In teams as in chorus: singing with joy even when we make mistakes

«N’ayez pas peur de vous tromper, soyez à fond, prenez du plaisir… même si on se trompe l’important c’est d’être à fond ! Le public pardonne aux gens sympas, pas à ceux qui restent là paralysés sur scène.» ‘Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, give it all you’ve got, have fun… even if you make […]
The unanswered mail case

What is a liberated company? That’s the question I’m asking myself after leaving the company I founded ten years ago. I began by reviewing the different approaches to the liberated company. I felt it was superfluous and boring. Then I thought about the highlights of this adventure, the emotions I’d felt. Because that’s what it’s […]
The ‘left-wing manager syndrome’ or the denial of management

‘The worst bosses are the leftist bosses,’ said Arthur Brault-Moreau’s father. After a very difficult experience as a parliamentary assistant, he conducted a detailed investigation into what he calls ‘left-wing’ management. His book, ‘Le syndrome du patron de gauche, manuel d’anti-management’, tries to explain how apparently evolved bosses can practise toxic management for their subordinates. […]
Freedom and unconscious dynamics

How free can we be at work? Anabelle holds a very promising job in the online products department of a prestigious investment company in Paris. She’s been coming for monthly coaching sessions for the last few months because she’s struggling with some management issues within her team, and would like to explore how to […]
Is this really about me? Storytelling and survivor bias

Let us begin this post by telling you a story, to talk about a bias that relates precisely to storytelling, but also to talk about how the risk of a mechanical view of reality can lead us astray. During the Second World War, a group of researchers in Britain was faced with the problem of […]
Owning our part: from denial-based business to a regenerative economy

Article published on “Organizational and Social Dynamics” Abstract In this article, we explore a core set of organisational and social dynamics at work in the business world: the denial and disowning of the part we play in co-creating the world we live in; and the splitting needed to protect us from the guilt and shame […]
Let your intention be simple

These days I have the enormous privilege of co-facilitating a group with a formidable Jesuit priest. We jokingly tell each other that I am in charge of the psychosocial part and he is in charge of spirituality, but we actually form an integrated pair! The word intention comes from the Latin in tendere, to tend […]
Embodying both the good and the bad object in Regeneration

The societal and organisational shift that is required of us is unprecedented; it can no longer be about improving the current capitalist paradigm based on endless economic growth (even if we were to call it green growth, or sustainable growth), and has to stem from an innovation of the very paradigm through which we can […]
Women in a World of Men: The Transformation of Gender Dynamics through the Recovering of Identities

A few weeks ago, someone wrote to us on Linkedin saying that he had very much appreciated an article of ours, published in 2008 in Organisational & Social Dynamics. We went to pick it up and decided to republish it on the blog. Sure it has taken a few years and there have been many […]
Discerning in order to make a better choice

Today I had lunch with a friend, a company director, who complained that he had no choice but to accept a price cut imposed by one of his biggest customers. This will force him to outsource part of his business to low-cost countries. This is completely contrary to his values and to what he wants […]