Have you ever trodden on a Lego brick in your bare feet? You’re tiptoeing through your lounge late at night, and suddenly that stabbing pain, the expletives and the inevitable question: “Why do we have so much of this stuff all over the place?” Well, that’s really quite simple. Your kids love playing with it, so you buy more. And a confession -- I love to watch my kids play with Lego. Especially good is when I see them inventing their own rules and their own worlds.
你有冇試過赤腳 踩落樂高嘅積木度? 深夜靜靜雞喺客廳到行 突然間感覺強烈嘅刺痛 啲粗口 同埋避唔開嘅問題: 「點解我哋周圍有咁多積木?」 其實答案好簡單 係你哋啲小朋友鍾意玩 所以你買多咗 我承認 鐘意睇住啲小朋友玩樂高積木 由其係當佢地研發到自己嘅規矩 同個人嘅世界
So here are my daughters, last Saturday, making something out of different kits and pieces of string and pieces of wood and dolls and other objects. And I asked them, “What is it?” And they said to me, “Dad, of course it’s a princess flying on a dragon to visit farm animals in New York.” Of course, what else could it be?
我啲女 就上個星期六 用咗唔同嘅工具包 繩子、木頭、公仔同其他物品 我問佢哋:「呢個咩嚟㗎?」 佢哋話,「爸爸,呢個梗係 坐喺恐龍上嘅公主啦﹗ 佢飛緊去紐約睇農場嘅動物。」 當然,佢仲可以係咩嘢?
Kids at play inspire me. They’re not afraid to ask, “What if” and “Why not?” But what kids implicitly know that adults tend to forget is that play isn’t just about fun.
玩緊嘅小朋友俾到靈感我 佢哋唔會驚去問「如果」 同埋「點解唔得」 大人成日都會唔記得 但係小朋友知道 玩唔單止為咗好玩
Now, as a biologist, I know that play is spontaneous and pleasurable -- as you can see by the smiles in this photograph -- but also, it accelerates and derisks learning. It helps kids to try out new behaviors, to refine those behaviors and to imagine what is not but what could be or what will be. As a business strategist dealing with adults, I still recommend play. In fact, play in business is not just possible, I’d argue that it’s essential and even urgent. And here’s why.
依家,作為生物學家 我知道玩係即興同享受嘅 —— 你係呢張相見到啲笑容 —— 佢哋嘅學習係加快咗 而且仲冇咗風險 玩遊戲幫啲小朋友嘗試新行為 細化呢啲行為 同想像嗰啲唔係乜嘢 但可能係乜嘢 抑或將會係乜嘢 作為商業策略家 同大人做嘢 我仍然建議去玩 喺商業度玩遊戲 實在唔單止係可行 我會話係必須嘅 甚至係緊急嘅 點解呢?
Competitive advantage fades away faster than any time in recent memory. In the 1980s, if you had a performance edge over your competitors, you could reasonably expect to continue being a leader for around 10 years, on average. But now the half-life of that advantage has shrunk to just one year. That means that short-lived success is actually still very common, but sustained success becomes very hard and very rare. That means that, actually, reimagination is the new execution. In order to stay on top, or even just to tread water and stay still, you need to constantly reimagine your business.
最近,競爭優勢 比任何時候都消失得仲快 喺 1980 年代 如果你比競爭者有性能嘅優勢 你可合理噉預咗平均做多 10 年嘅領袖 但係依家嗰啲優勢 半衰期就縮到一年 亦代表著短暫嘅成功係好普遍 但係要保持成功係好難 仲好罕見 亦即係話,重新構想 係依家要執行嘅嘢 要維持喺頂峰 或者只係原地踏步唔喐 你需要不停噉重新構想你嘅生意
But that’s not so simple if you already have a highly successful business model. We become prisoners of the mental models that underpin our past success. In fact, I found in dealing with businesses that you can’t really stretch your strategy unless you stretch your mind.
