As Turnaround executives, we are constantly challenging the status quo, we break the rules and are relentlessly spreading the innovation virus. Our sole objective : DO GOOD and make a BETTER WORLD. Leading by example is not easy but it can be done if you have to implement radical solutions, you have to execute in a chirurgical way taking care of everyone to do GOOD. This presentation was given on June 26, 2015 through webex in a 24 hour Rebeljam. Please free to contact me...

1. THIS PRESENTATION HAS BEEN DONE 24-hr REBEL JAM WEBCAST HELD ON JUNE
26/27, 2015
Hello all of you all over the world.
So this is it… From a hot and sunny Paris evening, we start our « Rebel
practices to implement innovation initiatives ».
Thank you for being here….
Like you all know now, Rebel practices is all about doing things differently
to achieve something nice…. And I am going to tell you the things I did to
make it happen. Sometime versy unconventionnal… but that was the way
to get things done !
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2. So this session is about my experiences CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO
Yes… I BREAK THE RULES
And I will SAY THE UNSAID
As you will learn…. I HAVE NO FEAR TO SERVE A CAUSE TO DO GOOD
WEBSITE OF CORPORATE REBELS : http://corporaterebelsunited.com/
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3. First… innovation is hard as we have NEW UNKNOWN MARKETS – we have new
unknown technologies…
And everyone knows you. Your reputation limits the way you can act. If you are
known as an operations guy, it will be hard to start something radically new as people
don’t understand what you are doing.
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4. And in most cases… you have a lack off things while the others have too much off…
You can have a lack of infrastructure… whiile historical player have already a nice
network in place. If you are in a large company, you have an internal infrastructure
that is slow and very rigid while on your mobile phone… you can have access to lots
of data at a swipe and a click.
Same thing for people… they can lack commitment, or they have too much
commitment. When I directed a startup company, my IT team was highly committed
to implement new things but they didn’t care at all about keeping the system going
down each day. We were leading edge but had no user-commitment at all.
Same thing for the portfoilio. To do the business you want to run, you have not
enough products or you have too much products. I never found a company that was
portfolio streamlined.
Reputation… nice to have one as this facilitates business for you – but also nice if you
have no reputation on the market as this can open new doors for you.
Same for Channels and Information… you lack them or you have too much of them.
Rare to find are companies that have the right size of volume.
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5. CLARITY….
AS AN EXECUTIVE… YOU HAVE LOTS OF TOOLS AVAILABLE…. BUT WHICH ONE TO USE
???
WHICH KNIFE IS THE RIGHT ONE FOR THE THING I NEED TO CUT
WHICH SCREWDRIVER IS THE RIGHT ONE FOR THE THING I NEED TO FIX
IT IS ALL ABOUT CLARITY
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6. So the thing is to find the right business tactic.
Finding the right balance of « doing things differently » and
« doing the right things right »
Finding the righ balance between « doing things in an
unconventional way – to get things done in a conventional
world »
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7. From the start… you are in a loosing position as your reputation precedes
you.
The thing is… just make it work for you !
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8. Or like Pablo Picasso once mentionned :
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9. Some Sun Tzu wisdom…
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10. We all know this from our tactical management lessons…. It is all about how to
fight.
So you have to do something difficult and in fact, it is not at all a question on what
to do but on the way you need to do it to get things done.
If you just look to all great battles… they are hardly frontal attacks. In most cases,
they are a sequence of different modes.
Bypassing a difficulty
Hitting the difficulty from the side
Guerrila attacks to undermine the difficulty
Encircle your difficulty..
I know… we all know that but why are we not implementing this ? Why don’t we use
the intelligence we have on the field ?
A good question… so now get to some of my field examples….
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11. 1995 –
2 elements : I had to lay of 50% of the staff and restructure completely
the company. Most people moved positions so impossible to do. Also
laying off 1 on 2 will create reactions and strikes.
So I announced that I would communicate my restructuring plan at 10
am in the morning. The evening before, I left on my desk a file
announcing I had to lay of 65% of the staff and that all wages had to be
cut by 10%.
So relying on the fact that they were spying me and got the information
during the night that was laying on my desk… I announced in the
morning I just had to kick of 50% of the staff (and not 65%), that I
repositioned the company and that this would take 3 months to do.
During those 3 months, everyone would have some training – those
that stayed and those that had to leave.
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12. We were all going to fight to save each week an extra job… and that
could only be done through teamwork.
Conclusion : instead of strikes, angry unions… I got a team that was
following me. The layoff plan got executed smoothly.
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13. 1997 : I was COO in a large company with several difficulties.
We needed a new kind of internal support service but how to do that. First, we were
known as weak performers and as missing completely the Internet wave. So our
reputation was against us and if I implemented a website, people would say that we
were doing things wrong … building a website instead of solving our company
problems… just insane.
