Via OrangeYeti, from AdPulp, here is a little bit of an interview given by Maurice Levy (Publicis Groupe) to Scott Donaton (of Ad Age). If you’ve ever worked for a company that was so set in its ways that it had grown stale, you’ll understand what Levy is talking about:
“I have never stabilized an organization. Crystallizing an organization is freezing the energy. In chemistry, instability is very good because it creates some combinations you don’t expect.”
“Without change, there is fossilization,and that’s the worst thing that can happen.”
“Ideas,are so fragile, so tenuous, that managers must destroy layers that can obscure or damage them. If you have an organization that is too administrative, you are just killing the ideas. As we say in France, when you ask a committee to draw a horse, you get a camel.”
Read the full interview here.
So there you have it: As a business leader, look for flux. Look for tangents. Look for the unexpected. Recruit adventurously. Give your people the freedom and flexibility to contribute in the most personal, passionate of ways. Eliminate silos and procedures when it comes to the sharing of ideas. When it comes to dialogue. When it comes to cooperation. Decentralize “meetings”. Deconstruct the project ideation process. Empower your people to set the stage for extraordinary new products, business improvements, and creative work.
If you can’t trust your people enough to empower them, to literally give them the keys to the place, then you aren’t hiring the right people. Your job as a leader isn’t always to “lead”. Most of the time, because you aren’t there to bark orders or stand over everyone’s shoulder, it is simply to create an environment, an ecosystem, that allows your team, your army, to do the best possible work they can. It is to create a culture that makes them want to be a part of something greater than the sum of their job description. That makes them proud to be, even.
Ideas are fragile.
Without change, organizations die.
These are the two little mantras you should keep chanting every time you pick up the phone, or a magazine, or your TV remote. They should be in the back of your mind every time you shake someone’s hand or invite them to have a seat.
Embrace instability. Welcome change. Engage uncertainty. Welcome the unknown and love it for all of its infinite number of possibilities.
And they truly are infinite.
Chew on that. Have a great Friday. 
Technorati Tags: Maurice Levy, Publicis, AdAge, AdPulp, ideas, leadership, authenticity, branding
Really like this post. Appreciate the quote about instability creating unexpected combinations. And the horse->camel process. C’est vrai!
[...] There is a lot of inertia working against the transformation of journalism, and there is plenty of corporate fossilization that stands in the [...]
“Give your people the freedom and flexibility to contribute in the most personal, passionate of ways…If you can’t trust your people enough to empower them, to literally give them the keys to the place, then you aren’t hiring the right people…create a culture that makes them want to be a part of something greater than the sum of their job description.”
You are so right Olivier. As businesses, we stunt so many possibilities for growth and creativity because we’re afraid if we don’t micro-manage every aspect of our business it will fail. I say here, here to hiring great people, empowering them and then getting out of the way!
Olivier,
Employees need definitely more reasons to work than a paycheck. They need and want to know about the current business and branding strategy.
I like the words of a former tutor of mine on this:
“Few people enjoy trying to lose weight. But, when your doctor paints a picture of a future in which you feel and look better, and possibly live longer, suddenly it’s a little easier to pass on the chocolate doughnuts.” Gary Grates- CEO Edelman Employee Change
Cheers
Gabriel Rossi- Brazil
Just a little correction to make… Gary is CEO of ‘Edelman Change and Employee Engagement’ rather than ‘Edelman Employee Change’.
Thanx
Correction: Chocolate doesn’t make you fat. The cacao neutralizes the calories.
It’s just science.
I hope so!
Good advice rarely followed.
In fact, most business leaders do exactly to the opposite, working towards and end state that is stable in the short-to-mid-term, something that they can lock down, name and “depend on” But, as everyone from Heraclitus to Clayton Christensen has discovered, stability doesn’t work.
nice post.
B