Hidden behind his screens, he builds plans. His N+1 has promised him a new position, provided that the N+2 changes grade and that he recruits N-1s at salaries that do not blow the budget. His last training gave him a certification and he worked on his annual interview. But it is not necessary that its office neighbor, in frontal competition, wins the fight because fragile is its upward construction. With her teeth scratching the floor and her triumphant air, the rival threatens him. This job, we deserve it. We gave everything for him, even forgetting family and friends. Damned, It was not enough. She took the rope on the last bend and clinched the grail. Difficult to get over it. In reality, it’s a slap in the face, nothing more. What if the manager had thought collectively? “Jean, Pierre, Paul and company. It was their only litany. Their Credo, their Confiteor Friends first”. In Oslo, far from Sète so loved by Brassens, Grégory Malherbe is CEO of Noratel, a nearly century-old company that manufactures electrical transformers. He has also made the team his Credo and, like in rugby, says he is “at the service” of the collective to make the match a success.
Lessons from Scandinavia
Success starts with a work-life balance. “In Norway, as an individual, it is first of all my life that counts. This is what will dictate my priorities even if obviously the work is important”, indicates this boss of 3,000 employees in the world. and around 60 in Norway. This translates into meetings that do not take place after 4 p.m., otherwise you will find yourself alone around the table. “In France, I never came home before 7 p.m. Today it’s 5 p.m. maximum. I’ve worked with around sixty nationalities, but the French make it a point of honor to leave later. We can however organize otherwise !”. With schedules that allow you to have a real life outside of work, the advantage is less stress, less tension between employees. Less cognitive overload too.
The second rule is a notion of hierarchy abolished. “We speak to each other as equals”. Gone is the ego for a good reason: “any decision can be a big mistake”. We are far from authority in mode: “I am the leader, I am right”. “I am at the service of the company”, asserts its leader who advocates consensus. Feedback more than welcome and for the most timid, he imagined an anonymized feedback system. Third necessity: train managers. For this CEO, “clumsiness is no excuse”. Neither does the bow to the alpha male. It comes back to the ego. “You have to know how to talk to your teams, professionalize the practices because otherwise, a lot of people suffer from it”. We are not born a leader, we become one. With a strong dose of benevolence, which has evolved at Grégory Malherbe into “invigorating compassion”: “the first responsibility of the manager is to guarantee the health and safety of the people working for him, which requires great compassion and rigorous discipline” . A natural or acquired quality stems from this: exemplarity, the “first duty” of the manager. With its sisters integrity and humility and its brother courage, these virtues allow “moral rigor in all circumstances” and, of course, accompany competence.
Team sport applied to business
The author of the book Management is a team sport. Managing better for sustainable collective performance (Gereso, 2023) recommends first identifying the corporate culture: “how to bring out collective performance, when recruitment, objectives and evaluation are essentially individual?” Once these biases have been addressed, a high performance team (HPE) can be considered, on the model of JR Katzenbach and DK Smith, The wisdom of teams (Harvard Business School Press, 1992). Grégory Malherbe adapted it. “The EHP protects the Sustainability of its ecosystem, optimizes the Performance of its business, encourages Ownership/apprOpriation, promotes Recognition for employees and the development of Talents” (SPORT). To generate its benefits, “an EHP must excel in its teamwork, its Ambition, its Expertise and its Means” (TEAM). How to start? By passing the ball. And by a team charter which will specify its composition, its mission, its SMART objectives (specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, time-bound) and its operating discipline. Go!