Fabrice Desmarescaux - A new path for leadership

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[00:01:13] Good morning everybody and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and it's going to

[00:01:19] be an interesting episode. So first of all, Fabrice, I've got to get the name right.

[00:01:23] So I'm quite prepared to accept I may need three or four runs at this. But today I'm

[00:01:29] talking to Fabrice Damoresco. That sounds quite English, doesn't it? The way it came

[00:01:35] out. You did a very good job Russell. It's the curse of most young British people

[00:01:40] to have to sit French up to what we call our GCSE level or our first level of qualifications.

[00:01:48] So we have many people who can speak French with the most appalling accent. So I'm sure

[00:01:54] you've come across them in your life. I've met a few. I'll make an effort to

[00:01:59] speak English today. So will I. Well look, it's a delight to talk to you. So let's

[00:02:08] start. Why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself

[00:02:11] before we sort of delve into our subject. Sure. So I am a partner at McKinsey, the

[00:02:19] consulting firm. I look after our leadership development practice in Asia. I am French

[00:02:26] as we discussed, but I left the country many, many years ago. So I de facto spent

[00:02:34] adult life in Asia and in Singapore, married to a Singaporean lady, daughter nearly 25

[00:02:44] years old, three dogs, and really a passion for developing leaders and using senior

[00:02:57] leaders as a force for good in the world. So it's not just leaders delivering performance

[00:03:02] for their corporate organizations, but it's also leaders being a force of positive

[00:03:07] change in the world. So that's what I live for really. Yeah, interesting. I suppose

[00:03:12] being slightly trivial for a second, knowing you're from Singapore with a Singapore

[00:03:16] family, I have to ask you as Americans are prone to do whether you're a member

[00:03:20] of the Chinese Communist Party. Yes. Have you seen that interview with the head

[00:03:25] of TikTok? No, I have not. Oh, well it's lost on you then I shall, we'll

[00:03:30] move right on. But there's a very famous interview. The Singaporean gentleman,

[00:03:35] the, yes, yes, yes. No, I've seen that. Yes. Yes. He went through an American

[00:03:40] intellectual debate about whether he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

[00:03:44] He kept saying, no, I'm Singaporean. Have you ever been in the Chinese

[00:03:46] military? No, I'm Singaporean. So sorry. British humor has always lost on the

[00:03:51] rest of the world. We need to repeat it so many times that Singapore is not.

[00:03:58] No, exactly. Well, in fact, actually, it's interesting how much Singapore

[00:04:02] itself has become a template for the sort of, I guess you would say the

[00:04:08] populist movement across worldwide, this idea of Singapore and tens of the UK,

[00:04:12] this idea of massive free trade and restriction, difference in the way that

[00:04:17] freedoms work and such like. So it's obviously interesting talking to someone

[00:04:21] from Singapore. What is it actually like out there? I mean, I followed it

[00:04:24] I've been there a few times, but is the idea of Singapore very different to the

[00:04:28] reality of what goes on there? Well, you know, I've lived here a very long

[00:04:35] time. And obviously, if I didn't love it, I wouldn't be here, given that we

[00:04:43] all have choices in life. For me, Singapore is certainly a lot of freedom,

[00:04:51] but not necessarily the freedom that we understand by human rights, etc.

[00:04:59] That's part of it. I mean, at the end of the day, this is a very well

[00:05:02] functioning democracy and a very vibrant place for business and everyone

[00:05:10] is free to set up a business and to grow and be successful. But it's also,

[00:05:14] for example, a remarkably harmonious society with multiple races and

[00:05:25] nationalities and religions coexisting peacefully and collaborating and

[00:05:30] working together. And so there's this amazing diversity that works well,

[00:05:41] which is more than can be said for a lot of countries in the world.

[00:05:46] So there's a great cultural diversity and very, very well integrated,

[00:05:52] which gives us plenty of, for example, an amazing array of restaurants

[00:05:57] and cuisines. And it just makes life very, very interesting. It's also a very

[00:06:06] peaceful society. It's a big city, so it's not to be taken for granted that

[00:06:12] when you have a large number of people living on a small island, plus

[00:06:19] traffic, plus the pressure of working and being on 24-7, it's not to be

[00:06:25] taken for granted that people are very relaxed and very pleasant and

[00:06:33] you don't find the aggressivity that, for example, I notice every time I

[00:06:38] go back to France. But I could say the same for a lot of countries in the

[00:06:44] world. And I get on the plane back to Singapore and as soon as I step into

[00:06:52] my favorite airline, Singapore Airlines, to fly back home, I feel

[00:06:59] you know, this is really home. I love traveling the world and I love going

[00:07:05] to the UK. London is one of my favorite cities in the world. I grew up

[00:07:11] in Paris. There's plenty of places I love to visit, but nothing gives me

[00:07:14] the same feeling as when I fly back to Singapore. That's my publicity

[00:07:19] moment for Singapore. I just wonder whether that example of political

[00:07:24] leadership affects or has affected your corporate leadership?