如果你已經有個 好成功嘅生意模式 就唔係噉簡單喇 我哋為咗鞏固過往嘅成功 被限制喺一個心理模式 事實上,我發現做生意 如果你唔絞盡腦汁 好難去擴展你嘅策略
Now play is of course a great way of stretching your mind. Now -- I mean, there’d be no mistake, I’m not suggesting literally that executives huddle around a conference table with a big pile of Lego bricks -- although I’ve done that, and that works too. But instead, I’ve created a series of imagination games to help executives to stretch their thinking. Would you like to play with me?
玩遊戲——當然係擴展腦力嘅好方法 唔好搞錯 我唔係建議你哋 領導階層喺會議室圍埋喺張枱 擺滿樂高積木 —— 雖然我做過,亦都係可行嘅 我曾經整過一連串嘅想像遊戲 幫領導層擴充佢哋嘅思維 你想唔想同我玩?
(Audience nods)
(觀眾點頭)
Good, I'm glad you said that. OK, so let’s supposing that you’re stuck in the rut of seeing the world through the lens of your past and current success. I would recommend the “Anti-Company Game,” and here’s how it works. You get a piece of paper, you create a list of everything which is essential to your strategy -- everything which underpinned your past success, everything which is core and sacred -- and then you flip it. You create the exact mirror-image list of assumptions, and then you make the best business case for this antiself. You’ll be surprised at the ideas that it triggers.
好,我好開心你哋噉講 你被困喺老套嘅鏡頭 睇過去同現在嘅世界 我會建議玩 「反公司遊戲」 佢係點樣玩㗎呢 你有一張紙 你整個清單, 列出對你策略重要嘅嘢 撐住過去成功嘅一切 所有關鍵同神聖嘅嘢 —— 再反轉諗佢哋 列出另一張反向假設嘅清單 然後你幫呢個反我策略 做最佳嘅商業案例 你會驚訝呢個遊戲觸發嘅想法
Supposing, for example, that you’re the CEO of a hotel chain and playing the game and flipping the assumptions. Let’s assume that, inconveniently, you don’t actually own any hotels or any rooms or even operate any hotels or any rooms anywhere. Ridiculous -- quite possibly -- but actually, how would you know the difference between ridiculous and the merely unfamiliar, untried and uncomfortable? And who’s to say that something that seems impractical can’t actually become and evolve into a more powerful idea? Actually, had the executives of hotels played the “Anti-Company Game” before 2007, they might have been able to foresee the appearance of Airbnb, the hotel-less hospitality company, and they might have been able to stave off disruption by preemptively disrupting themselves.
假如,你係間連鎖酒店嘅老闆 玩呢個遊戲同埋做反轉嘅假設 假如你唔方便 其實冇擁有任何酒店 抑或任何房間 甚至冇喺任何地方 經營任何酒店或房間 係好荒謬 —— 係好有可能 —— 但係其實你點樣知道係荒謬嘅 就淨係唔熟悉 又未試過同感覺到唔舒服? 邊個話 睇起嚟不切實際嘅嘢 實際上不能演化成 更強大嘅想法? 其實,如果酒店嘅領導層 係 2007 年之前 玩過「反公司遊戲」 佢哋可能會預先知到 Airbnb 嘅出現 沒有酒店嘅酒店服務公司 佢哋已經能夠先發製人 避免 Airbnb 破壞
Let’s play another game: “The Maverick Game.” On the edge of your industries -- on the edge of every industry -- are a population of maverick companies that are taking a bet against the incumbents’ business model and their view of the future. Actually, they have no choice because to be a miniature version of the incumbent would not be viable. Now, it’s easy not to notice them -- many of them are small companies. It's easy to deliberately overlook them with some justification. Many startups disappear fairly quickly after being founded. And it’s very, very tempting, given all of your experience in the business, to judge them. Do they know what they’re doing? Does their business model make sense? Will they ever make any money? But instead of judging them from the comfort and the confidence of your position, try assuming that it’s they that have the right bet on the future. Think about the consequences of that for your business model. Try making the best case for their idea.
