Alien Thinking with Cyril Bouquet
Graham Allcott 0:07
This is Beyond Busy. I'm Graham Allcott. I'm the author of a number of books, including the global bestseller How to be a Productivity Ninja. And I'm the founder of Think Productive. We work with some of the world's leading companies to help them get stuff done, but more importantly, to help their people to make space for what matters. Beyond busy is where I explore the often messy trues and contradictory relationships around topics like work life, balance, happiness and success, and explore with interesting people what makes them tick. In short, this is where we ask the bigger questions about work. My guest today is Professor Cyril Bouquet. Cyril is one of the authors of Alien Thinking how to bring your breakthrough ideas to life and Professor of Strategy and Innovation at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Cyril has spent many years advising some of Europe's leading companies on strategy, as you're going to hear talking about the French train operators and UAE for amongst others. And we talk about how to experiment how you can use your imagination to get stuff done, managing attention, and much more. This is Cyril Bouquet.
I'm with Cyril bouquet. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Let's just start with a bit about you. So your job title is professor of strategy and innovation, which is just straight away very sounds like a very grown up job title. Right? So At what age did you decide you wanted to become a professor of strategy and innovation?
Cyril Bouquet 1:43
Oh, you know, my two parents are professors. So if you had asked me When, when, when I was a kid, what do you want to do when you go up, I would have said the last thing I want to do is to actually become a professor. But But somehow, you know, this must have been my destiny. I studied in Canada, I did all my studies in Canada, but I'm also a French citizen. And at the time, I had to do my military service. This was a mandatory thing for all the the the people who finished their their schooling, they have to essentially in all in the military service for a year. But there's one way that you could do your service. And that's by being a professor in a foreign country. And then you sort of represent the country, and how it all sort of defend the French language and so on. And so in fact, that's what I managed to do. I became a professor couple of years, but it was really a way of, you know, giving form of service to France as part of civil service. And then I discovered it, I love that so so I went back to school did didn't do a PhD to become a professor, and I've loved it ever since.
Graham Allcott 2:49
Nice. And you're based at IMD in Luzon very famous Business School. And I wanted to ask you just what what is your day to day work look like? And that might be different right now.
Cyril Bouquet 3:01
Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, obviously, we live in a very different type of world with the COVID crisis. But but it is a business school that is a little bit different than other business schools around the world, in that we really work with, with executives around their issues, their challenges. So we're a place of learning, we want to inspire them to think differently about the future, we want to help them innovate, we have we want to help them become a better team. But But we do that by by facilitating conversations and, and getting them to to think differently. And so our work every day with with senior executives around the world, across industries, on on their, their issues, their challenges. And in the process, obviously, we try to nurture students skills that we know are absolutely vital for them to continue to succeed and fulfil their mission as as executives who are trying to bring progress to their business and society as All
Graham Allcott 3:55
right, and one of the things I saw from your bike was you were involved in facilitating this huge meeting 650 of the top leaders merging two very big organisations, so SNCF, the French train operator, and then RF, the railway owner. So you're bringing together these two sort of different worlds. And, you know, I've been involved in a couple of mergers and a lot of culture work over the years and that just as I read that, it sounded frightening the idea of 650 leaders and probably a lot of differences in the cultures of the way they work and so on. So,
Cyril Bouquet 4:33
yeah, it was one of the most fascinating experiences that I have had a chance to to experience and also, as you said, quite scary. I mean, I had a lot of nightmares, visualising you know, how am I going to essentially mobilise a group of 650 people coming from two different organisations, as you said at very different cultures at the time, and the objective was really get them to be a more as a united force, trying to write a new chapter for this combined entity, if you will. And, and at the time, I was approached by AMD was opposed to business school where I work, because, indeed, it was a very difficult context for those two companies. You know, if you're French, any French person would remember that that time, because, in fact, there had been a very serious train accident in the country that claimed the lives of nine people. And essentially, it was due to bad maintenance on the truck. And then those two entities, if you will, the train operator, and then the the infrastructure owner, essentially argued, you know, always at fault. And the state, you know, sort of failed. Well, you know, instead of arguing, we should just get those tracks, you know, in order. And there was another another little story that the train operator ordered the next generation of trains to come and be delivered. And they were, and it was a cost of a few billion euros. And then when the trains arrived, they realised they couldn't enter the train stations, because the train stations were too narrow. And so all the train stations that were managed by FF, if you will, to be retrofitted, and that was the last drop to know, if you will, for the state to say, instead of being two separate entities, we want you to sort of become one united force, and we find a way to collaborate a little bit better. And we put in place a six month journey, if you were well, they could sort of, you know, develop a shared perspective as to what they wanted their company to become. But also more concretely advanced a few critical chapters, like, indeed, you know, how do you fix the tracks, but don't stop the trains from operating at the same time? So that require the reveal of genius, if you were to fix and continue to drive two trains at the same time? Or, you know, indeed, how do you develop new solutions for customers, because there were a lot of ways that you could improve the passengers experience on the train. Yeah. And he did part of it was virtual. But there were a couple of moments where we got together, or 650 leaders in one room, and has about 80 teams working in Berlin, on different types of issues. And teams, you know, sort of evaluating each other's ideas, voting on each other's ideas, giving feedback to each other. And through that, they, they realise that, indeed, they could develop a context where, you know, they could achieve a lot together by being able to have good conversations, and share perspectives, and really co create, essentially the company that they want to have for the future. So I think it was a very important milestone for the, for this organisation. And they've implanted many of the ideas that came through this six month journey. And I keep a very, very fond memory of of the time that we spent together
Graham Allcott 7:52
one question around that. So when you're leading change, it strikes me that change really hits home at the heart of how the brain works, right. So you've got the the kind of amygdala part of the brain, the lizard brain, part of the brain, that's all about fear and fight or flight. And when you're leading change, there's a lot of fear. But then what you're outlining there is all of these very positive, you know, potential opportunities that will come through the merger going well, but we don't necessarily see the logic of that when we're in that fear state. So what do you have to do as a facilitator that really helps people to get over the fear and see the the more logical part of the brain, which doesn't tend to show us that it does it?