The solution : I made a deal with 3 developpers to create a website for our internal
support services. The website was calles « PIRATE » and we created a buzz that one
of our servers was hacked by some intelligent people.
People loved it as it had good information and at the same time, it was against the
establishment which was extremely nice.
After 3 weeks, and because too many people were wondering who were the pirates
behind this movement, I was obliged to tell them that we were the pirates.
So… we got a new image of being dynamic and at the same time, doing operational
things.
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14. 1998 – it was the early days of the Internet and Advertising.
So once again, our web site was up and running since 3 months, somme 200.000
pageviews a month – and the banners and sliders on our site brought in some
money but not enough so things had to change.
Result : we created a new homepage (nothing spectacular – it was more an excuse)
and we installed on 2 old desktops a robot that connected with a script to the
homepage, cleared the cookies and reconnected.
So instead of 200.000, we suddenly got 1 million pageviews per month. The price of
our banners and sliders got up and we send out a press release that we broke the
one million pageview per month barrier.
At the same time of the press release, we disconnected the robot and we got in the
next 30 days a nice « 800.000 page views » and we got 1,5 million pageviews 3
months later.
So yes, I cheated a little bit but it was for the good cause.
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15. I am also glad that those things disappeared quickly.
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16. Once again, it was about reputation management.
Our webportal was seen as unreliable, old, badperforming…. While we as IT guys,
were measuring nice performances. We also went on site in shopping malls to test
the user experience and all was OK.
So how can people complain while at the same time, you can’t find the problems.
As we had in reality 5 frontal machines and I decided to change the CSS of one of
those frontals. Roughly said, everything is the same but with one website
displaying the pages in different colors. We promoted it as a beta-site / still under
development but solving several bugs and performance issues. In reality… we
didn’t change anything – same machines, same software programs, same
databases… the only thing I did was creating a user exceptation.
Two days after the launch, everyone wanted to be on the what they called « new
infrastructure » as it was what they wanted. So we changed the CSS on all frontal
servers. Everyone was happy.
It was turning the bolts slightly to make a working thing an excepted thing.
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17. 2002 : board meeting where I had to present our annual numbers. And those were
once again very bad.
I decided to present just the 3 best contracts that gave us some interesting money.
It was like a race where you arrive in last position – so extremely bad – but where
you announce that you achieved the best lap time of the race indicating there was a
lot of nice things to be expected for the next months.
Result : with this partial perspective… - giving hope – the group gave us some extra
millions to continue.
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18. 2005 – I was president in an analytics consulting house.
For strategical reasons, we could enter a new market at that moment « Measuring
Mobile Usage » but we had to go fast. And of course, everything linked with
measuring a marketplace in France required the validation by a team of experts.
Going into that process would take us 9 to 12 months to get the definitions
settled… Much to long for us industrial people.
Result : I ceated my own way to measure mobile usage. Wrote the way down into a
2 page note and send that on August 5 to the office managing the expert team. As
all 3 people of the coordination office were on holiday… I could announce 2 weeks
later that noone expressed any concerns about my rules.
Result : we deployed it and it became instantly a kind of way to measure mobile
usage.
I got things done in 3 weeks instead of 9 months.
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19. 2006 – Another problem.
I executed a heavy restructuring program – with once again many layoffs and many
projects stopped.
One of the projects I had to kill was great… but I had to kill it.
6 months later, I saw an opportunity to convince my board to restart that project.
But how convince them as I kicked out the whole team ?
So I recruited 4 freelancers – very experienced people and we learned our roles. We
as 4 actors got in front of the board, presented our project. The marketing women
sold why people needed it, the IT guy the things we needed to create, the finance
women translated all numbers in operational step by step P&L pitch and the
inventor just for the visionary part.
Result : the board loved it, we got the money to start it and I recruited 4 real
professionals to replace my 4 actor. The job was done.
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20. Last experience in the list, 2009.
I launched a pre-release of a social network for teachers but I didn’t know exactly
how to start. So I contacted several professional groups for their input –
mentionning of course that others were already testing and I created a kind of
discussion board.
So quickly, I had several people joining and giving comments. I also created some
« extremely simple webpages » to get the discussion rolling.
Each time, they brought in 15 extra people of their network so quickly, I got up to
500 active people on the social network (in total, I got 3500 people but only 500
connected each 3 days).
In fact… everyone was discussing about the product they wanted while in reality,
there was still no product.
With the growth rate… I got funded and could build the social network around
content for teachers.
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21. Lesson learned : it was the community that created the specifications… I just
executed what they wanted.
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23. Thank you very much for your attention.
Please feel free to connect.
Questions ?
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