玩第二個遊戲 「非正統遊戲」 喺你行業嘅邊緣 —— 喺每個行業嘅邊緣 —— 都有一啲初創嘅公司 佢哋喺度對賭 係跟現有公司嘅模型 同對未來嘅睇法 實在佢哋冇得選擇 因為成為現有模式嘅 袖珍版係唔會掂 你好容易忽略咗佢哋—— 好多都係細公司 好容易用啲理由故意忽略咗佢哋 好多剛起步嘅小企業好快就會消失 喺好易誘導你 用你做生意嘅所有經驗 批評佢哋 佢哋做緊咩? 商業模型有乜義意? 佢哋會唔會賺錢? 但係與其舒舒服服喺你嗰位 好自信噉批評佢哋 試吓假設佢哋對將來睇啱咗 然後諗吓你生意模型嘅後果 為咗佢哋嘅諗法 整理出最佳嘅情況
Supposing, for example, that you are the CEO of a company that makes equipment that makes semiconductors. Naturally, you’d probably spend most of your time and attention on your main customer industry, the electronics industry. And if it so happened, that a couple of maverick bioscience companies were tinkering with your patents and your technologies, you might overlook that as a distraction, an irrelevance. But actually, Brooks Automation, a leader in the field, decided to take a close-up look at such a group of mavericks to see whether it could learn anything. And what it realized by looking at the world through the eyes of these mavericks was that, actually, the same techniques and technologies which can be used to handle delicate semiconductors can also be applied to other fragile and easily contaminated materials, like biological samples. And puzzling on the significance of this, they reimagined how to handle and store and transport and label and identify biological samples. In fact, they became a successful pioneer in the new industry of automated biobanking. So successful, in fact, that just a couple of days ago, they announced that this was now their core business moving forwards. It’s only by focusing on these anomalous mavericks that they could see their own path to renewed success and growth.
假如 你係間公司嘅首席執行官 公司製造半導體嘅設備 你好自然會花好多時間同精力 喺你主要客戶嘅行業 係電子行業 如果真嘅發生咗 有幾間初創嘅生物科學公司 修補緊你嘅專利同科技 你可能當係種干擾 忽略咗佢,覺得唔關事 但布魯克斯自動化公司 係電子業嘅領袖 決定睇真吓 喺嗰啲初創公司冇嘢可以學到 佢哋做咗啲乜 透過佢哋嘅眼光望向呢個世界 實際上係唔係相同嘅技術 技術可應用到處理精密半導體 亦可應用到其他脆弱 同容易受污染嘅物質 好似生物樣本噉 唔係好明呢樣野 佢哋重新想像點樣處理 儲存同運送 標籤同分辦生物樣本 事實上,佢哋成功噉成為先驅 喺嶄新自動生物銀行業度 實在好成功,就喺幾天前 佢哋宣佈呢個係依家 發展嘅核心業務 只有專注喺呢啲異常初創嘅企業 佢哋先睇到可以重新成長同成功嘅路向
Now, not everything in business goes according to plan. In fact, sometimes the plans go horribly awry. But you know what? That can be a source of inspiration, too. To find out how, let’s play the “Pre-Mortem Game.” So your role in this game is to write ... the obituary for your company, which is going to fail with 100 percent certainty in five years’ time. What is the cause of death? What will have been the point of failure? Why will it have failed? How will it have failed? The challenge here is that it’s easy to be seduced into the baseline fallacy. The baseline fallacy is the idea that it’s the current business model which is the low-risk bet. And of course that tends to be true until it isn’t true, at which point it’s probably too late to do anything about it. Now, your employees are an early-warning indicator. They will have intuitions if the model begins to slip, but it’s very hard for them to speak up. And it’s even taboo for them to speak up when the business model is under pressure. But when executives create playgrounds -- spaces for the safe exploration of alternatives and alternative scenarios -- then you get to tap into your employees’ considerable experience about the vulnerabilities and the weak spots and the blind spots of your company.
