Today we are all facing a major crisis, a systemic shock unprecedented in the history of humanity in terms of its magnitude.

6 weeks ago, we immediately entered into active resistance, including:

• The implementation of Business Continuity Plans
• Securing our treasury
• Everyone's commitment in the face of astonishment

Resilience phase: coming together, anticipating, imagining

In this very short period our businesses have moved like never before. Numerous mental barriers have fallen in all areas. Today we have to move on to the second phase: The resilience phase. It will be long and difficult.

Resilience is:

• Coming together to find ways to bounce back within yourself,
• Anticipate to transform threats into opportunities,
• Imagine to build the world of tomorrow.

Importance of the Learning Book in a VICA World

As Peter Drucker says, “Since we can't predict the future, we have to invent it.”

So why a Learning Book? Because our world has radically become VICA. (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous).

With a very strong increase in intensity, and undoubtedly over time. Because we are definitely immersed in the world of information. We are currently witnessing a real explosion of signals (weak, strong and often paradoxical signals)

A striking example with lockdown and the paradoxical imperative of choosing between life and the economy. Because we are also seeing an increase in experiments of all kinds, in Lean Start up mode that combine agility and speed, test and learn.

Finally, because all these challenges effectively force us to learn again, to learn in order to bounce back. The learning society is indeed there that must irrigate the entire company.

Structuring the Learning Book

Setting up the Learning Book will therefore consist in trying to answer 3 key questions:

• What did we learn together each week?
• In what way does it transform or consolidate the existing?
• At what deadline?

This is why The Learning Book is structured as a method. It must be the vector of a culture of learning and collective intelligence. This culture must gradually permeate the entire company, at all levels.

The method follows 3 steps:

1/ Capture the facts :

• In an information society where “too much information kills the news” it is important to retain accurate and useful information.
• To go to the right source.
• To know who is speaking and to increase the number of viewpoints (Data, customer interviews, expertise and trend reports).

2/ Conduct the analysis

• How does this information impact my business?
• What is its intensity? Strong or weak
• What is its relevance?
• Is it just a trend teller?
• Is it a real accelerator of transformation?
• Is it a real model disruptor?

It is essential to know how to properly prioritize this information.

3/ Calibrate the movement

• What is the degree of urgency and the setting in motion that this analysis involves?
• What race should we run?
• The 100m of the short term
• The 1000 m of the medium term
• The long-term marathon

This will have a profound impact on our agenda and that of the company, the use of its resources and its strategic trajectory.

It is to all these questions that the Learning Book must help us answer in order to develop a new culture of collective intelligence in the service of our resilience in the company.

The 3 fields of study

There are three steps to study in order to ask the right questions in this period and capitalize on good learning.

1/ the 3 key contexts

- The political context

In the current situation, political decisions play a major role in managing the crisis and its tempo.

The measures taken have an impact on short-term guidelines to be taken. (confinement, restrictions, aid, financing, deconfinement).

How have recent political decisions impacted our business?

- The regulatory context

Regulatory measures impact our activities, the legislator has changed the regulations, such as by making working hours more flexible or by mobilizing part of the leave.

How will these measures change the way we operate in the future?

The example of the construction sector is enlightening on this subject, paradoxical injunctions have been formulated (resuming work but with incompatible obligations (impossible distance).

- Finally, the economic context

As far as the economic context is concerned, it is of course very uncertain and fluctuating, but how does this impact on a macro level the operating conditions of our businesses, our vision, our strategy, depending on the sectors in which we operate. You have to be able to catch the weak signals of possible rebounds.

2/ the market and its players

Strong trends:

Several “trends” have emerged since the start of this crisis. Digitalization, sovereignty through relocation (control of the supply chain) but also human management. How will our business models be impacted?

We can take as an example the medical teleconsultation that has developed, will it expand, will it become a lasting practice?

Customers:

The current conditions have led to changes in consumer habits. Home deliveries have exploded, sports equipment sales have grown very strongly online for example.

What does it mean for players in this market, reduction in sales area in favor of online, new competitors?

How will these changes in habits evolve and last?

