A little bird that sings in the street and we hum with it. Take ! take ! take ! we play the mandolin… A Ray Ventura-like state of mind that continues by giving up your place with a smile on public transport. While drinking his morning coffee, we joke with the boss who gives the impression that a meteorite has hit him. The pissed off trenchcoat is allowed to board the elevator and even if the meeting room doesn’t empty in time, latecomers are offered an extra two minutes. We do not curse the hot drink quarter filled with an unsolicited soup taste, nor the authors of the report who forgot an essential part when the presentation is imminent. Zen by essence? Under painkillers? In reality, it is an attitude that could be defined in the soft skills department, by sub-chapters such as benevolence, kindness, attention. Pure altruism, perhaps. The “care” surely. “Taking care of others is taking care of yourself,” summarizes Anne-Véronique Herter, director of the R-Psy center – prevention of PSR and emergency psychological support at Crise-Up. The challenge involves all of us and begins by saying “hello” with a smile even if it’s going average, to his crimson manager in explosive mode.
4 out of 10 managers suffer from severe burnout
Building good relationships at work is indeed everyone’s business and not just the company, its charter of values, its manager and its shareholders. The world of work is filled with painful stories, conflicts, reasons to leave everything, so much so that managers today must practice a “benevolence” which each has its own definition. But employees are not exempt. Anne-Véronique Herter, author of Take care of yourself and others at work (Fauves Editions, 2023) has studied this question, which it summarizes with an attitude: humility. This is the first stage of transformation. “For the manager, stop setting the bar too high. We are never the best everywhere”. The advice also applies to those who are not in a position of hierarchy: 44% of managers are in psychological distress and 4 out of 10 are in severe burnoutrecalls the author.
Everyone is responsible for the atmosphere and the team and when there is a problem, we start by identifying the person in pain. Then get out of your comfort zone and talk to her, without judging her. If the conflict cannot be resolved because she takes refuge behind a definitive “everything is fine”, then you have to accept it, without getting offended. Humility, always. “You have to keep an eye on this colleague, manager or not, leave his door open by managing to tell him that he is not alone and that there are other people with whom he can talk”. Refer him to other human relays, such as HR, elected officials, a close colleague. The counterpart is tact: not feeding the rumor that is destructive. What’s the point of spreading? Do not be tempted by the famous “coffee break core” which can spread oil on the employee and manager side, forget the live crucifixion in the agora. Two last pieces of advice: “never judge the evocation of suffering. We don’t know the history of others, past traumas” and tell yourself that differences are at the heart of human relationships. “If no one ever complains about anything in a company, it’s a bit dodgy,” says Anne-Véronique Herter with humor.
The “care”
Care or “taking care” is the common thread developed in the book. Really putting people back at the heart of the company – Management through care co-written by Benoît Meyronin, Christophe Benavent and Marc Grassin (Vuibert, 2019): “it’s the concern for others, for the world, for its environment”. An approach which is based in particular on a principle adopted by certain companies: “happy employees make happy customers”. Care is not just sharing a table football in the company or adopting the “SBAM method” (smile-hello-goodbye-thank you). “The ethical idea of care is a morality that does not take into account the main principles but is defined locally and passes through the recognition of the other”, specifies Christophe Benavent, professor at Dauphine. In other words, “hello” should not be a simple injunction but, as Bertrand Collomb, member of the Institute (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) points out in the preface, “a useful complement to a truly human approach which privileges the gaze of the other and the gaze on the other”.