喺商務度 唔係所有嘢都可以跟住計劃做 有陣時計劃錯得好離譜 但你知唔知? 呢個都可以係靈感嘅泉源 要知點做 等我哋玩吓「驗屍前遊戲」 你喺呢個遊戲嘅角色係去寫…… 你公司嘅訃告 間公司將會喺五年內 100% 肯定會失敗 咩嘢原因導致佢嘅死亡? 失敗嘅重點喺邊度? 點解會失敗呢? 點樣會失敗嘅呢? 呢個挑戰係好容易 受基本比率謬誤所誤導 謬誤係指 經營依家嘅商業模型係低風險賭注 當然呢個想法睇落係啱嘅 直至變咗唔啱 到嗰陣時,已經做咩都補唔返喇 你嘅員工係預先警告嘅指標 佢哋嘅直覺會知道現時模型開始變差 但係好難公開講出嚟 當商業模式面臨壓力時 佢哋甚至不敢提出問題 但當領導層創造咗遊樂場環境嘅時候 —— 可以安全噉探索其他選擇嘅空間 同替代方案—— 然後你就利用員工嘅豐富經驗 檢視關於漏洞同弱點 以及公司嘅盲點
Does anyone remember visiting recently one of these gorgeous marble palaces? No? It’s probably been a while since we visited the local banking branch. Had bricks-and-mortar banks played the “Pre-Mortem Game,” perhaps they would have heard their employees expressing some concerns about the gradually dwindling flow of customers to local branches. And perhaps they would have been slightly less taken by surprise when companies like NewBank, a digital native, seized, very rapidly indeed, on that opportunity to convince, to date, more than 40 million Latin Americans that in-person transactions in real buildings were a quaint but obsolete relic of the past.
有冇人記得最近去過其中一個 華麗嘅大理石宮殿? 冇? 我哋可能已經有段時間 冇去當地嘅銀行分行 如果實體銀行玩過「驗屍前遊戲」 可能佢哋會聽過佢哋嘅僱員講 擔心越嚟越少顧客去本地銀行分行 或者佢哋會稍微唔會噉驚啲新銀行 嗰啲數碼原居民 實在迅速噉抓住咗呢啲機會 就依家,說服咗 超過 4,000 萬拉丁美洲人 親身去銀行交易 係種過時嘅做法
It’s only when you bring your vulnerabilities into full view in this way that you may be motivated to reimagine your business and to do so in a robust manner. It’s why the Roman Catholic Church invented the role, the position of the Devil’s advocate in the 16th century to test the future consequences of its decisions to appoint new saints. They did that by imagining what would Satan say or propose or counterpropose, in addition to the normal procedure of thinking about the big man upstairs.
只有當你睇 清楚你嘅弱點嗰陣 你可能會重新構想你嘅生意 並以穩健嘅方式噉做 呢個亦都係點解羅馬天主教教會 喺十六世紀發明咗魔鬼代言人嘅角色 反思將來委任新聖徒嘅後果 除咗諗著樓上大佬嘅正常程序 佢哋仲通過想像去構想 撒旦會講啲咩 或建議啲咩 抑或反建議啲咩
Now, any human being, any employee, any team and therefore any company can harness human imagination. It’s a defining trait of our species. Failures to imagine in business are really failures of leadership. Business is a serious matter, but it should not exclude play. When leaders embrace play and imagination games, they can unlock the imagination of their employees, uncover disruptive new strategies and renew their lease on the future.
任何人、僱員、團隊 同公司都利用人類嘅想像力 呢樣係我哋物種嘅決定性特徵 喺生意度缺乏想像力 就係領導層失敗 做生意係嚴肅嘅 但唔好排除玩遊戲 當領袖接納咗玩想像嘅遊戲 會釋放員工嘅想像力 發掘顛覆性嘅新策略 並延續與未來嘅契約
Thank you.
多謝﹗
(Applause)
(掌聲)