Cyril Bouquet 8:33
Well, it's interesting, it's a great question that you ask. And, you know, I know a lot of facilitators that play the, the fear account, right? Oh, look, the industry is changing. And if we don't, you know, do something significant, we might be in trouble. And I might
Graham Allcott 8:49
say, just create a bigger fear. And then yeah, yeah, and
Cyril Bouquet 8:54
I've never enjoyed it. And all sorts of participant, I've had the chance at AMD, to have heroes who really played the, the excitement, galtee energy count like that the future is full of hopes, is full of possibilities. And somehow, you know, we hold the keys in our hands. And so I think what what we try to do in particular for this organisation, but other organisations that I've worked with, is, you know, at the very beginning of the journey, I basically asked people about their hopes for the future, but also their fears. And, you know, I connect with and you can imagine, it was 1000s and 1000s of pages of, of texts, right? Is like asking them to write an essay about their hopes and their fears for the future. And then essentially, we treated that as a kind of research project. Today, there's great tools that exist, you know, where you can use AI algorithms to try to process that in very sophisticated ways. But you know, we basically try to identify the themes, you know, what is it that people are talking about when they think about the future, both what excites them, but what also makes I'm nervous. And then essentially we, we wrote a script that was the synthesis of their hopes and their fears. And we created a video that we projected to them at the beginning of that, you know, day, when we had the, for the first time, the 650 leaders in the room together. And that's how I started the meeting by playing the video, there was a very inspirational moment around their hopes and their fears for the future. And the video ended up so with a simple question, what are you going to do? Right, because the hopes are there. And they are wonderful opportunities to build a company of your dreams, and we are the keys. And you know, for me to be able to work with a group of executives, and ask ourselves, how can we build a company of our dreams is a fantastic motivation. And indeed, we know that there's a place where we don't want to get, and those are the fears. But to me, the fears have never been giving me or the people I work with the energy to really accomplish extraordinary things. Yeah, the hopes and the the ambition we have about what what is possible to accomplish, can get people to do wonderful, wonderful things.
Graham Allcott 11:11
Yeah. And so I guess it's about being excited about the future. But it's also what's beautiful about that, it's also about being heard, right? So it's like, here are the fears. And we're we're going to show you what you said, and really just take on board the idea that we listen to you and that we hear you, which I guess is just really like reassuring in that moment, right? It's like, yeah, they get it, we can trust them. And it kind of builds from there. Right? And then you did this project with UEFA. So I'm a big football fan. So I'm just curious. I'm curious. I'm curious what you're going to change for the euros in 2024. So you did this innovation project with UEFA. Tell us about that.
Cyril Bouquet 11:49
Yeah. So So I mean, you know, every year I've been teaching innovation, in particular, my MBA class, and, and every year, I try in order to bring a real real life, you know, sort of challenge to the MBAs and, and so for a couple of years, we worked in, you know, with teams around improving the quality of life of patients that go to the hospital, and he was an open innovation contest. And two years in a row, we won that competition, so it was great. But then every couple of years, you kind of want to change the topic. And then obviously in Roseanne, were in a place where, you know, we have a certain proximity to all the the sports associations, we are home. Rosana is the home of the Olympic Committee. But indeed, the ufR is also in you're very close to us. And so I have regular contact with them. And I said, Hey, what about involving all the MBAs about 9090 students in combination with students coming from a car to School of Arts and Design in Roseanne? And we're going to get them to think about your 2024 like, how, how can we make the experience a little bit better for fans over there. And that's what what we did. And so for for just a week, you know, we treated as a boot camp, I was teaching students innovation, but at the same time, we're trying to apply the insights to some some real, real challenges. And the team's developed some fantastic concepts, right. I mean, from indeed, visualising, you know, how can we help parents feel safer in the stadium with their kids, you know, start to run around, and, and, and we're afraid of losing them right? In the crowd. And so how can we use geolocalization to always know where your kids are, is productively simple to implement, but somehow, nobody ever thought that, you know, this should be done in in Stadium, to you know, a, I like to go to the toilet. But I'm afraid of missing part of the action, that, you know, I'm not even sure where to go, because there may be a big lineup. And through the app, you know, is there a way that I can sort of visualise the different toilets? And how long is the way that each one and what is the shortest path right to, to get to the toilet and not miss too much of the action, you know, during during that moment? And so there were a lot of, you know, sort of interesting ideas, also around changing the narrative, how do we make sure that we include the local communities in fact, in you know, all the excitement that takes place, you know, whether when you organise the you're in a particular city or any particular country, the soccer fans like you and I grandpa happy, but there's all kinds of other people. Oh, my thing, this is disturbing, this is bringing all kinds of unwanted visitors right to the to the city. How can you make sure that this is a moment that creates opportunities for people to share, you know, beautiful moments together and a number of teams tried to think, you know, how can we involve the local communities in different ways. So so so we'll see, you know, what is actually implemented in the next year 2024. I mean, obviously, the COVID situation About a little bit of excitement when it comes to innovation, because it's also a great opportunity now for you, if I can think about, you know, how can we engage the fans differently at home, not just in the stadium. And so that's very much part of the conversation going forward. And in fact, these expenses are so successful, that in September of this year, we actually opening up, so we are running this boot camp again. But this time, it's not going to be with the MBA students, it's going to be with whoever wants to come and and, and develop those ideas with us. And we'll do that with USI. And also the Olympic Committee, right. And he will be around again, the future of, of sports, and, and women's football in particular, how can we come up with innovations that will benefit the development of women football, whether it is for USA, or for the Olympic competitions? So So again, stay tuned, check the new website, if you if you'd like to know more about this, but this will be organised in September 2021, or November rather than November 2021? Sorry.