[00:07:32] Probably not. And to be honest with you, I have a very limited interest

[00:07:40] in politics and being a foreigner in a country, my approach has always

[00:07:45] been don't meddle because ultimately I don't vote in Singapore.

[00:07:54] And so whatever opinions I have, if I happen to have them, I keep them

[00:07:59] to myself. And I'm just trying to be as good a citizen as I can.

[00:08:09] And a contributor to the island because this is my home. But I

[00:08:16] don't really have views on politics. What I appreciate and I know what

[00:08:23] a large number of people appreciate is the freedom to conduct business.

[00:08:29] And the fact that we have a government that is very well known for

[00:08:35] being business minded and very transparent at that. So it's easy

[00:08:42] for multinationals, for example, to establish their Asian headquarters in

[00:08:48] Singapore. It's very easy to look after the region from Singapore because

[00:08:55] travel is so easy. We probably have the most efficient airport in

[00:09:00] the world. And we have one of the best airlines in the world.

[00:09:04] And so traveling to different places is really, I was going to say a

[00:09:11] joy. Maybe that's a little bit exaggerated, but it is not so much

[00:09:16] hardship as it would be in other parts of the world when you travel on

[00:09:20] airlines that are always late and you have to fight your way through

[00:09:23] airports that are not efficient and poorly designed and probably

[00:09:27] haven't been renovated in the last 50 years.

[00:09:29] OK, no worries. So let's talk a little bit more about leadership

[00:09:34] coaching. So you talk about having just before we started this, you

[00:09:37] talked about having rejoined McKinsey to talk about leadership.

[00:09:41] So maybe you can talk a bit about your ideas around leadership and

[00:09:47] some of the themes which you think are important.

[00:09:52] So I do work with senior leaders, primarily CEOs and their teams.

[00:09:58] Occasionally I work with also the next generation of leaders and

[00:10:02] preparing them for higher office.

[00:10:06] So the first thing I would say is that leadership is a tremendous

[00:10:16] responsibility and an honor in a way to be asked by whomever that

[00:10:23] is, the shareholders, your boss, the board of directors.

[00:10:26] To become a CEO is a big honor and a big responsibility.

[00:10:33] Most of the CEOs I work with, I believe, appreciate this fact that

[00:10:40] they've been entrusted with the fate of an organization.

[00:10:47] And we can debate for a long time what is the real influence in

[00:10:51] a very large company? What is the real influence that a CEO has?

[00:10:56] I think it is more than we sometimes think.

[00:11:01] And perhaps it is difficult to do a lot of good in a short period of

[00:11:08] time because large organizations have inertia, but it is certainly

[00:11:13] possible to do a lot of bad in a very short period of time if

[00:11:18] you're not taking the role seriously or you're out of your depth

[00:11:22] or even worse, your intention, your character is not what it should be.

[00:11:30] It's interesting you talk about the longevity of CEOs because

[00:11:34] there are many examples of CEOs who have been in role for a long

[00:11:37] time and who are very successful and vice versa.

[00:11:40] But there has become a metaphor around the idea of the sports

[00:11:43] leader and the corporate leader. This idea that CEOs do have more

[00:11:48] impact are expected to perform more quickly, are more likely to be

[00:11:53] burned out, are more likely to be seen as the easy replacement curve

[00:11:59] when things don't go wrong. I just wondered what your views were on that.

[00:12:03] Yeah, well it's a tough role and there's plenty of data that

[00:12:07] shows that the longevity of CEOs has been decreasing as

[00:12:11] particularly for publicly listed companies as the patients of the

[00:12:15] financial markets and the patients of the shareholders is usually more

[00:12:20] and more limited. I don't know what is the average tenure

[00:12:25] of a CEO these days, but probably something around three years and

[00:12:29] decreasing. It is a challenging role and one that you cannot take

[00:12:34] for granted when I coach people who aspire to become CEOs.

[00:12:42] So for example, we prepare the next generation to become CEOs.

[00:12:47] Occasionally when there's going to be a succession,

[00:12:51] there's a number of internal candidates and so my team and I would

[00:12:57] prepare them sometimes as long as five years in advance

[00:13:01] to groom a number of internal candidates so that they can become

[00:13:07] qualified candidates. The first question I ask them is why do you want to do that?

[00:13:14] Like yes, no, I understand the title, I get it. The paycheck, I get it.

[00:13:19] The prestige, the status, the power, I get it. But why do you really want it?

[00:13:26] Because your life is going to be on a public display. You're going to be on 24-7

[00:13:33] fighting forces that you probably don't begin to understand

[00:13:42] in an environment that is getting increasingly complex, meaning you don't

[00:13:48] understand the relationship between cause and effect. That's the definition of complexity for me.

[00:13:55] So do you really want the job? That's not a simple question to answer.

