I wrote this speech for the 10 years anniversary ceremony of Officience creation. However, the expression of our collective intelligence established that during such a celebrative event, singing and eating cakes together were more appropriate activities than listening to an old man’s whinings. So for the record, I’m putting this here.
Before creating Officience I was an employee at Orange. I learned a lot there. One of my manager once told me : “you are so unstable, you change job every year !” Now I can call him back and say “Look ! I kept the same job for 10 years !” But that would be a lie. The job was changing by itself so much ! From managing a team, to managing managers, then managing business unit directors who managed managers… All the way until, well, now: the Tribe. We are reinventing the laws of business, putting a nail on the coffin of Frederic Taylor’s scientific labor organization system that stemmed the big schizophrenia splitting our lives in two, while there is still one one planet. As educated, free and responsible individuals, we care that our personal development path also contributes to the overall common good.
Anyway when I look back, it’s not 10 years that I see. I see an accumulated 1000 Offies with whom we shared dreams and hopes. One thousand different individuals, with their own agenda, their needs and desires, their families… who had for a moment convergent interests with our greater goals, the Cause that make us run everyday. Elevating Vietnam as a significant player in the New Economy.
Move beyond the “shoes and shrimps” to leapfrog the Industrial age and catch up with the most advanced nations currently entering the Connection age. It’s been a roller coaster ride. We started believing that it would make us to millionaires, and ended rather aspiring for peace, happiness, well being. Types of richness that can’t flush down overnight with a stock market crash. What if we stop now? What’s going to be our footprint? Are we going to be missed ? Did we bring to this planet more than what we took ? Talking about footprint, in 10 years we’ve made a quarter of the journey to 2050, where we have a rendez-vous with a 9 Billion population and we’re still not sure our planet can handle it…. In 10 years I learned so much. Learned by doing, learned by reading, learned by teaching… by all the opportunities for discussions and interactions we had. It’s impossible to measure of course, as it goes way beyond the thousand Offies mentioned above, to include all the lectures we’ve done to students, the conferences, the networking… It’s been a crazy ride.
10 years ago, Gmail was just born. Uber, Airbnb, Google Maps, the iPhone didn’t exist. The world realized that start-ups are the forges where the future is crafted. According to Steve Blank, a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. And when they do, they re-invent the economy, hence the society. Which is exactly what we are doing. By organizing ourselves along 21st century principles, using social networking technology, chatbots and influencing graphs, we are striving to reinvent new ways to execute projects, to make sustainable impact, with Purpose, Wholeness, and Self-management. Yes, we moved away from our comfort zone, but it wasn’t safe to stay there.
Comfort and safety are two different things. We had to do it, and ultimately, it wasn’t for us that we did it. In the past 10 years, some of us got married, some got kids. And as you all know, this planet doesn’t belong to us, we’re borrowing it from them. So, what will be our legacy ?
By Duc-Ha-Duong