Graham Allcott 16:05
It sounds amazing. Obviously, the amount of times I go to ask them Villa games, and I'm in the way and and there's just no toilets, right? Like for the whole of halftime? I think they treat the away fans even worse if that kid if that could, you know, make its way down to two league games? That'd be amazing. Let's talk about your book. Are you only arrived a few days ago? And I've been been diving into it. But I've seen the cover is amazing as well. Yeah. Because I did not get one yet. Right. So so you haven't even before me? Can you believe that? I feel like when I'm done with this, I should I should send it to you, if you send it to me. So I should receive it very alien thinking? So should we start with just the concept of like, why is it important to think like an alien? And what is a? What is alien thinking to?
Cyril Bouquet 16:54
So So why is it important to think like an alien? I think today we live in a world that requires innovation, right? I mean, we feel somehow that we've received all kinds of tools. I know, all the people I meet on the programmes are smart people who have great intent. They want to bring progress to their business and to society, as all of us know, in all sorts of fear when I think about the future, that a lot is is possible. And especially now that we're in this sort of COVID kind of world, right? It's an ideal moment for organisations to reflect on, you know, hey, what's working, what's not working so well. Because people are willing, they are willing to consider different ways of doing things. Yeah, and some is a great time for, for innovation. I think organisations, teams, individuals have the opportunity to think differently about the future. But the reality, even though we know it's important to innovate the way it is, when you look at what is happening, you meet a lot of people who struggle and a lot of organisations, we invest a tremendous deal of time and effort on innovation processes. They want their people to be creative, they want their people to identify interesting opportunities that could be addressed, come up with new ways of organising activities. But we see a lot of incremental improvements, less radical thinking, yeah, seems difficult for people to escape the standard way of doing things, right. So there's this kind of paradigm that exists in an industry in a company in a team that sort of dictates the logic of, of how things should be. And of course, people innovate within the paradigm, they have trouble or sort of coming up with fundamentally different ways of thinking about what's actually possible to, to achieve. And we wrote this book alien thinking, and I think that the metaphor says it all right, like you, you're coming with a mindset that helps you to escape this paradigm, right? You don't share, you're coming from a different world, you don't share this dominant logic. And somehow you're able to, to see things in a new light, right? And it's that magical. You know, it's not that you need a special DNA, to be able to do to think differently. And to think like an alien. There's a very, you know, simple set of habits that you can develop that can help you be quite successful on that. Yep.
Graham Allcott 19:18
So we're going to talk about these different habits. So it kind of feels like there's there's two, two parts of the alien thing right one is like the mindset of, I just need to think like an outsider. I need to I need to come in fresh, almost like deconstruct everything that's there and start with a blank sheet of paper again, enormous you know, how to design it if I was if I was new on the planet today. Yeah. And then you've got these break the breakdown of the five different things. To think alliteration is the wrong word. What's the word acronym? Yeah, just lost the word for it. So you've got attention, levitation, imagination, experimentation and navigation. So we'll talk about each of those five. But let's just talk about people who you think have the mindset First said, this alien mindset, and you talk about Jeff Bezos in the book. And there's a couple of really nice case studies at the beginning where you talk about a doctor fighting Ebola, and then that's been imprisoned. Do you want to just talk about a couple of those people? Like, who do you really respect right now I feel like has a really good minds that,
Cyril Bouquet 20:20
you know, a case, I guess, the, the, the Ebola situation, right, that that has a lot of, you know, common links right to, to, to, to the situation that we experience right now with the COVID crisis. But But indeed, you know, I mean, Billy Fisher was, it was a doctrine, and they became moto G's. And, you know, completely changed, if you will, the paradigm of the World Health Organisation around, you know, taking care of people who have been identified as suffering with with Ebola and saving their lives in many cases, and really changing the local prospects in in many countries in Africa, that suffered with this situation. And it just happened to be the Son, in fact, of my dear colleague here to India, who just recently retired FBI official. And so his son is being officially a junior, and one day receive a call from the World Health Organisation. And they said, Billy, but we need you to come to Geneva to help us think about, you know, sort of a better mix. But this was supposed to be an intellectual assignment, if you will, right. He was supposed to spend a few weeks in Geneva and then go back, he was a professor at the time and abuse of Carolina, in the States, and essentially all gone, except 72 hours later, they said, Wow, there's a change of bands, we actually want you to borrow on a plane and go to West, West Africa, where they've suffered experiencing just right now one of the worst Ebola epidemics of all time. And he failed to know what the hell I mean, I'm not an Ebola specialist, and a critical care. You know, Professor, I take care of people. I know a lot about pandemics, but I'm not an Ebola expert. And, you know, this particular village where they wanted him to go, the mortality rate of about 70%, in 70%, of the people that were that were basically identified, as you know, suffering from it, would die within a period of days. And so he really thought about it, you know, should I go on this feed on it? And of course, it did, it did. And then when you arrive, he quickly realised that none of these sort of, you know, repertoire of tools, you know, the kind that somehow his knowledge was limited, it was a very different type of environment, Ed, and I have CT scans at his disposal region have X rays, he couldn't even put a stethoscope in his ears, because as you can imagine, he was dressed, you know, with very, you know, important, like protective gear and so on. So what do you do, when you're in that kind of situation you have, you have to think differently. And then he realised that that essentially, the bottom of the wealth organisation at the time was was broken, the bottom was as follows. They identify people who were sick with Ebola, the quarantine them, and then they track all of their contacts, right, it's exactly what we do right now, right? For COVID. Except what was happening is that everybody pretty much was dying, 70% 80% of the people were dying. And so the family of the people who had, you know, patients that were infected with Ebola, you know, will do everything they could to, to escape that constant system, because they knew that the moment that a person would be put on the quarantine, it was a death warrant. And so they could not even perform the rituals that were so important to them, taking care of their loved ones, you know, burning them property, and hide their loved ones, and then raise the rent of of getting themselves infected, then essentially give them in the hands of those, you know, doctors, and so the power line was failing. And so basically, what what he did is he realised, you know, we have to save lives, I mean, the quantum system will not work unless we start to save lives. And then he basically realised that a lot of people were dying, and 70 to 80%. But there's a small proportion of people that could survive long enough for the immune system to kick in and win against the virus, and why the people who died before often they had the pre exposure to,
to, to to other types of of diseases that really weird their, their, their immune system. And so we gave them a lot of fluid antibiotics. And then he was able to reduce the mortality rate in a few days or a few weeks, from 70% to less than 50%. And that totally changed. If you recall the, the, the local population reaction to this, to this to this situation and that they would work with the doctors. And what to me was interesting in that story, is that with all activity, simple tasks, the tasks he was able to fundamentally, you know, bring huge progress to an organisation as established as a way of organisation but he was not a rebel. It starts You broke things, because he was smart and found there was a better way of doing things. He was a rebel with a cause, right, there was a very important mission that everybody cared about. And then somehow he was able to mobilise people, you know, behind that mission and realise that if we want to be true to ourselves, if we want to accomplish this mission, maybe there's a slightly different way of doing things, and you're somehow was able to trigger change and mobilise people beyond his vision. And that's a very interesting view of alien thinkers, if you will, they think differently, but they also do it by not breaking things for the sake of breaking things. Yes, cannons, they are not rebels. They are not misfits. They are creative thinkers want to bring progress and who carry people alongside, you know, with them on their journey of change?