[00:14:02] And then if people do their own discernment and they conclude that they really want the job,

[00:14:11] then we prepare them. There's probably a million books

[00:14:19] that have been written on the topic of leadership, but I like simplifying things.

[00:14:26] I like simplifying things. There's really three things that matter, I believe, in today's world

[00:14:34] to be a CEO. Number one is you need to have a very deep self-awareness.

[00:14:43] You need to know yourself. It's very hard to lead others if you cannot lead yourself.

[00:14:51] So you need to spend time understanding what triggers you, what are the narratives that

[00:14:58] you tell yourself, what are the elements of your worldview that may have served you well to get

[00:15:07] to the level you are at today but are probably not going to serve you well once you become a

[00:15:11] CEO. You need to do this self-examination. It's very difficult to do it alone, so I always

[00:15:18] recommend that people work with an executive coach, a therapist, a spiritual director,

[00:15:25] maybe the three of them. Occasionally a performance, a physical performance coach.

[00:15:31] Get your health in order. I truly believe that to be an effective leader today you need to be

[00:15:41] given whatever DNA you've been granted by your parents and whatever, but you need to be

[00:15:48] in the best possible shape you can be in because these conditions are how you show up.

[00:15:55] These conditions are how you recover. It's how you act as a role model.

[00:16:04] So you need to get your physical energy and your physical shape in order. You need to

[00:16:10] get your mental shape in order. You need to be focused. You need to be mentally sharp.

[00:16:16] There are practices for that. I really think that the whole area of the self

[00:16:20] is an important one. Then there's the one that is very often overlooked, which is how do you

[00:16:27] build and lead great teams? We talk about teams all the time but very few people really

[00:16:34] understand what a team is. A team is not a collection of individuals each with their own

[00:16:40] individual targets and their own individual silos. Once in a week or once in every two weeks they

[00:16:46] get together on the executive committee to talk about whatever they are doing. No, that's not

[00:16:51] a team. That's a collection of individuals. You find that at the highest level of corporations

[00:16:59] what makes the most difference on the overall performance of the organization is how well the

[00:17:06] top team works together because they set the example for the rest of the organization. Do

[00:17:11] they collaborate? Do they trust each other? Because if they don't we're going to have silos

[00:17:17] all the way down and the organization, the people down below will fight the battles

[00:17:24] that the top team is not courageous enough to fight themselves.

[00:17:29] Yeah. I think that's really important because I think some people see that,

[00:17:36] and I like the old Charles Handy view of teams have been synergistic

[00:17:39] enterprises that create a result greater than the individuals within it. But I've always

[00:17:44] liked the idea that teams should be courageous. They should have conflict because for me,

[00:17:50] conflict not physical conflicts but the idea of difference is the manifestation of a good

[00:17:56] team working together because you have to have those debates. You have to be able to have

[00:18:00] adult, useful, courageous conversations which actually create diversity and difference.

[00:18:08] And because there's a sort of a hit, we often get very bland teams which actually come together

[00:18:14] where there is no creative or critical disagreement. And that's for me,

[00:18:17] that's a really important thing in a team, especially a top team. Otherwise you end up with

[00:18:21] a sort of group think mentality. I totally agree with you, Russell.

[00:18:26] We call it artificial harmony when people on the top team get along.

[00:18:33] Oh, we get along well. We never have disagreements. That is a massive red flag for me.

[00:18:38] Me too. And the role of the CEO is to encourage conflict because as you say,

[00:18:46] from conflict come better decisions. And from conflict, meaning everyone has had a chance to

[00:18:55] share their views, comes a greater commitment and a greater alignment to do things together.

[00:19:00] So there's not tons of good book and there's not tons of good research on the topic of

[00:19:09] building high performing teams. Actually for me, I'm curious to get your views on that,

[00:19:16] but where we find the absolute best teams are usually in the military

[00:19:22] and particularly in the special forces where if you don't create

[00:19:30] almost a collective consciousness in that unit who's going to be dropped behind enemy lines

[00:19:37] to do something and then not being noticed and rescue the hostage or whatever,

[00:19:43] and then come back and nobody will ever know that they were there. To achieve that level

[00:19:48] of performance, you need a collective consciousness. You need to know exactly

[00:19:53] what the others are doing. You need to think in the same way, but when they prepare the

[00:19:58] mission, oh my God, there's a lot of disagreements and a lot of voices. And so we

[00:20:04] find inspiration in a lot of models that have been used in the military and special forces

[00:20:12] in particular. The other domain where we find great teams, although it's probably

[00:20:18] a little bit simpler is in sports, collective sports, football say, right? 11 people,

[00:20:26] there's only one scoreboard. We win or we lose. You cannot have the striker say,

[00:20:32] oh, you know, I won because I passed the ball so many times. And you say to the defender,

[00:20:38] oh, you lost because you didn't stop. No, we've all won together or we've all lost together.

