The second day of the Ideas Economy:Human Potential conference gathered speakers with very different backgrounds, styles and visions, and was very entertaining thanks to this diversity, ranging from mobster rules applied to management to trends in American startups development. There was even a live guitar song and a bit of poetry mixed with all of that… and several empowering speeches by convincing advocates of a more human-centric vision and practice of corporate management.
It started with a round table on closing the gap between talent and opportunity. On talent, Nitin Nohria, from Harvard Business School, reminded us that top programmers are 10 times (yes, 10x!) more productive than others; and that far more people educated in maths and science are needed than ever, even if there are more people becoming engineers also in emerging countries, that is still not enough. Another important trend is (again) that of on-line talent matching platforms such as oDesk or Innocentive, enabling the discovery of people with the right talent, to be matched to the right opportunities. Jeff Weiner, CEO from LinkedIn, highlighted there is tremendous value in arranging the information as we are overflood, and the peace of change is accelerating; however, we are still educating the old way. And we all need networks, that are more important than ever before. Overall, distribution of talent is less about territoriality and more about removing the frictions of matching talent to opportunities; people have to take ownership in their own fate, not rely on institutions to do it (Nitin Nohria).
The next presentation by Steve Case from Startup America was very US -centric and sort of depressing to me. Startups job creation has decreased from 3M to 2.3M jobs. 90% of the job creation happens after companies go public. And most of those jobs are not in the high-tech, not in the Silicon Valley. The underlying vision is always the same: develop better products at lower prices to encourage more consumption, and Startup America is there to help more entrepreneurs to scale up to generate more jobs, more tax, etc. Nothing new there I’m afraid… so why doesn’t it work as well as before?
Well, the next flash interview from Marc Cenedella, founder and CEO of The Ladders, probably brought part of the answer there, and actually re-energized me. In the old world, people wanted to have a job to buy themselves some kind of lifestyle; getting good money in, becoming a person… but that does not work anymore. You cannot order people to “think faster! be more creative!” and still that’s what is needed now in our emerging ideas economy. Consumption products is no longer what people are craving for, they’re more and more preferring experience (e.g. an international trip) to things (e.g. a luxury watch). Authenticity is key, and you cannot counterfeit it hiding behind things; experience is what matters.
The next flash of genius by Peter Sims, author of “Little Bets” shed another light on the changing paradigm – that we have been over-trained in our education system to be analytical, focusing on preventing errors rather than fixing problems, both as individuals and as leaders. We need to put the focus back on fixing problems. (My personal take on this: look at how the financial and economical crisis is addressed – all decisions seem to be driven by preventing errors such as inflation or euro collapse, but is there anyone fixing the problem in the first place?)
The next round table gathered a debate between Tony Schwartz, CEO of the Energy Project, Gary Swart CEO from oDesk and Sherry Turkle, author of “Alone together”, on better managing our life in the virtual and cloud worlds. “How can we avoid getting destroyed emotionally, etc?”, asked Matthew Bishop, and Tony Schwartz‘s answer was pretty much like that of my grand-mother: better manage your energy, go to sleep earlier (sic)! Multitasking is also killing productivity, and it is favored by modern communication tools such as emails. Internet sabbaticals can help there and should receive more support at corporate level, as well as non-instant response (“I’m thinking about it”); what is important is not time spent, but value generated. On the other hand, as oDesk experiences daily, those new technologies enable to virtualize the office more and more; skype in particular is very useful to facilitate remote work. The relationship with freelancers may even be quite similar to that of colleagues in the traditional workplace in the end; it can even very well be long-term. But clarity on roles and responsibilities are even more needed in a virtual company.
The morning ended with two very entertaining sessions respectively by Louis Ferrante, a former mafia leader, and Neil Taylor from The Writer. Louis Ferrante gave us all an inspiring lesson on the need to re-invent your self, your rules, and consequently your life, when you suddenly realizes they are no longer aligned, as it occurred to him in jail. Authenticity once more… And Neil Taylor emphasized the importance of language and how writing shapes your culture with a number of fun examples from the business world. And the simpler your writing, the more intelligent you are perceived (I guess for a given content! and, well, I promise I’ll give it a try… but starting only tomorrow 😉
The after-lunch session continued with this key issue of language as shaping our culture, with Lane Greene from The Economist showing us a few more very concrete examples on how a different language influences our thinking and decision-making. Intriguing. To be kept in mind!
The next special session from Studio 360 from Public Radio International was, in my view, everything but international. My dear European friends, how many of you have ever heard about Martha Stewart? OK, when I saw her name everywhere at a certain floor at Macy’s on Friday, I better understood the backgrounder, but I haven’t captured anything useful from this session, that was way too hard for me to catch without at least 20 years of intensive US TV watching background. The live song from Rosanne Cash was the only part I enjoyed, I’m afraid. I still need to work out my US culture…
The afternoon ended with a series of shorter, insightful sessions around building upon our “nothing to loose” moments as an opportunity to create new solutions (Ryan Blair), developing the unique talent everyone has from the early childhood, even in gang surburban areas as illustrated by Susan Cruz, Devonte Rosero and Jared Cohen – looking for a sense of purpose, again… And one of the best interviews in the whole show, that of Tony Hsieh, the CEO from Zappos.com – I want to work for Zappos! He was presenting his corporate values in a very concrete way:
- Humility: testing future employees by having them tour a town in a shuttle, and if they have not treated the shuttle driver right, they’re not engaged, regardless of their competences;
- Happiness: Evaluating on a regular basis (such as every two weeks) how every employee feels in 4 key areas: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (such as having friends at work), and being part of something bigger than yourself, that has meaning for you.
That actually helped me review some of my personal employee work & team manager history under that light… As Tony Hsieh stated, the values you apply in your relationships with your employees and customers are essential to your corporate culture. Moreover, you’ll get better results by motivation and inspiration along a vision that has a higher purpose than just from fear, incentive, or recognition. And beyond the values themselves, how they are defined and aligned across the whole organization is what matters; this is where your power comes from. I wish I have further opportunities to apply this in the future!