Graham Allcott 25:49
Yeah, one of the things I was really struck by in the book with that story, as well, as you described, like the operating conditions of, you know, the surgery he was doing, and it was like, the the machines needed software updates, and the How to trick the software because they didn't have internet and they weren't able to do it, they kept to have to keep moving the date back. So they've not got it didn't get to the place where if the machines shut down because they hadn't been updated. And then there were things like they didn't have the D humidifying equipments, they use bags of rice, and they're using like fridges to to lower the temperature of certain tools and stuff. So do you think there's something there in the like, the fact that he had so many of his normal, you know, operating, you know, procedures disrupted, like everything else was kind of either falling apart or different? Or in a diff difficult state? Do you think that put his brain into more of a state where he could deconstruct the things that really mattered there? And is there is there some value to take from that in terms of just regular teams? You
Cyril Bouquet 26:52
know, it's interesting that there's indeed, you know, when when everything is working smoothly, right, there's very little incentive for people to be creative and think about what else could be right. But where everything is disrupted. And when you don't have the luxury of relying on those procedures, and all this equipment that is working very well and so on, then you have no choice, right? I mean, you have to find a way. And it's interesting to realise that many of the interesting innovations that have come by it, even in the field of management, and often come coming from from people who are very little, you know, there's a whole field of research on frugal innovation. And again, how you look at entrepreneurs in Africa and Asia, were very little means at their disposal, but somehow they find new and interesting ways to use what they have. Yeah. And that's really creativity, either imagination. In fact, when we talk about imagination, we talk about imagination as not something that is a eureka moment that people have about what could be that doesn't exist today. But it's really looking at the present and looking at various means that could be at your disposal, and often they are dispersed, right? I mean, you notice something in one part of the organisation and something else in another bout. And then you put those together. And maybe you combine those two things with an interesting practice coming from a different industry. Yeah. And then you have a really cool innovation, and innovators, you know, really think like that. And creative people think about what can they combine in new and interesting ways. And when you don't have a lot, you look for those combinations, look at the few things you have. And then you ask yourself, what can I do with that? So, you know, in the examples that you that you mentioned, right, it would be easy to say, I need a new machine I need, you know, those machines need to be updated, when in fact, you know, you probably have the tools to resolve that situation in a creative way. Yeah, but the only reason you would think like that is because there's no other options, right?
Graham Allcott 28:55
To survive. So innovation often isn't coming up with a brand new idea. It's putting two other ideas together, and then you come up with, you know, the combination of that becomes exciting and steel,
Cyril Bouquet 29:08
to steel with pride, we often think that there is no virtue. Look, nobody lives in the future. I don't know anybody who lives in the future. I don't know anybody who has this talent of imagining something from a blank page, right? Yeah. In fact, you know, neuroscience, you know, tells us the research is pretty clear about that, that everything that we imagine about the future is simply a recombination of experiences that we've noticed that we've appreciated in the past and how we combine our memories and our observations. You know, we is going to impact the way we think about the future. And so innovators still reply, they live in the present. They see interesting ideas, interesting concepts, interesting practices, and then we find ways to combine them in new and interesting ways. And that's the Fight. But right, yeah, I think it was up over castle right where it said, Good artists copy, great artists steal. And so innovation is never about copying, it's about adding right to something that already exists. And the way you add is often by putting things together in ways that nobody had ever envisioned.