[00:20:44] And that is something that is very worth replicating in the corporate world and with

[00:20:49] the top teams is we all win together or we all lose together. You cannot have the leader of

[00:20:54] division A saying, ah, you know, I did great and I get a great bonus while division B

[00:21:00] didn't do great and the person doesn't get a great bonus. So there's this second competency,

[00:21:06] is this all, you know, this whole art of building and leading great teams?

[00:21:11] Can I just leap in there then? It's interesting, God, interesting view and it relates to

[00:21:16] teams. So I have moved away from the sports model in my time. As an ex-professional musician,

[00:21:21] I see much more in common with the autistic world because performance is continuous,

[00:21:27] whereas sport is often discontinuous because you're having discrete events.

[00:21:31] Whereas if you're working in an organization, you're there every single day. But also you

[00:21:35] have this thing in performing arts where you actually have to paint your smile on it and

[00:21:39] you can be profoundly disagreeing with someone, but you have to show this united front,

[00:21:43] which I find interesting. So the second thing is, and I'd be interested in your view on

[00:21:47] this, is I remember talking to the CEO, actually, I think it was a sales and marketing

[00:21:53] CMO of a pretty large organization. And we talked about this idea of career limiting decisions.

[00:22:00] And for most large organizations, it's not how well you do, it's the avoidance of errors,

[00:22:05] it's avoidance of that career limiting mistake. And I think sometimes the point of a team

[00:22:12] is to have a mechanism to absorb those mistakes so that career limitation is sort of

[00:22:17] dissolved across a group of people. So the impact is less. And I do think there's a

[00:22:25] sort of zero sum game, especially large corporates, where actually you get to a

[00:22:29] certain level and you just become intensely terrified of making a mistake.

[00:22:34] Yeah, and I agree with you. I agree on the analogy of or the limitations of the analogy

[00:22:42] with sports. Also, because the model of sports, you know, the rules are very simple,

[00:22:47] usually, whereas in the corporate world, the rules are much more complicated than

[00:22:53] you may not even know all the rules that you have to play by if you want to win in a

[00:22:57] certain market. And yes, on the avoidance of error, you know, we have a lot of

[00:23:03] organizations, particularly older, more established organizations that sort of become

[00:23:13] fearful of change. Yeah. And you see senior executives playing the game not to lose

[00:23:21] instead of playing the game to win. Exactly. And it's always a fascinating conversation,

[00:23:28] because when we have these conversations with them, very few would disagree that they would

[00:23:34] like to play to win. Playing not to lose is not a very inspiring game to play. It's playing

[00:23:40] defense. What the conversations get really interesting is when we say, well, what is

[00:23:46] holding you back? And then you get into what you said, the incentives. What happens if I

[00:23:52] do a project and I fail? Am I going to be rewarded for failing because we've learned

[00:23:57] what doesn't work? Or am I going to be sacked? And so you need to change a whole lot of

[00:24:04] parameters around how comfortable are we with risk? How comfortable are we, for example, to say,

[00:24:14] look, we really don't know this market well. It's a new technology. It's a new set of

[00:24:19] products. We really don't know what's going to work and what's not going to work. So you

[00:24:22] know what? We're going to do five things. We're going to launch five ideas, and we're going to

[00:24:28] take them from MVP to prototype. And if it still makes sense, we're going to launch a pilot,

[00:24:36] et cetera. And we probably know that four out of these five are going to fail.

[00:24:43] And if we're lucky, one will succeed. And we have no idea which one will succeed. But

[00:24:48] we're comfortable with that because we will learn as much from the four that have failed

[00:24:54] than from the one that has succeeded. Very few corporations, and particularly the large,

[00:24:59] well-established corporations are comfortable with this type of approach.

[00:25:04] People in a startup would be very happy with that.

[00:25:08] But don't you think that's interesting? Because if you think about resilience as being a

[00:25:11] process maybe where one would manage risk, take risks, take action, fail, bounce forward

[00:25:20] by learning from that error. In a sense, by removing that process from top boards,

[00:25:25] what we're doing is making our CXO panels much less resilient in a strange sort of way,

[00:25:32] which is odd because most organizations are trying to make the whole organization more agile,

[00:25:37] which is therefore being able to make mistakes and recover from them and learn.

[00:25:42] And I just wonder whether we strip learning out of CXO boards?

[00:25:48] Yes, well you have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who reaches

[00:25:54] CXO position in a large corporation. First of all, there's not many people who

[00:25:59] have the privilege of reaching that. And if you can just extend your tenure by one year,

[00:26:09] it's a lot of money on your bank account that is going to be used to send your kids to

[00:26:15] university, to buy a third house, to buy a bigger yacht, whatever. And so there's an

[00:26:22] implicit incentive to extend tenure. And very often, extending tenure means not making mistakes.

[00:26:30] Exactly. It's not about taking risks. I'm talking about calculated risks, of course.

[00:26:38] I'm not talking about taking stupid risks, but taking the safe-to-fail experiments.

