The crisis we are going through confronts companies with an imperative to survive, and therefore to innovate and disrupt. What if, while we are deprived of physical contact with each other, the solution was nevertheless collective? This is the premise of Cécile Le Galès, founder and CEO of Beeshake. For her, it is essential to stimulate collective intelligence in companies. Indeed, companies will emerge from this crisis stronger if they give voice and listen more than ever to the ideas and proposals of their employees. The objective? To co-construct the future.
Together, disrupting to survive
The world is more uncertain than ever. To continue to exist, companies must adapt, rethink and disrupt. This need for disruption means that linear thinking dictated by a leader and followed by all employees is no longer possible. On the contrary, it imposes collective, systemic thinking, which frees the potential of each individual. The collective phenomenon seems to have imposed itself naturally in the crisis. Indeed, in the first week of the lockdown, the term 'collaborative' reached its highest level for a year in Google searches (source: Google Trends). If we keep hearing that theaftermath will be different from thebefore, it is clearly in the collective that we will draw the resources to invent a new world.
Collective intelligence in business has been proven
Collective intelligence in business starts with listening to and considering the needs, feedback and opinions of everyone. It requires effort and method, but it bears fruit. As in the Gendarmerie Nationale, which for the past 10 years has been setting upcollaborative innovation laboratories and has seen the emergence of 1,500 good practices to improve day-to-day life, the quality of services or to make savings.
The consequences on the motivation and creativity of employees are commensurate. A Beeshake 2019 study shows that 91% of employees would feel more motivated if they could contribute their ideas to the company.
The economic benefits of collective intelligence are well documented. In the United States, Amazon's Amazon Prime subscription system was born from a suggestion by team members. The results of this idea? Consumers increased their spending by 150% after subscribing to the programme. In addition, these subscribers account for 20% of Amazon's sales.
It is essential to provide a framework for everyone to express themselves
Making a success of collective intelligence is both a question of posture and tools. Posture, because collective intelligence andcollaborative innovation require letting go. It requires accepting not to control or moderate everything. It also means accepting to stop relying on silos and to listen to the voices on the ground, which were perhaps not listened to enough before. However, it is the doer who knows.
The answer also lies in the tools. The proof: the Beeshake 2019 study reveals that 67% of employees believe that their company culture is adapted to the proposal of ideas. The challenge is therefore to take action! This is the reason why the Beeshake platform is about to be integrated into the Microsoft Teams environment. It will stimulate the collective intelligence of the 44 million users of the collaborative application. Because tooling also means capitalising on existing tools. In short, isn't this an opportune moment for organisations to take stock and find solutions - technological, organisational, managerial or in terms of adapting processes - in order to invent thefuture?