Graham Allcott 30:20
So let's talk about the acronym alien and the framework around that. So it starts with attention. One of the things that was interesting to me about that is that, you know, so my book, productivity ninja. One of the things I say at the beginning of that book is, let's stop thinking about time management. And let's start thinking about attention management. And the big part of that is, is when you start using your attention really wisely, and focus on the best attention that you have in the day, to really focus down on the biggest challenges that you have in the day. That's when you start to see really great results in terms of productivity. And basically, that's a lot of what you're saying in that chapter of the book. So do you want to talk a bit more about what attention means to you? And what attention management means in that in that kind of innovative sense,
Cyril Bouquet 31:00
again, attention, we have to make choices as to, you know, what are we going to focus on, right? I mean, so when we are trying to identify problems it could be so we're trying to think about solutions that make sense, we have to somehow pay attention, because there's so much information out there, that somehow we have to make a choice as to what do we want to focus on? Right? And and indeed, if we want to think differently about the future, we have to be careful, because that choice could be quite now if you're not careful, right? I mean, we could just basically focus on what is comfortable to us, because we are blind, right? We've experienced things in the past that sort of colour, you know, what we believe is important. So I, you know, past experiences, our belief systems, just tell us what, what to look for, right? When we go on and on a new path of, you know, sort of creativity, if you will. And so, so the first step for the alien seeker is to say, you know, I'm a paying attention to the right things, and, you know, I need my attention span wide enough, if you will. And so imagine, right, I mean, you have your DNA, and you're coming from out of space, maybe what you would see when you look at Europe is that a, the Earth is inhabited by a interesting species, they are called cows. And in fact, the cows are driven by slaves, you know, the sort of take them around wherever they need to go. And at some point, at some point, the cows are tired. So so they, they basically as they're, they're slaves to, you know, to pack them, essentially. And then they get some rest among civilised species. And they descend the their slaves to displace all the sort of scream, and it's called, called the stadium, I think, right? And, and then at some point, when the cows arrived in a first, they bring back the slaves, that can take them to their next destination. And obviously, that version of reality doesn't fit what we believe is true, but maybe that's what the native white would see. And that's a good metaphor, right? That that reality is always constructed. And there's many different in all sorts of versions of reality that potentially exists. And so when you pay attention to the world, because you're trying to identify interesting problems that need to be solved, or you're trying to come up with ways to deal with those issues and interesting solutions, then are you paying no attention to the things that truly matters? And so in the book, we describe various strategies to make sure that you do that, and that you enrich the quality of your attention, if you will. And so sometimes you have, you have to zoom in, you have to really pay attention to certain categories of issues and people to really understand the world from their perspective. Sometimes you have to zoom out, right? You have to, to look at the forest, and not just the trees, but sometimes you really have to refocus, right, the system of actors that that you decided to focus on, is not necessarily the right one. And I'll give you an example. I cannot was trying to develop a new type of Alfie cereals for for kids. And they've talked to the to the parents, they've talked to the teachers, they've talked to the nutritionist, they even talk to the kids themselves. And they were trying to imagine, you know, what should be the diet for those kids at home and at school, but they were not making a lot of breakthrough. And as it turns out, you know, one of the person on the team said, Hey, why don't you talk to the janitors? Interesting, right? Well, as it turns out, the janitors, you know, had a lot of information that nobody else had access to. Right. They knew exactly what the kids were eating, because they could see them by playing outside, you know, during recess, they knew exactly what food was traded right? On the lunch, black market, if you will, they also knew what food was thrown away in the garbage can. So all of that information was useful to somebody trying to imagine you know, how should we change the diet, but nobody actually thought it was relevant to talk to the janitors. Were a good alien thinker would actually ask a case himself or sell the question, am I talking to the right people? Right, and and do I need to buy a little bit more The lenses that I'm trying to, to understand and to engage, because somehow my vision of the world is incomplete, right? Yes, I do so and that's what, what we mean by attention is to really try to enrich a little bit, what you see, by by paying attention to different types of issues, engaging different types of stakeholders to really inform and enrich our understanding of the world change.
Graham Allcott 35:26
I love that example in the book of Jeff Bezos and the Kindle as well. And it kind of what you what you say in the book is that Sony made a better device, right? So the Sony device was way better than Amazon's Kindle, it was sleeker, it was the the Porsche of, of handheld devices. And the Kindle wasn't going to win if you just look to the devices, but what Jeff Bezos realised was that you need to work out with the publishers, how will they, you know, give up their their intellectual property to go into an ereader, which is going to have a huge threat to physical book sales. And the only way to do that is for them to still make money, right? So he realised that this download only model wasn't gonna work, and that he needed to subsidise the publishers and pay them more royalty from the money that he was getting from the devices. And so I just thought it was a really beautiful way of like, just zooming in and zooming out to different parts of the problem, rather than just going, Hey, how do we make the best device that everyone can hold in their hand? Because that's, that wasn't the problem that needed to solve?
Cyril Bouquet 36:29
That's fine. And I think that the line in the book is that indeed, Sony, design a beautiful device. And, and, and, and Amazon designer, an elegant solution, right? And and, indeed zooming in zooming out between different types of stakeholders to realise that, that you have many customers and and he did the user demand demand a certain type of experience, but you cannot have a winning solution unless you get the the publishers on board and for them, right. The challenge is, how can I maintain the profitability of my distribution model? How can I protect my IP, and that requires, you know, a different way of thinking that that that somehow they understood because they conceptualise the total system. And they weren't able to switch between those different lenses, if you will, as you describe, so so that's an interesting case, indeed.
Graham Allcott 37:24
Nice. And then the L of your acronym is levitation. So tell us about that.
Cyril Bouquet 37:30
And levitation is interesting. Because I can tell you, I mean, I've, you know, I run around a lot of, of innovation journeys, and I've read so many books on innovation, and this particular part of the creative process that we call limitation. And, and, you know, whenever we talk about innovation, we often have the impression that it's a series of sprints, right? I mean, people are always engaged in the next activity, to somehow in also test your ideas, come up with, you know, another prototype, and then move on, because because we want to implement as quickly as possible. And you know, when we talk about agility, and we talk about the lean startup, it sort of conveys that sense of energy and momentum, and we've got to keep moving. And that is true to some extent. But in fact, you know, we should never lose sight of the fact that innovation is a matter I mean, the more radical you want to be in your thinking, the more time and space it requires, for you to actually step back and make sense of, of what of what you're doing. And really limitation is, you know, the act of of somehow stopping what you're doing. And sort of separating yourself from from action, so that you can create the mental space to think about what it is that you're doing, whether it's working or not, and let your unconscious brain also function. And again, there's been a lot of books written on this topic in leadership. And, you know, one of them that is quite famous, it's called the POWs principle. And, you know, they surveyed all kinds of executives around the world. And they said, you know, where do you come up with your best ideas? And the answer is in the shower, is what I'm commuting to go to work or when I go to the gym, nobody says is in a meeting with my colleagues, when we do a brainstorm,
Graham Allcott 39:20
or while I'm doing email,
Cyril Bouquet 39:21
comments, you know, where your your mind is, is supposed to be quiet, right? That all of a sudden, you're able to really think about, you know, the world and what you've done and what you couldn't be doing in the future, in a very, in a very different way.