[00:26:44] Insightful risks.

[00:26:46] Insightful risks, safe-to-fail experiments that teach you a lot about what works and what doesn't

[00:26:54] work. It's usually not very frequent in what I call incumbent corporations or legacy industries

[00:27:05] because that's not the way that people have been brought up. And so it's fully understandable.

[00:27:12] I see that as actually a challenge and an opportunity as we groom the next generation

[00:27:17] of leaders to get them reacquainted with risk because we all have it in us. If we didn't

[00:27:25] accept to fall on our face 10,000 times, we would never learn to walk. So we've all done it.

[00:27:35] As kids, kids are fearless. We experiment with everything. We stick our fingers in the wall

[00:27:42] sockets and we do all kinds of stupid things because that's how you develop yourself as a

[00:27:50] child by constantly pushing the boundaries. You push the boundaries that the parents

[00:27:57] set for you. You push the boundaries of what the world sets for you and you discover.

[00:28:01] And you obviously fall on your face more than once. And then at some point we stop.

[00:28:07] Most of us stop, not everyone, but most of us stop taking these risks and we say,

[00:28:13] you know what? I'm going to secure what I have. I have a nice little house with a

[00:28:18] nice little mortgage and a nice little car that's parked in the front and a nice little

[00:28:23] job. And I'm going to play for preservation. So I think there's an important discussion to

[00:28:37] be had with future leaders to say, okay, you know what? I understand, but how can you

[00:28:43] rekindle your appetite for risk without jeopardizing mindlessly what you have

[00:28:54] worked so hard to acquire? Can we have both? Can we have at the same time preserving a

[00:29:00] certain degree of safety that we all need and you need to continue belonging and feel

[00:29:05] that you're valued in the organization, but at the same time we give you a certain leeway

[00:29:09] to take risks and fail. And that surely is coming back to this sort of leader.

[00:29:14] And I don't know the word culture is out of fashion at the moment, but

[00:29:17] this is about leadership culture, isn't it? This is about saying often the prevailing

[00:29:22] culture of large organizations, large structures is to be hanging onto what they have rather

[00:29:26] than innovating. And so you'll find they'll acquire. So they'll go out and acquire an

[00:29:31] innovative branch or organization or firm or whatever it might be. And it's quite

[00:29:38] interesting as you bring an innovative organization into a large structure. And

[00:29:42] within a very short amount of time that innovative structure has vanished and it's

[00:29:47] just disappeared. And I just wonder how weak, especially at CXO level where people are often

[00:29:54] reporting to the press or external stakeholders, maybe to a board that's risk averse. It's how

[00:29:59] you build that strength of character, isn't it? To allow someone to come in and create a role

[00:30:05] that allows that team to function because actually without a great CEO, that team will

[00:30:12] not function well, I'm supposing. I mean, that's my view, but you may think about that

[00:30:17] I agree with you. I also believe that if we go back to what are the

[00:30:24] core capabilities that CEO must have, we talked about self-awareness, we talked about

[00:30:29] leading and building great teams. The third one in my view is the comfort with complexity,

[00:30:36] which again, and for very understandable reasons, a lot of senior executives

[00:30:45] don't have. And the reason for that is that we have an organization model today

[00:30:51] that is probably 150 years old, all the management processes that we have, whether it's

[00:30:58] budgeting, strategic planning, controlling the pyramidal org chart,

[00:31:06] different levels of authorization and the more senior you are, the more authorization,

[00:31:11] the more access to information you have. I mean, all that was probably a good model when you were

[00:31:20] manufacturing nails or steel in Scotland in 1850 because all of a sudden we had acquired massive

[00:31:30] amounts of production power because we were extracting oil and coal from the ground.

[00:31:34] And so we needed to scale productive capacity very, very quickly. And so we came up with all

[00:31:39] these models that essentially are siloed, different units of production. They don't need

[00:31:44] to talk to each other. The people at the top are the educated ones and the people at the

[00:31:49] bottom are blue collars who are not educated. And so we tell them what to do. They don't need

[00:31:54] the information. We tell them, we micromanage them, we put controls, standard operating

[00:31:59] procedures, budget, punishments, rewards, KPI and that. And guess what? Fast forward 150 years

[00:32:07] and we're still using the same bloody model. Right? As if we were running a steel mill in

[00:32:14] 1850 Scotland. It doesn't make any sense. Well, but it does make sense though, doesn't it?

[00:32:21] So there's two different things here that appeal to me. First of all,

[00:32:23] we've had different fads in leadership, haven't we? I remember we used to have the

[00:32:27] sort of charismatic leader. We used to have the sort of retailer who used to come and

[00:32:32] have the gift and used to become the CEO and drive the organization forward. And then

[00:32:37] that fell out of fashion. Then we had the engineers and the accountants as leaders,

[00:32:41] and that fell out of fashion. Now we have some people who've even tried HR people,

[00:32:45] and then that fell out of fashion. And we don't see that the CEO is a role in itself.

