Changing France the Sarkozy way

I've been reading Lendro Herrero's Viral Change blog for some time now.

The concept appeals to me - it builds to some extent on tipping point thinking, academic theories like punctuated equilibrium and ties with developments in social media which are essentially viral in nature. I've just ordered his book of the same name and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

His latest post is interesting food for though - looking at the lessons we can learn from Sarkozy's approach to initiating change in France. He describes how the President tasked Jacques Attali with gathering together 43 of the country's best and brightest - business people, academics, journalists, etc - and capturing their ideas for transforming France.  The result is a collection of 300 proposals - signed off by all 43 contributors and recently published as a book.

As Herrero points out, there are lots of lessons here for those of us in the business of change - lessons about involving people, encouraging collaboration, building consensus, encouraging diverse opinions, demonstrating leadership commitment and the importance of tangible output.  Interesting stuff indeed.

Comments

[Michael]

Clearly this tipping point theory is on top of alot of world leader's reading lists at the moment.

In Australia our new PM, Kevin Rudd, has announced a 2020 think-tank for 200 of the countries brightest and best to come together and work out what we need to do to become a better place.

I only hope the lesson's learnt from France is also on Kevin's list...

[Lee]

Thanks for the comment Michael - I will keep a look out for developments in Australia.
Lee