How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize
[winner] in economics,

once wrote,

"Productivity is not everything,

but in the long run,

it is almost everything."

So this is serious.

There are not that many
things on earth

that are almost everything.

Productivity is the principal driver

of the prosperity of a society.

So we have a problem.

In the largest European economies,

productivity used to grow
five percent per annum

in the '50s, '60s, early '70s.

From '73 to '83: three percent per annum.

From '83 to '95: two percent per annum.

Since 1995, less than
one percent per annum.

The same profile in Japan.

The same profile in the US,

despite a momentary rebound
15 years ago,

and despite all
the technological innovations

around us:

the internet, the information,
the new information

and communication technologies.

When productivity grows
three percent per annum,

you double the standard of living
every generation.

Every generation is twice
as well off as its parents'.

When it grows one percent per annum,

it takes three generations
to double the standards of living.

And in this process, many people
will be less well off then their parents.

They will have less of everything:

smaller roofs, or perhaps no roof at all.

Less access to education, to vitamins,
to antibiotics, to vaccination,

to everything.

Think of all the problems
that we're facing at the moment:

All.

Chances are that they're rooted
in the productivity crisis.

Why this crisis?

Because the basic tenants
about efficiency, effectiveness

in organizations, in management

have become counterproductive
for human efforts.

Everywhere in public services,
in companies,

in the way we work,
in the way we innovate,

invest, try to learn to work better.

Take the holy trinity of efficiency:

clarity, measurement, accountability.

They make human efforts derail.

There are two ways to look at it,

to prove it.

One, the one I prefer,

is rigorous, elegant, nice math.

But the full math version
takes a little while,

so there is another one.

It is to look at a relay race.

This is what we will do today.

It's a bit more animated, more visual,

and also faster; it's a race.

Hopefully, it's faster.

World Championship Final: Women.

Eight teams in the final.

The fastest team is the US team.

They have the fastest women on earth.

They are the favorite team to win.

Notably, if you compare them
to an average team,

say, the French team,

(Laughter)

based on their best performance
in the 100-meter race,

if you add the individual times
of the US runners,

they arrive at the finish line 3.2 meters

ahead of the French team.

And this year, the US team
is in great shape.

Based on their best performance this year,

they arrive 6.4 meters ahead
of the French team,

based on the data.

We are going to look at the race.

At some point you will see,
towards the end,

(?), the US runner, the fourth US runner,

is ahead -- not surprising.

This year she got the gold medal
in the 100-meter race.

And by the way, Chryste Gaines,
the second runner in the US team,

is the fastest woman on earth.

So there are 3.5 billion women on earth,

where are the two fastest?:

In the US team.

And the two other runners
on the US team are not bad either.

(Laughter)

So clearly, the US team has won
the war for talents.

But behind, the average team
is trying to catch up.

Let's watch the race.

[French announcers narrate race]

So what happened?

The fastest team did not win,

the slower one did.

By the way, I hope you appreciate
the deep historical search

I did to make the French look good.

(Laughter)

It's art, but let's not exaggerate,
it's not archeology either.

(Laughter)

So, but why?

Because of cooperation.

When you hear this sentence,

"Thanks to cooperation, the whole
is worth more than the sum of the parts."

This is not poetry,
this is not philosophy,

this is math.

Those who carry the baton are slower,

but their baton is faster.

Miracle of cooperation:

it multiplies energy, intelligence
in human efforts.

It is the essence of human efforts:

How we work together, how each effort
contributes to the efforts of others.

With cooperation, we can
do more with less.

Now, what happens to cooperation
when the holy grail,

the holy trinity even,

of clarity, measurement, accountability,

appears?

Clarity: Management reports
are full of complaints

about the lack of clarity.

Compliance audits,
consultants diagnostics.

We need more clarity,

we need to clarify the roles,
the processes.

It is as though the runners on the team
were saying, "Let's be clear,

where does my role really start and end?

Am I supposed to run for 95 meters,
96, 97, ninety....?"

It's important, let's be clear.

If you say 97, after 97 meters,

people will drop the baton whether
there is someone to take it or not.

Accountability: We are constantly
trying to put accountability

in someone's hands.

"Who is accountable for this process?

We need somebody accountable
for this process."

So in the relay race, since passing
the baton is so important,

they made somebody clearly
accountable for passing the baton.