[00:32:51] And I think that's part of the problem, isn't it? Being a CEO is not about being an

[00:32:56] engineer anymore. It's about a unique role. And the thing is the organizational process

[00:33:01] has never changed. So command and control has never really changed. So the problem is you end

[00:33:06] up with a CXO that your organizational process makes you have. And that's the problem, isn't

[00:33:13] it? It's the idea that actually the company is a shareholding revenue generation process for a

[00:33:20] group of external investors. And you see different processes working in different

[00:33:24] organizational sizes and in different organizational contexts. You see much flattered

[00:33:29] different cultures, different command and control structures. But in order to get

[00:33:33] really, really big, you seem to have to go back to the old idea, the old fashioned idea.

[00:33:39] That's right. That's right. And there's a few challenges for senior leaders. Number one is

[00:33:47] we still need the command and control model in parts of the organization.

[00:33:50] Yeah, exactly.

[00:33:51] For example, when you run a fleet of airplanes or you run trains and you want your trains to

[00:33:59] run on time and safely, when you want your hospitals to run well and have surgeries that

[00:34:07] start on time, finish on time with an acceptable level of success, etc., you still need the

[00:34:15] engineering world. You cannot have the train conductors deciding when they're going to

[00:34:23] leave the station because it's in accordance with their values and their beliefs that

[00:34:28] they should stay another 10 minutes to have a heart-to-heart conversation with

[00:34:32] a colleague on the platform. No, the train departs at nine o'clock. That's it.

[00:34:36] So we still run. I mean, the world runs today still largely thanks to

[00:34:44] the engineering world and the command and control and tight processes that keep us safe.

[00:34:50] So the challenge comes from the fact that we need to have these two models coexisting,

[00:34:55] an engineering-based model that we invented 150 years ago. And then we need a much more fluid

[00:35:03] model, much more adapted to the knowledge economy where the people at the bottom of the pyramid

[00:35:09] probably have better degrees than the CEO or the C-suite. They're probably more educated.

[00:35:16] They probably know what's going on better than the guys who are six levels up in the hierarchy.

[00:35:22] And you need that information to flow. You need to delegate decision making to the

[00:35:28] level that is the closest to the action. And so it's almost a schizophrenic organization that

[00:35:34] you need to put in place where for certain activities, you need a rigid, robust, predictable

[00:35:42] organization that delivers with predictability, certainty, and certain levels of risk.

[00:35:47] And then in other parts of organization, for example, where you drive innovation,

[00:35:51] where you drive culture change, where you drive new markets, new products, et cetera,

[00:35:56] you need a completely different model. So that is very, very difficult, which is why

[00:36:03] even the best startups, for example, we start with a model that is completely distributed,

[00:36:09] neural network type. Everybody has access to the whole information. Everyone can make decisions,

[00:36:14] et cetera, as they become bigger. And a lot of the very well-known tech companies have

[00:36:19] reached that stage now where they've actually become fossilized and they have HR processes that

[00:36:25] tell you what your number of days of leave is going to be. And if you want to go on holiday,

[00:36:31] your manager has to sign it. They've reinvented the 1850 processes.

[00:36:38] So I believe a CEO and by extension any senior leader needs to develop

[00:36:46] comfort with complexity and the ability or the wisdom to distinguish between the parts of the

[00:36:54] organization that come from a technical mindset or require a technical engineering mindset

[00:37:03] and where you need predictability and certainty, and parts of the organization

[00:37:07] where you actually deal with complex adaptive challenges and where you need a completely

[00:37:15] different organization and connection between the people and decision-making processes that

[00:37:20] allow to capture all the potential of innovation and take risks, experiment, et cetera,

[00:37:27] which the traditional model is not going to let you do.

[00:37:31] Yeah, fascinating. So I was having all sorts of ideas during that. So I was quite

[00:37:37] interested in your concept of the schizophrenic organization and just having to think about that.

[00:37:43] And that's what we're talking about there is schizophrenia without trying to get lost in it,

[00:37:50] but it's sort of broadly about having people who are in different realities.

[00:37:56] I suppose it's what you're saying. I did a quick search on Amazon and there was no book

[00:38:00] written about it. So there you are, Fabrice. There's your new next book,

[00:38:04] the Schizophrenic Organization. If I had a dollar every time I've seen

[00:38:10] a schizophrenic organization, I would be a rich man because to a certain extent,

[00:38:15] every organization proclaims, look at the values, look at the annual reports,

[00:38:21] public statement about who we are and what we do and how we behave and what we believe in,

[00:38:26] which is negated on a daily basis when you go in the organization. So to a certain extent,

[00:38:38] there's a lot of organizations that proclaim we believe in teamwork. I mean, name me one

[00:38:47] organization that doesn't proclaim that they believe in teamwork. But after that,

[00:38:52] they organize themselves in silos with individual incentives. How are you going to have teamwork

[00:38:58] if at the most basic unit of performance, which is the team, it doesn't have to be the top team,

[00:39:04] it could be a team anywhere in the organization, people in that team have individual incentives.