Competitors:

We are all trying to adapt as best we can and to be ready for a recovery and we must of course ask ourselves about our competitors.

• How did they change their offers, their positioning, their prices, their distribution? M
• Who are the new entrants into our markets with the development of digital technology?
• How should our offer evolve?

So much information and material to collect for your learning book.

3/ The company

The third and final area is that of the company. So you have no doubt noticed that a crisis is a revelator and an accelerator of transformations. In the learning book, an important place must be given to the company and its mode of operation.

4 themes are essential:

1/ Men

Have you noticed changes in behavior in your teams? Do employees take more initiatives, are they more autonomous, do some volunteer for new projects? What does a reorganization mean in the future, is it worth considering?

2/ The organization, processes and tools:

Our organizations had to adapt very quickly and change the rules. Implementation of teleworking, remote management, new tools. In many organizations, we see simplified processes that speed up decision-making. What can we learn from our crisis modes of operation to keep for the future? ‍

3/ Governance:

The urgency of the crisis has led us to break the codes, to take risks, to strengthen our links with governance bodies (board, codir): what should we learn from these new practices continue?

4/ The financial structure:

For many of us, the crisis has also changed the balance, upset certainties in financial terms, increased debt and impacted cash flow. Why will adapting our financial structures during the crisis be the norm in the future?

These are so many questions and therefore lessons to be learned from them, but how do you use them?

Application and adaptation of the Learning Book

We saw the process for collecting facts and structuring our learning. We note that the facts will have a relative importance on our activity, either by their nature or by their impact.

It is therefore necessary to identify the intensity, nature and urgency with which we must deal with them.

To structure this analysis it is important to apply the following filters:

- First : Intensity, are they strong signals (taking into account the number of facts and information collected: a general decline in consumer habits or 3 countries that are seeing the same thing) or, on the contrary, weak signals, i.e. slight movements observed on the market for example.

- Second: What is the relevance of these lessons, that is to say to what extent it will have an impact on our business.

Is it indicative of a mutation or a change in behavior that we have already identified?

For example:

Organizational changes and the simplification of decision-making processes have had a very positive impact on the organization and the accuracy of decisions taken.

• Is it an accelerator of a trend we had identified but integrated into our action plans or our thoughts at a later date?
  

The situation experienced made it possible to note the feasibility of remote or teleworking activities while they were facing resistance to change 6 weeks ago.

• Is it a disruptor, in other words, a parameter that will profoundly change the dynamics of our market and/or our economic model?

Will the speed with which industrial and commercial solutions have been found to meet health requirements profoundly change our industrial model or our supply chain?

- Third: Over what time horizon should we consider in order to deal with the topics?

• Do we need to mobilize in the coming weeks?
• Should we position this reflection in the coming months?
• Should we integrate these learnings into our 2021 reflections?

Implementation and evolution of the Learning Book

The benefits of this approach are based on its rapid implementation with management teams and then applied to teams. The learning book is not fixed, it must live and continue to be nourished and expanded.

Establish a weekly rhythm within the Management team to ensure that lessons are taken into account and processed quickly

We have all set up a “war room”, the learning book is becoming a structuring tool for this “war room” which will gradually become the “Learning Room”.

Regularly updated and reflecting the benefits of collective learning, the learning book must also become a communication tool. Likewise, topics worthy of interest must give rise to actions, tangible movements within the company.

How can we move from a very useful method in this period to prepare for the rebound in development to a learning corporate culture?

Transformation into a learning corporate culture

The objective is for everyone, within the company, to have their apprenticeship notebook in their pocket (whether digital or not).

The aim is to act on the 4 components that will ensure cultural change:

• generalize the deployment of the tool, i.e. ensure ergonomics and integration into processes
• integrate the tool into decision-making, i.e. in governance bodies
• Establishing rituals: obsessive questions, meetings, KPIs
• communicate what we have learned together, demonstrate the positive aspects of the learning organization
  

In the end, the learning book must become a sustainable method allowing us to know what we are learning together, whether it has modified or consolidated the existing one by analyzing the context, the market and its players as well as the company and when this will have an impact on our organization.