it doesn’t work? When? What to hold on to?

If the time of the organization in this form was shorter than expected, if all this were true, what to hold on to? What do we know? What makes sense?

To your identity: what you are, what you want, what the organization responds to, to the why of its existence. And you don’t want to transform yourself, be agile, be digital, change. All that has no meaning, it’s only about means. You want to transform yourself to become what? Be agile to better succeed at what? Be digital to respond to what stakes? And that you can know, measure: are you winning these new markets or losing them? What do your users think of your services? What services work and which don’t work and what do you want for them? Are you reactive to offers triggered by competitors? Do you act according to your identity, your convictions?

Are we going to win these new markets then? I still don’t know. But we can regularly measure the impact of our decisions. What new services will satisfy our users? I still don’t know, but we can regularly measure the impact of our decisions. Do you act according to your identity and convictions? I don’t know, but we can observe it, measure it.

I don’t know what or how, but I can know who I am or who I want to be and why. And the what and how will follow.

We don’t transform ourselves, we move in this direction. There we can measure things that make sense, and even if we don’t know how to measure them there, we’ll know how to measure them.

So we should try, if you think like me, that things won’t remain this way. That five years yes the fictional organization will hold, but that ten years is a gamble. And if your attempt fails? Frankly you don’t have much to lose, you’ll be better armed for the future whatever happens, you won’t have worse than doing nothing, and perhaps you’ll gain in pride, in self-esteem, by not doing your time, but by being an actor. In this fictional organization eyes turn at this moment, most think, “gotta tell my boss,” and believe me this response never stops even CEOs can mention their boards of directors, their shareholders.

Is it about trying for years? Is it really trying when it takes so much time? Trying is necessarily over a small period, small periods that accumulate, like small steps.

I’ll start again.

If therefore organizations have a life expectancy of fifteen years these days. Or, let’s say they’re never the same in fifteen years, they must molt. But it’s inaudible for people who were promised something entirely different, who are far from the field, in any case far from end users, who abandoned all engagement to conform to the path they were promised. It’s all the more inaudible that we’re quite incapable of saying what the future of this organization will look like, that we can’t answer with precision the questions raised. Finally, how to engage people with meaningless invectives like “digital transformation”? We don’t know what that means, it’s not an end goal, just a means. But a means to what? That, we could measure. For example, we want information to flow faster in the organization: that, we could have answers, measure it, observe it, and thus question how to change it, transform it. For example, we want to reach a new population of users, that, we could measure it, observe it, question ourselves, improve. And there yes we can mention a necessary transformation. I believe that the fictional organization I’m mentioning needs to question who it is, what it wants, and to question itself and try to constantly improve (and therefore constantly transform itself). It’s the world that wants this, not hearing it seems to me to be a mistake.

Once again.

It’s normal not to want to change. It’s normal. Is it possible not to change? Nothing is less certain. But I couldn’t convince you. It’s like the question of our habits and climate change. We can’t perceive it. Cause and effect aren’t easily associated for our brain. And then it’s there.

It wasn’t supposed to happen.

It wasn’t supposed to happen.

That’s what the Neanderthals must have said, the Mayans, the Indians, the traders in 1929 or 2008, the Kodak or Yahoo teams, the French channels facing Netflix, my bank with N26, the taxis with Uber, my baker about his new Chinese neighbor who makes bread without an oven, that woman when that man left her, or vice versa.

It wasn’t supposed to happen damn it!

And long live the ostriches! We’re different!

Actually I’m not asking you to change. I’m just asking you to do what’s necessary for this fictional organization. Not out of habit, not because it’s politically correct. Do what’s necessary for the organization to go in the direction of what it exists for. First simply do what this fictional organization exists for. Its meaning. Change then becomes a side effect. Collateral damage or benefit.

The fictional organizations I encounter are often wrong, they designate means as targets. They forget to give meaning. And I’m not talking about saving the world. Just giving meaning. No tyranny of a vision that should be superlative, grandiose. Just give meaning. But not questions of means, questions of purpose.

They say there are three types of organization, those that are closed, stopped, open. Open: they’re aware that you have to move in this direction and they try. Stopped: they agree that you have to move in this direction, but you understand we can’t because… and those closed, who don’t see why we should move forward, or even move. For the latter we must wait until they feel ready, hoping it won’t be too late. And then there are advances that revolutionize the organization, completely reform it, they completely shake up their identities, their meanings. And advances that simply make dysfunctional organizations functional without changing their foundations.

In this changing world, if we want this capacity to constantly question and improve ourselves with the aim of achieving an objective (reaching a new population of users, having information flow faster), we’re going to have to engage people. The opposite of what generally happens in this fictional organization where we tell people what to do, how to do it, without giving meaning. And where they act without really investing themselves with the exact gesture, but minimum and without great value, that they were asked to perform by buying peace for everyone, the comfort of something known and predictable, but largely below needs. And without any sparkle in their eyes.