[00:39:08] Yeah. So just one example, but you find that everywhere in the...

[00:39:14] But there are massive common lies right across corporate infrastructure. I mean,

[00:39:19] I always find things that work at organizations turn around engagement. Why do we have engagement?

[00:39:25] We have engagement so we can actually have leaders that generate more revenue out of someone

[00:39:31] than we need pay them for. And it's quite interesting when you start thinking about this,

[00:39:36] the role of the leader is to effectively create a... I'm not talking about socialist

[00:39:40] exploitation here, but it's to create a culture of exploitation where people work harder

[00:39:45] than they're paid for right across the organization from top to bottom. And part

[00:39:49] of what we do in organizations is we create these myth-filled statements, especially values. I mean,

[00:39:56] I can't remember the name of the consultancy, but there's court doing this just literally taking

[00:40:00] one company's name off and putting another company's name on the book. I think it was

[00:40:04] a mission statement actually, but mission, station and values have been a consultant stream

[00:40:07] for 25 years now. It's just hopeless. And I think there are very few organizations that

[00:40:12] actually talk honestly, genuinely honestly about actually what they're there for. And again,

[00:40:19] you see this in small organizations. You will say, I'm working with an organization that's

[00:40:23] pretty small at the moment and the guiding principle is we are the shareholders and your

[00:40:28] job's here. It's a come and make us rich. And there's no lies. I know you may not want

[00:40:36] to buy into that firm, but you'll be paid very well for buying into that firm because

[00:40:39] actually everyone's going to get rich in the process, but fundamentally that's the

[00:40:43] organizational purpose. And I know we can't run a massive multinational organization the way that

[00:40:50] you run a small firm. I'm quite aware of that, but it is quite interesting that we do spend

[00:40:55] a lot of our time in leadership just really spinning a narrative, spinning an illusion.

[00:41:01] And that's what I like when you talked earlier, when you talked about that self-awareness

[00:41:06] piece and people understanding the narratives they have for themselves, because I think the

[00:41:11] process of self-delusion starts there. Yes. So I'm an optimist and I see beauty

[00:41:21] and hope in a lot of parts of the corporate world. So I think the challenge comes from

[00:41:31] using just money as a benchmark, as a matrix. So if we say, look, our mission is to make

[00:41:38] shareholders rich, which has been the corporate lingo throughout the 80s and the 90s and the

[00:41:46] Jack Welsh and the Gordon Gekko and all that. That really never inspires anyone. If you say,

[00:41:56] our corporate purpose is to increase EBITDA, our mission is to win 10% market share.

[00:42:05] It's very lame. And suddenly no one in the organization really wakes up in the morning

[00:42:11] saying, yes, I'm going to get out of bed so that our sales can increase by 3 billion this

[00:42:18] year. So I agree with that. So what we do is create a corporate lie, don't we? We create

[00:42:23] a corporate narrative that hides the truth. So it doesn't have to be a lie. And that's the

[00:42:29] thing. I've spent my entire life in the corporate world and I have grown immensely

[00:42:39] from the moment I started work at 23 to today, largely because of the opportunities

[00:42:45] I've been given in the corporate world, opportunities to develop myself, to live in

[00:42:50] different countries, to learn different languages, to acquire some skills in leadership.

[00:42:57] So I think there's something else that we get that is not necessarily a monetary value.

[00:43:03] Money is kind of a hygiene. At the end of the day, a corporation that doesn't make money

[00:43:07] will not get to live another day and that doesn't serve anyone. So we need to ensure that

[00:43:14] the corporates make money because that gives them the rights to continue playing.

[00:43:20] But the game may not be the game of making money. Maybe the game is something else.

[00:43:24] The game is to give opportunities to your employees so that they can develop themselves.

[00:43:30] Maybe the game is to offer services and products to the customers that they really

[00:43:35] value and cannot find elsewhere. I often tell my story that one of the existential crisis I

[00:43:43] had when I was 40 years old is that I was working for a bank that was exactly the same

[00:43:50] as 100 other banks in that country. And I said, who would miss us if we didn't exist?

[00:43:55] Absolutely.

[00:43:56] And the answer is probably no one. And then I said, well, I don't want to do that.

[00:44:00] But a lot of organizations have unique products, services and can really

[00:44:08] offer something unique to their customers. So I think there's something much more

[00:44:12] than just monetary outcomes.

[00:44:17] And I'm being a devil's advocate, as I'm sure you can understand.

[00:44:20] And I've just looked at the clock and I've been enjoying our conversation so much.

[00:44:24] I've completely lost track of time. So do forgive me. And I need to be a little bit more

[00:44:31] respectful of your time. Look, it's been a fascinating conversation. How can people engage

[00:44:37] with you? How can they find out more? Tell us more about how people can reach out to you.