So between each runner,

now we will have a new dedicated athlete

clearly dedicated to taking the baton
from one runner

and passing it to the next runner.

And you will have at least
two like that.

Well, will we, in that case,
win the race?

That I don't know,

but for sure,

we would have a clear interface,

a clear line of accountability.

We will know who to blame.

But we'll never win the race.

If you think about it,
we pay more attention

on knowing who to blame in case we fail

than in creating the
conditions to succeed.

All the human intelligence put in
organization design

-- urban structures, processing systems --

what is the real goal?

To have somebody guilty in case they fail.

We are creating organizations
able to fail,

but in a compliant way,

with somebody clearly accountable
when we fail.

And we are quite effective
at that, failing.

Measurement: What gets measured gets done.

To pass the baton, you have to do it
at the right time,

in the right hand, at the right speed.

But to do that, you have to put
energy in your arm.

This energy that is in your arm
will not be in your legs.

It will come at the expense
of your measurable speed.

You have to shout early enough
to the next runner

when you will pass the baton
to signal that you are arriving.

The next runner can prepare,
can anticipate.

And you have to shout loud.

But the blood, the energy
that will be in your throat

will not be in your legs.

But you know that there
are eight people shouting

at the same time.

You have to recognize the voice
of your colleague.

You cannot say, "Is it you?"

Too late.

(Laughter)

Now, let's look at the race
in slow motion

and concentrate on the third runner.

Look at where she allocates
her efforts, her energy, her attention.

Not all in her legs -- that would
be great for her own speed --

but in also in her throat, arm,
eye, brain.

That makes a difference in whose legs?:

In the legs of the next runner.

But when the next runner runs
super fast,

is it because she made a super-effort,

or because of the way the third runner
passed the baton?

There is no metric on earth
that will give us the answer.

And if we reward people on the basis
of their measurable performance,

they will put their energy,
their attention, their blood

in what can get measured:

in their legs.

And the baton will fall and slow down.

To cooperate is not a super-effort,

it is how you allocate your effort.

It is to take a risk,

because you sacrifice
the ultimate protection

granted by objectively, measurable,
individual performance.

To make a super difference
in the performance of others,

with whom we are compared.

It takes to be stupid to cooperate, then.

And people are not stupid.

They don't cooperate.

Clarity, accountability, measurement
were okay when the world was simpler.

But the business has become
much more complex.

With my teams, we have measured
the evolution of complexity

in the business.

It is much more demanding today
to attract and retain customers,

to be (?) on a global scale,

to create value.

And the more the business
gets complex,

the more, in the name of clarity,
accountability, measurement,

we multiply structures, processes,
systems.

This drive for clarity and accountability
triggers a counterproductive multiplication

of interfaces, middle offices,
coordinators

that do not only mobilize people
and resources,

but also add obstacles.

And the more complicated the organization,

the more difficult it is to understand
what is really happening.

So we need summaries, proxies,
reports,

, key performance indicators, metrics.

So people put their energy
in what can get measured,

at the expense of cooperation.

And as performance deteriorates,

we add even more structure,
process, systems.

People spend their time in
meetings

writing reports they have to do,
undo, and redo.

Based on our analysis, teams
in these organizations

spend between 40 and 80 percent
of their time wasting their time,

but working harder and harder,

longer and longer,

on less and less value-adding activities.

This is what is killing productivity,

what makes people suffer at work.

Our organizations are wasting
human intelligence.

They have turned against human efforts.

When people don't cooperate,

don't blame their mindsets,
their mentalities, their personality.

Look at the work situations.

Is it really in their personal interest
to cooperate or not,

if when they cooperate, they are
individually worse off?

Why would they cooperate?

When we blame personalities

instead of the clarity,
the accountability, the measurement,

we add injustice to ineffectiveness.

We need to create organizations
in which it becomes

individually useful for people
to cooperate.

Remove the interfaces, the middle offices,

all these complicated
coordination structures.

Don't look for clarity,
go for (?).

(?) overlaps.

Remove most of the quantitative metrics
to assess performance.

Speed the "whats".

Look at cooperation, the "how".

How did you pass the baton,

did you throw it,

did it pass it effectively?

Am I putting my energy in what
can get measured: my legs,

my speed, or in passing the baton?

You, as leaders or as mangers,

are you making it individually useful
for people to cooperate?

The future of our organizations,

our companies, our societies,

hinges on your answer to these questions.

Thank you.

(Applause)