Why devil is not in the details - Warum der Teufel steckt im Detail nicht. ?

Yes, I don't (always) agree with the saying " Devil is in the details "  which has been first pronounced by the  the great german philosopher Nietzsche  . By the way, when Nietzche came up with this idea he dit it in a a provocative manner at that time  in order to contradict  the other well known and popular saying  "Details are in God" (Gott steckt im Detail )
I have to admit that sometimes we have to focus on details in order to accomplish big things .... and that sometimes a tiny detail can screw up totally a big project and prevent it from success.
However, most of the time this expression happens to be totally toxic because it prevent us to move forward and to make important decision. Indeed when it comes to make a decision, to choose for instance a software solution or to decide to start a complex project it is not possible to embrace at the beginning all the details and all the complexity that is likely to  happen at the project level !!! And if you try to check all of them before starting, you are likely not to start anything !!

Bend it like Bill ! The guy who acts as he couldn't fail

I have just read Winners Dream book by Bill McDermott  :  It is great  and unexpected stuff as I expected to read again one more additional advices book about career success and how to achieve it

Instead ,  Bill story is not about career but about inspirational  dreams and about  how to achieve strong achievements both as an human being and as a professional . I also aprreciated his conversational tone and the way he is able to share and build relationship with others whoever they are and wherever they come from...

 

One memorable thing  I got from this book is that I realized that Bill  is the guy who acts as he couldn't fail : that's  why, when he worked at Xerox in the  nineties,  he accepted to lead the Xerox's worst performing district, that's why morever  he accepted in 2002 to lead SAP Noth America that was  at this age under SAP average standard expectations . Each time Bill not only accepted the challenge but committed on hight purposes and share them  to the teams : for Xerox distric team, the aim was to  to become the first Xerox  districk in the world   (los  mejores) and for SAP America the goal was to be a three-billion-dollar business by 2005 (Milagro) .
Each time he was told he was crazy but he was not : he was aspirational for his team and he acted as he could not failed so he didn't (may be his guardian angel is a very efficiant one)

Here a nice video of  Bill explaining how to pursue his dream. Yep, definitely that's the guy who daily acts as he can't never screw up  !

And what's about you guys ? could you share the last time you acted and moved forward  as you could'nt fail ? Please tell and share your stories when you bend it like bill ."

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Economics and Emotions by Emmanuel Petit

Emotions play a major role in lives of everyday role that the social sciences, such as philosophy, psychology or sociology, have identified a long time ago.
For economists, however, the introduction of emotions has a lot to do with innovation agenda
as all the current  standard model of the economy  are mostly based on the 2 main pilars : rationality and egoism . As if we were all minded as Mister SPOCK and behave only for rational and selfish purpose.
However are emotions able to change the game in economics theories ? would it be possible to encourage people to adopt beneficial behaviors for the community?

The answer definitly sounds YES to my mind and  as a matter of fact, Emmanuel Petit in this must read book shows and explains very well the power of sentiments and how they can motivate actions and purposes in a good way.

How for instance you can reduce people electricity consumption only with simpe tools like emoticons ?  How you can achieve goals of economic policy by influencing others in a simple and smart way ?

This book offers, in an educational and non-technical form, complete and concise overview of how economists integrate affective processes - emotions, moods or feelings - in the economic analysis.

I would definitely recommend this book , feel free to order it within this link http://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/catalogue/index-_conomie_des_emotions-9782707183200.html

above an extract of my sketching notes of this book (in french)
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Krauthammer Sales training : all about Kiss, Fun and Silence

Good start for 2015 (by the way still time anyway to wish to all of you a nice and succesfull year) because I had the opportunity to attend a great sales training done by our coach Benjamin Bouat  from company Krauthammer. It is an insiped training about sales and about how to manage the sales cycle achieving your goals and  helping your customer to be succesful . Benjamin is a true leader and a charismatic guy : you are going to learn a lot with him and some usefull and strange tips like how to sell a plastic paperclip 10 times more expensive that the market price, how to behave like a doctor. You will learn the perfect way to KISS , the power of silence , and you will discover your inner soul color ( eh I look like a a yellow guy but I am not ....)
Below a photo with the team, with from left to right : Benjamin, Xavier, Pierre Alain, Carline, Frank , Laurent  and in background the nice Scribing I did from my training sketching notes.

Design Thinking at school (not business related but personal testimony about DT)

I have got a good news and a bad one !

The good news is that , a few week ago I did the best presentation I have ever done and the bad one is that this presentation was not for business purposes !

Indeed, a few years ago my company made a partnership with charity group 100 000 entrepreneurs that is dedicated to leverage the entrepreneurship mindset to the young generation

This charity focus on Entrepreneur mindset whose definition is larger than the current one in the sense that you do not have to create your company to be an entrepreneur , you can be an entrepreneur by doing something interesting with your  life, by becoming the real actor of your daily work and life , and it is something that anybody can succeed in not only as a business man but also as a teacher, or as an artist or as an employee company  

That the reason why, in order to promote this entrepreneur mindset, I was invited by 100 000 entrepreneurs  to share my career experience with young students at school in a suburban city

I was indeed exited by  the opportunity to help teenager to  make something with their life but on another side I don't like to discuss about my career and  I don't feel like a real entrepreneur

So I decided to use Design Thinking (Design thinking is  creative process and methods to help you design meaningful solution in many area whatever business or in your community) tools to help teenagers understand more the entrepreneurship concept and  therefore , before the meeting I prepared Design thinking tools like  the context map of the entrepreneur (what is the definition of undertake , give examples ....) and I prepared too the entrepreneur journey map

The result turned to be very interactive as the teenagers take over the meeting by themselves and put the post-it by their own on the paper . Unlike the other cession I have done in the past where a few polite teenager listened to me and asked few polite questions, all the students this time participated  ! with big enthusiasm ! It was amazing !

Have a look to first result of entrepreneur context map

 is that not good ? do you remark the rose they have added ? to be honest these students werefar better than my current customers ! With this entrepreneur context map they ended with their own entrepreneur definition and generated too a lot of ideas

Then we moved forward to the second step that is the entrepreneur journey map that represent the steps that an entrepreneur has to do  in order to pursue his project , the people he has to interact and the feeling he get at each action or interaction

it was very interesting ! during this cession I encouraged the students to get idea in the way "how might you " or "how can you make it" Often they get the idea like "to get a palace with swimming pool" and i answered them "ok but how you could make it ? "

At the end my students was very proud of them ! Oh I can prove it ! have a look to the following photos

Do you guess who is the accounting teacher ?

You are right this guy in the middle !


The next photo is a guy I remember very well as he came to me "eh man your session is great !!!

The lesson learnt : Design Thinking  is working, it helps you to create great meeting whatever the area by generating interaction and innovative idea with people

Thanks

Prototyping with sketching and design thinking approach

Below a nice document that explain how we help customers to choose and  experience our value solution by sketching and prototyping with the design thinking approach   inspired by the author Tim Brown  that you can follow a conference (from design to design thinking) under this link in youTube

With this solving problem approach, we make prototype for our customer that help them to make sure that the solution will work and to understand too the necessary steps they will have to do in order to make the things done. As a check out, the prototypes we do are rapid, quick and dirty in the sense we do not go deep into the system and the customizing in order to make a proof or testing some specific features or making a long and boring Proof of Concept (POC) Instead we just check that we have all the values, materials and technologies within our solution platform to achieve our customer goals and visions. So we use every material at our disposal to create convincing prototype in a few days :  pictures, telling story,  references, speed demo and sketching and post it techniques  ...    
So that our customers make the real interactive experience of our solution during the prototype presentation .