Graham Allcott 39:37
Yeah. And you gave us an example in the book, which I really liked. Because I think I, I struggle with this myself, and, you know, the whole, the whole sort of notion of this podcast is, you know, it is about how do we get beyond the notion of busy and, you know, everything I'm teaching people is about how to make space for really quality thinking. And I think it's something It's something that everybody struggles with. And despite the fact that I teach this, I also struggle with the idea of my creating the space for my own ideation as well. Like, you know, when things are busy, it's really difficult to kind of step off that that sort of action treadmill. And really productivity is about doing fewer things, but doing them smarter and better, rather than trying to do more and more things, right. Like we get into this kind of cycle with productivity that that is about that but you gave the example of the restaurant El Bulli. Yeah. Which I really loved. So, it's often seen as the best restaurant in the world, the most innovative restaurant in the world. And why is that a good example, when it comes to limitation?
Cyril Bouquet 40:39
Yeah, well, I mean, it's a good and bad example, in a way because very, very few of us getting can actually afford to implement the strategy that he implemented, right? So I didn't fail. I was indeed, you know, leading this restaurant that for five years in a row, I think was was voted the best restaurant in the world. And he would close the restaurant every six months, right? for six months. So every year, he would have a six month sabbatical. Because he felt he needed that space, to be able to think about his next series of creative concepts. And, and he felt that the madness of the world that he was living in, did not offer the kind of tranquillity if you will, that he needed to remain creative in a way that could be sustained. And of course, he could afford to do that. But But I know very few people that can sort of a follow up, again, to have a six month sabbatical every year that you can leave a space to, to to, to think. And that's a pretty extreme strategy. Again, that shows that Yeah, you need that time, right. And again, I think we describe switches that are a lot more easy to implementing in the in the book, which I can describe, but I just want to insist that it's not just about Zen philosophy, right? I mean, sometimes we have the impression that is, you know, you need you need time you need, you know, for yourself, and but this is explained by neuroscience, right? I mean, yeah, we know, in the 70s, and 80s, they put, you know, that's when they started to experiment with brain imaging technology, and they put scanners on people's brain and this, they try to understand what is happening, you know, with the brain of a person that is very busy doing a very sophisticated cognitive task, if you were right, you're resolving a math problem, or you, you're trying to write a poem, you know, you're busy doing something, versus, you know, what's happening to the brain of a person who's taking a walk in the forest, are we sleeping, and so on. And then they realise that overseas have different parts of the brain that light up. But what was a puzzle for neuroscientists at the time, is that the mind of a person supposedly at rest, was consuming 20 times more energy than the mind of a person, right? That was busy doing a very complex cognitive task. And those who puzzle for a long time, they did not understand why. But what we know today is that in fact, your your brain is, is working very, very hard, right? When you're supposedly at rest. So in fact, the parts of the brain that light up when you're supposedly sleeping, or taking a walk in the forest, a part of your brain that are involved in introspection, thinking about what it is that you're doing, what's working, not working, but also the part of your brain that is consolidating all those events, and learning points that you've had, right in the past and storing them in your short term and long term memory, and then projecting your views on the future, which is simply a way of reinterpreting what you've seen, what you've heard what you felt in the past. And so indeed, you need to disconnect to be able to think about, you know, the present and also the future and think about sports, right? I mean, when the team is is engaged, you know, you know, played basketball and it doesn't work out what is it that the coach is going to do? The coach is going to call a timeout, right? And that's precisely because they realise that the current, you know, sort of organisation is not working, we need to stop, reflect and think differently about what we can achieve right in next phase. And so if we cannot do like elbulli, six months sabbaticals, maybe there are a few other things that we can do. Right. Daniel Pink in his, in his, in his book, Dr. itis is building on the view that that in fact, when you look at all the the elite sports players and and the chess players that have succeeded, right, I mean, they celebrate breaks, right? I mean, they never work for extended periods of time, they work for maybe 90 minutes, and then they take a break. And so we need to treat breaks, breaks with with greater respect, if you will. And so, so that might mean Yeah, take a walk right every day without your cell phones, you know, so that you can actually think for yourself as to what is happening in my Sometimes like stare for the window, if you're getting stuck, you know, stare through the window, and it's okay to spend 1015 minutes looking outside, in fact, you're not trying to see the scenery, you're just creating a new space in your own mind height. To start, things, start things are new. And so then there's a lot of things that sometimes it might require to take a real time off, right? Take a complete break, where you disconnect, from all those sources of stress and anxiety, and you give yourself a chance to reboot.
Graham Allcott 45:29
The other one for me is like with that, if you if you're struggling to solve something at four o'clock in the afternoon is just say, right, let's just sleep on it, you know, rather than trying to thrash through and push through and trying to find a solution, it's much better to just leave everybody in that uncertainty overnight and just, you know, allow, allow our brains as we're sleeping, as we're winding down, as we're winding up to just be thinking about that problem just in different modes, right, like, and that's something that we can all do everyday, you don't need to be elbulli and closing for for six months. But those lessons are learned in extremes. You know, I think sometimes when we have these extreme examples, like elbulli, it kind of shows us how we can just do 5% of that 2% of that the half a percent of that, but it will, it will have the same kind of effect. And
Cyril Bouquet 46:13
that's fine. That's fine. And the problem is that often, again, people are impatient, right? I mean, around us, they think that if we're, you know, sort of taking the time off, basically, are we slacking off? Yeah. When in fact, we're investing time in, in real thinking, and then reflection, and that might make what we do next, a lot more effective. Yeah. But often people are very impatient around us. And then ourselves, you know, we feel like oh, you know, I better do something, right, because we don't necessarily see the immediate value of the time that we invest in infection, but I think we're in control of our agendas. And we have to, to understand and then and then create, right boss needs to do this.