[00:44:44] OK, well, two ways. One on LinkedIn, people can follow me or connect with me.

[00:44:52] Second, if they want to go a little bit deeper, particularly in the inner journey of the self,

[00:44:58] my book, The Art of Retreats, is really a practical guide for leaders to embark on this

[00:45:09] inner journey and sharpen their leadership capabilities through practicing short periods

[00:45:19] of retreat. So that's probably the best way to connect with me.

[00:45:26] Tell me, if you've got three more minutes, just tell me a little bit more about the retreat work

[00:45:30] that you do. Because I'm a great fan of retreats and you are too. But a lot of people think,

[00:45:35] I haven't got time for that level of development. I'm too busy. I mean,

[00:45:41] we know ourselves too busy getting it wrong. But just give me the pitch for why people

[00:45:46] should consider a retreat. Certainly. Yes, you're right. We have this ideology of busyness.

[00:45:53] That's basically the modern day pandemic. We're all very busy. So going on retreat

[00:46:03] is really the antidote to busyness. So in a world where leaders are

[00:46:10] increasingly under pressure, available 24-7, facing complexity that we have not seen before,

[00:46:17] disconnecting for a while, and being able to take a different perspective on what is going

[00:46:25] on around you and also what's going on inside yourself is in my view, a critical leadership

[00:46:32] skill. So these retreats don't have to be three weeks in the Himalayas. And you know

[00:46:39] where you need to shave your head and wear saffron robes. These retreats can be simply one hour,

[00:46:48] two hours that you spend by yourself. You disconnect the devices because one of the

[00:46:55] greatest source of being mentally scattered is devices and notifications and interruptions

[00:47:03] and the amount of time we waste sometimes with them. So disconnect the devices,

[00:47:11] spend a little bit of time by yourself in a place that speaks to you, in a place that gets you

[00:47:17] in the right mood. And either you just sit there. And so for example, if you're on a

[00:47:26] beautiful beach, you just sit for an hour. You can also make a list of ideas that you have.

[00:47:34] You take a notebook with you. You do a little bit of journaling and the book is full of

[00:47:41] prompts for journaling on a whole range of topics. But really it's a time where you

[00:47:47] disconnect and slow down. And it allows you to see the world in 3D when you're so busy,

[00:47:56] responding and reacting. You really see only a two-dimensional world.

[00:48:01] So it's interesting, it's called the retreat because that has strange connotations, but

[00:48:04] it is actually more of a rejuvenate, isn't it? A process.

[00:48:10] Yeah, no, reconnecting, rejuvenating. You know, retreats have been used in all spiritual

[00:48:18] traditions since always. And so it's not that I'm reinventing something new,

[00:48:27] it's just I'm bringing back something that we've lost. We have lost the ability to slow down.

[00:48:35] Especially in the massive organizations. I think that's what you're talking about here though.

[00:48:39] I talk to very few people who are working at a level of those huge pan-galactic organizations.

[00:48:45] They are so different, aren't they, to the small organization.

[00:48:49] The complexity as an economy of scale is enormous. So the ability to have the awareness

[00:48:54] to have a retreat as a CXO is massive, isn't it? Even just that starting point,

[00:49:00] I think it's so important. It's true. I think it's

[00:49:03] challenging for everyone nowadays. We're bombarded with so much information,

[00:49:09] we're constantly connected to our devices. There's this ideology that, you know,

[00:49:16] we must be busy. If I'm not busy, I'm probably doing something wrong.

[00:49:20] At least in the Western world. In other parts of the world, if you're so busy,

[00:49:25] there is something wrong with you. But in the Western world, there's something wrong

[00:49:29] with you if you're not busy. So we grow up believing this. And so retreats is nothing new.

[00:49:38] It's been practiced for centuries and centuries. And what I'm proposing to my leaders is just take

[00:49:48] a little bit of time to reconnect with yourself and take some perspective.

[00:49:53] And there's a process to do that. And there's activities that you can do or lack of activities

[00:50:00] if you prefer to be on the more contemplative side of the retreat.

[00:50:05] And I do that with people like coach. So, you know, yesterday, just yesterday, I spent

[00:50:12] four hours with someone I'm working with to prepare the person to become a group CEO for

[00:50:21] a large corporation. And we went to a place that has nature around us and a different space,

[00:50:29] not in his office, not in his boardroom, you know, not in my office, certainly.

[00:50:34] So this is a mini retreat. And so I do that with teams, I take them to the beach,

[00:50:40] to the jungle, to, you know, it's really everyone benefits from that.

[00:50:46] Well, it's been a roller coaster. Thank you so much for spending time with us today.

[00:50:52] It's obviously have all the links to your work in our show notes. But it's been a joy talking.

[00:50:59] Thank you, Russell. I enjoyed it.

[00:51:04] Hi, everybody. I hope you found that episode useful and interesting.

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