“The role of a boss is to take anxiety and give energy. Often it’s the opposite, he passes on his anxiety to you and sucks your energy.” This harsh observation is not that of an employee on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but comes from Xavier Huillard, the current CEO of Vinci. Coming to deliver a management master class during the 70th anniversary conference of L’Express on October 18, the boss of the construction giant has only one course of action: start from the ground. “During Covid, we did not create 200-page instructions which detailed how to organize our construction sites, our port and airport concessions, we trusted the people on the ground, because they know much better than we who are a little far from the field.”
In one sentence, Xavier Huillard found the antidote to two styles of governance that poison our organizations: micromanagement, perceived as the first sign of a toxic work environment by 73% of employees (Monster survey August 2023), and the excess of procedures, a phenomenon which according to the philosopher Pierre-Olivier Monteil “multiplies the situations in which we find ourselves enlisted in soulless behaviors, which we carry out for the sole reason that they are obligatory and without always having the conviction that they are appropriate” (Ethics of ordinary practice, Pocket, 2021).
Christopher Guérin, general manager of the cable manufacturer Nexans, has his own way of simplifying processes: “govern rather than direct”. “Leading undoubtedly leads to multiplying the levels of top management, that is to say to distributing stripes, which makes the organization complex, not very agile, and cuts off the top of the ladder from its first rungs” (To move in the right direction, le Cherche Midi, 2023). The fifty-year-old thus made the decision to eliminate two hierarchical levels under the executive committee, pushing 40 leaders towards the exit: “The executive committee has never been so close to the field.”
If a minimum of rules are necessary to govern life in a company, too many are detrimental to action. Marine Balansard, general director of the consulting firm Ariseal, experienced this during her time in a large bank: “Just after the Kerviel affair, we were buried under an avalanche of standards and new procedures which ultimately prevented people from working. It was a response to the bank’s loss of confidence in its operators, but should management really send the message to all the teams that it no longer believed in them? I don’t believe it. “
Especially since a culture of trust is a performance booster within companies. As shown by the work carried out in 2016 by the American neuroscientist Paul Zak : “Compared to people working in companies with low trust, those who work in structures where it is high have 74% less stress and 13% fewer sick days, 106% less energy, 50% less productivity and 76% more engagement.” However, all of this implies rethinking the relationship with failure. And at the same time put an end to the third poison of management: psychological insecurity. “If you want to mobilize collective intelligence, you must first ensure emotional security for employees, that is to say, give them the feeling that they have a duty to experiment and therefore a right to make mistakes. “, argues Xavier Huillard.
Psychological insecurity is itself the source of a fourth scourge, rarely mentioned: the slippery manager, the anti-control freak. This one, although a very good technician, does not decide on anything, preferring to let situations deteriorate for fear of making a mistake. To the great dismay of his teams, who are disoriented. “These managers do not face the difficulties, wrongly thinking that they will not be sanctioned by their hierarchy”, describes Marine Balansard, who warns: “Not deciding is already a decision, which will have to be at some point or another.” The solution ? “Stop this French mania of appointing the best experts to managerial positions. There are many other ways to promote people. Management is a job in its own right.”