Graham Allcott 46:56
And that space, I think, particularly people who are working from home is just a sort of more important to, to have the boundaries and the, you know, that there's sort of discipline or the permission internally to make that happen. And to sort of create that space. Let's talk about imagination, I want to, I want to get through and talk about the other three, and we don't have that long. So let's talk about imagination. Because the thing about this, so coming back to what you talked about before about combining different ideas. Yeah. Often what we're talking about here is, is how do you spot those patterns and put things together? Do you have any? Is there anything that you teach? Or is there anything that you that you use yourself, that can really help people to spot those patterns and just see the world differently to how they see it now?
Cyril Bouquet 47:40
And my advice would be playing, right? Like kids have only four imaginations? Because they don't expect to have all the answers and stuff. Right? Yeah. And so so in fact, in a very simple exercise I often do with the executives I work with, is I give them six pieces of Lego and I say you have 30 seconds to create a duck. And obviously, when they come up with all their ducks, they're all different, right? And why I mean, so I said, Look, you're very creative. We imagine our 3040 people in a group, and they will come up with different ducks, even though they had the same pieces as ingredients, if you will, in this creation process. And so they could, they could have great imagination, if you were and so it shows them that, that an imaginative duck is simply a different combination of ingredients that everybody had, right? I mean, everybody had the same breaks, but nobody put them like this in this particular way. But then, because also said you have only 30 seconds. The beauty of it is that they cannot think right? I mean, they just have to do. And, and and after, you know, you don't know right what the future looks like. But often we have a tendency in organisations to believe we should know. And so we spend a lot of time thinking and intellectualising the future, rather than getting on with it. So often you create innovators are doing stuff and you require doing this, and they are not quite sure, but they're just doing it and and they want to see what happens, right. And so and so they are very interesting intuitions may be about the future. But they just want to probe and explore. And so and so to have this playful attitude. I don't know exactly what to expect. I run this test, but I don't have a clear eye policies. I just see. I just want to see what happens maybe is a way to do it. Right. And you know, Alexander Fleming who just recently right, I mean, we wrote a little article on Alex, Alexander Fleming, and do we discovered penicillin. And there was this this this interesting anecdote where when did his boss you know, you know, was not really understanding what the hell he was doing. And he had this this interesting answer. He said, I play with Nick Michaels. And, and you know, it wasn't sure what he was doing. But I think dipity is always plays a part in any major breakthrough and And you've got to give yourself a chance to explore the future. Even if you're not quite sure what it is that you're doing, some great learning could emerge. And so play that would be my Yeah, that would be one advice I have, you know, if we want to be imaginative, right, the imagination appears after the fact. It's not always conceptualised as such, you know, when you start,
Graham Allcott 50:20
let's talk about experimentation. And then we'll finish with navigation. So, you talk about some of the pitfalls of experimentation. I love this line, where you say, the job of experimentation is to improve the idea not just to prove the idea,
Cyril Bouquet 50:35
a lot of the innovators I've met, we obviously are very fond of the ideas that they that they want to test, right. I mean, we we worked out to, to identify, you know, interesting issues that we want to tackle, we come up with solutions, and then we need to make sure that our reasoning is is correct, right. So you need to make sure that the solution works, that is feasible, that, that indeed, it offers a good good solution to the problems that you want to solve in the first place. And so what happens at innovators are often in the mindset where they want to prove that their ideas azmerit, right, know that their idea has merit. And in the process, they are on this path, right, where they search for evidence, but they discount or kind of information that doesn't fit, you know, if you will, with their reasoning, and, and, you know, one executive that I met, you know, once told me something that I believe is so true, he said, you know, if you torture the data long enough, it will confess. And I think it's a beautiful sentence, because it shows, you know, when you ask innovators to build a case, right, they have to have a good pitch, right to support. And so that means you need evidence to show that your idea is correct. And so you're not on a journey of learning, you're on a journey of you know, let me find some proof, in order to demonstrate that what I'm talking about is true. And often it leads you to a path that that is not very effective, right. And so, so so we should be testing with an open mind, to improve and enter to prove. And so the teams that work with, you know, I have an obligation, if you will, to always have multiple projects in their portfolio, you test many different ideas, so that you're more open to the to the feedback that you that you receive, right, you're not attached to one project, in particular, because you have enough, right? concepts in your back pocket, right, that you can actually let the data speak, and then follow a path that is less bias. right in. Yeah, in nature. But but it's not always easy to do, right? I mean, we we fall in love with our ideas, and then we want to prove that were correct. And we have to avoid that trap, if you will.
Graham Allcott 52:43
Let's talk about navigation. So what you said earlier that the people who are good at and thinkers, they're rebels with a cause they're No, these rebels that of course. And you talk about the idea that you sort of debunk the whole thing of Here's to the crazy ones, the kind of Steve Jobs, Apple idea that, you know, the misfit The Misfits, and the rebels are the ones that make everything happen. And I love this idea that not only do you have to see the world in a different way, but you've got to be diplomatic too, right? for everybody who has these vested interests, you've got all these things that get to stand in the way of your idea.
Cyril Bouquet 53:17
You know, of course, I I love Steve Jobs telling us, you know, like, the crazy ones are the rest of this world. But that's a very romantic view of how change happens in organisations. Right? I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, you come up with a very creative concept, and people recognise it, and, and they see that you've advanced the conversation, and that somehow, you create value, but that's not the majority of the cases. And often you do something different. And you're met with a lot of scepticism, if not, opposition, right, for people who feel threatened by what you're doing. Because at the beginning, what you're doing is not clear, nobody knows if it really, really advanced by the world or actually make it worse. And so so it's interesting, right? In all due to think about the crazy ones, often they are they are labelled as, as the Misfits of the loose cannons or the rebels. And not those catalysts for change that Steve Jobs is talking about. Right? And yes, organisations, in fact, have this corporate immune system, when the new idea comes up. It might be treated as a virus, right? It might be, it might be an interesting idea for the future, but we're not quite sure. So we're going to kill it, just just in case. And there's an interesting example right that often used to conveyed us that that frame of mind that exists in organisations, Steve Sasson, White was the inventor of the first digital camera. And it's just interesting that he worked for Kodak at the time. And Kodak, as you know, was killed by by digital photography, but the inventor of that technology came from within the world of Kodak, except that when he presented the first digital camera, to the top management team of Kodak, he said, ladies and gentlemen, this is film less photography. The moment he talked about this, obviously, he scaled, you know, the whole team. Yeah. Because he destroyed or clashed, if you will, with all of their beliefs around what made his company special? And what made them proud around, you know, how do we exist? Why do we exist? And how do we succeed as a company in the market, that would say is a typical mistake that a lot of creative people do is that they emphasise what is really unique, what is really different about the ideas, but they they really alleviate people who provide support. And Steve Sussman after a few years started to use the language of digital film. And, and when he started to talk about digital films, obviously, the enthusiasm that he was able to create, right, was there, right is essentially, you know, broke all kinds of, of support that he could get. So so so is the, in the words of the innovation director of Lego, you've got to be a diplomatic rival, right. I mean, you've got, you know, to do things differently, but you also have to build bridges. And, and, and, and often the very creative types have difficulty doing that, right. And I've also worked, you know, with with financial post, and as you know, the post office in France, like in many other countries around the world is facing a lot of disruption. And they've managed to reinvent themselves over the years. But the CEO was telling me, john paul, by the time, you got to change so that you can stay, stay yourself. And I thought that was a beautiful, say, because everybody wants to change. But we also want to protect what is good about why we spent so much time building over the years. So we want to change so that we can continue to be good. And when we come up with innovations, it's not clear initially, that what we're doing will bring progress. So we've got to emphasise what's unique about the ideas, but also link it to concepts that people can relate to, and that bring them a certain degree of comfort. So we've got to be those diplomatic rebels, that can indeed bring real change to the world that we live in.
Graham Allcott 57:10
Nice, I wanted to leave you leave everybody with one practical thing as well. So I'm not going to, we're not gonna have time to just tell the Segway story, people are gonna have to buy the book. But one thing that really caught my attention in the book was your view on procrastination. So this is interesting to me. Because obviously, my work around productivity, you know, I see my own role as as being about reducing my own procrastination as much as possible. I have a very kind of human take on it, which is don't beat yourself up. If you still procrastinate, everybody will. But you actually talk about it as a force for good. Right? So this is really good news to to leave everybody with at the end. So tell us why procrastination isn't so bad. After all,
Cyril Bouquet 57:57
I guess it has to be done intelligently. Right. But, but but but also Adam Grant, in his book originals, talk about the art of procrastination. And again, we have to stop thinking about only doing those things that bring immediate value, right, that we can measure that we can observe. We are sophisticated species, if you will. And that power comes from our ability to think and our ability to reflect. And we live in a world that creates very, very few opportunities to do that. And there's often a an interesting video that I show in class that relates to conversation that Bill Gates, you know, was having with Warren Buffett. And Bill Gates was really surprised, because he looked at Warren Buffett's agenda, and he said that there were weeks where there was nothing on it. Yeah. And and he said, Yes, but you know, when Buffett said, I'm very rich, I mean, I can buy pretty much anything I want. But the only thing I cannot buy his time. And so I've got to be careful with it. Right? And I think obviously, you know, I'm not and most of our listeners are not like Warren Buffett, right? I mean, we cannot buy anything that we want. But we are in control of our time. And we should protect the time that we have. That is with ourselves, right? That is giving us an opportunity to really reflect on where we are, what it is that we are doing, where do we want to go into the future, and that if we managed to do that, a lot of good will come out of it. Because we escape, right? the tyranny of the next thing that needs to be done. That essentially removes the space for creativity.
Graham Allcott 59:39
That's probably the most perfect ending to be on this episode have is really on theme. So just want to say so thank you for so much for being on the podcast. The book is alien thinking. I hope people are go out and get it and thank you so much for spending time with me today.
Cyril Bouquet 59:53
And it was a pleasure and we wish you all a lot of success. in whichever walk of life that you add, and I hope that you can be a little bit more alien, and then enjoy the rewards out of it and bring tremendous value to the world and to the people you love, and try to help around you.
Graham Allcott 1:00:15
So thanks to Penguin Business for helping us to sort that one out, and just want to do a quick shout out to my assistant, Emilie for really helping to hold the Beyond Busy for us over the last few weeks as we've changed over producers. And also shout out to Pavel who has just been doing the last couple of episodes for us and doing a really great job. It just feels like we're in very safe hands. Right now we've been busy which has been really important for me because I've been heads down working on this new book, which is all about kindness in leadership. And it's just really allowed me the headspace really to get on with that. So thank you to Paval and to Emilie for your help with all of that. As always, we are sponsored on the podcast by Think Productive so if you want to get us in to help your team to boost productivity and help your people to do their best work just head to think productive calm. And as always you can get all the previous episodes and show notes for this one over at get beyond busy.com. And you can also sign up for my Sunday evening Rev up for the Week emails if you go to grahamallcott.com/links. Not much else to update really ever had a nice I'm recording this on the bank holiday and had a really nice day sitting in my hammock most of the day. I've got builders in next door to my house and it's just been really loud. Just a lot of banging on a lot of words has been driving me a bit mad. So just to have a week day where there's no builders and it's quiet in my garden has been really lovely. So I've just been in my shed today, doing a couple of bits but spent most of the day in the hammock which has been really nice. And I guess I'm on one kind of festival watch at the moment right like to see if any of these festivals that got booked for the summer actually go ahead and craving some music craving some live music. So hopefully that happens over the next few weeks. But the sun is out and yeah, it's it's getting warmer here which is lovely and hope everything is well where you are. So we'll be back next week with another episodes. Thanks for listening. Please spread the word. share this with your friends and help us to reach more people with beyond busy.
We'll see you next week. Take care Bye for now.
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