The Utopian Manager

The utopian manager

Intervention at “Utopia for our times”

(UniversitéCatholique de Louvain)

Laurent Ledoux – 30/09/16

I just come back from a wonderful trip, from Utopia, a country where organizations are run the entire workforce, with the support of a new breed of managers.

What essentially characterizes these managers, compared to those who are at the helm of most of our companies today, is that they “work upon themselves”.

By this I mean that they have spent, and continue to spend, a lot of time alone, crafting their souls, building their characters, connecting themselves to the rest of the world. Typically,

-they start the day reading some philosophy and taking care of their body by practicing yoga, Taï-chi or Chi-gong;

-they meditate several times during the day, sometimes only for a few seconds;

-they read some poetry every night before going to bed;

-they connect with nature at least once a day, by gardening or walking into nature in silence;

-they pay attention to what they eat, they avoid meat; they eat very slowly, able to masticate for minutes a grain of rice;

-three or four times a week, they exercise a sport, more for the beauty of mastering bodily moves than to win or breaking a record;

-at least once a week, they spend time crafting, with their hands, works of arts or playing a musical instrument;

-They also dedicate weekly a few hours playing and dialoguing with children at a school; they are adepts of the Socratic dialogues.

These regular practices help them to know and to appreciate themselves and others better.

They feel deeply that they are connected to others and the world. In fact, they experience that they are “one” with others and the world; they experience that there is no fundamental distinction between themselves and others, between themselves and what seems to surrounds them.

As a result, they are convinced that to be at the service of others is to be at their service. And they act accordingly.

This deep and almost “permanent work upon themselves” makes them adopt a way of being and managerial posture which is quite different from the one we see in most companies today, in our capitalist countries.

For example, they walk and move slowly, without rushing. They never seem to be under time pressure. They speak softly and bring calm in the groups. If they are men, they do not hide their feminine side, and vice versa.

Practically, their managerial posture is driven by a triple consciousness, what they call the 3 levels of consciousness: Human Dynamics Consciousness; Eco-systemic Consciousness and Evolutionary Purpose Consciousness.

Let me detail them briefly for you, illustrating them with typical practices of these utopian managers.

Conscious of human dynamics, they create work cultures in which the following principles are experienced by all colleagues:

1. Everybody experiences he/she is respected as intrinsically equal.

This may be experienced by the fact that all colleagues participate to the development of the strategy, understand it and feels the liberty to voice questions about it, to propose amendments to it. Typically, the hierarchies are loose; all colleagues can participate to the executive committee.

Managers are elected by their colleagues through Sociocratic decision processes. Practical experience, wisdom, humility and fairness are qualities that are highly valued.

Humility is exemplified by the fact that managers consider that they are at the service of their colleagues and act accordingly.

Fairness is exemplified by the fact that managers do get status perks; their remuneration is a multiple with maximum one digit of the lowest remuneration in the organization.

1. Everybody experiences his/her personal growth is an authentic objective for the organization, an end in itself, not a mean to ultimately make more profit.

Organizational growth is not an objective. The growth in talent, in self-deployment of each colleague is.

There are no fixed lists of trainings which colleagues could follow. Colleagues chose their trainings in function of their aspirations. Colleagues are invited to explore new ways to develop, to become “serial masters” in one field of activity after the other.

Beyond the minimal productivity which needs to be assured in order to cover costs and make a reasonable profit, great attention is given to the beauty of what is produced. Each colleague is allowed the time and means to “craft” what he does, to make a work of art out of it, whatever he does. The key performance indicator is the pride one feels of having produced or delivered a beautiful, elegant piece of work or service, internally or externally.

Managers in such organizations spend a lot of time preventing conflicts, protecting the less experienced and the weak. They foster triadic relationships where people do not just work on improving their bilateral relationships with others but genuinely try, in a benevolent way, to improve the relationships among all members of the teams.

They pay much attention to create the conditions for a good working atmosphere, both logistically and socially.

Managers tend to stay as much as possible in the background, allowing "things" to happen. They apply Lao-Tzu’s principle that the best leader is the one whose existence the group barely knows. But they also know how to intervene forcefully when necessary.

1. Everybody experiences he/she can self-direct, take initiatives autonomously.

Fundamentally, managers are not in a command-and-control style but in a coordinate-and-cultivate one. They do not allow rules which make colleagues feel as irresponsible children.

Managers support their colleagues to reach the objectives they have commonly defined. They ensure these objectives are meaningful, not only for the organization as a whole but for society and for each colleague.

Managers are masters in the arts of naming, in the art of speaking into darkness, in the art of courageous conversations.They ensure that the dominant language in the organization is “life is great” and not just “we are great”, or even worse, “I’m great” or “Life sucks”. To have “life is great” as a dominant motto means that the organization pursues a goal which is beneficial to society, that transcends competition with other organizations. For example, if the organization is active in the pharma sector, its employees will naturally rejoice at the news that a competitor might have discovered a new drug to cure from a particular disease, even if that company was also working on developing a drug for that disease.

Conscious of the eco-system in which they operate, these utopian managers create a work culture in which strategy, sourcing, production and distribution processes and resources management are inspired by nature.

This implies that they are masters at biomimicry; that they adopt a cradle-to-cradle approach (eliminating all waste); that they adopt different business models (selling less products of which people will be owner and selling instead services such as the lease of such products (e.g. Michelin starting to sell kilometers instead of tires)

They also make partnerships with local institutions, local suppliers. They not only respect their natural environment, but also the society in which they live and they try to contribute to the long term well-being of their activity. They are rooted in their environment.

Conscious of their purpose, and their need for purpose, they clarify it, internally and externally.

Their purpose is to contribute positively to society through their products and services. Profit is a mean to achieve this, not an end in itself. They therefore don't maximize it. They just make sure they generate an adequate return.

They adopt a governance model that makes this possible: they make sure their board includes stakeholders, and critical friends, other than shareholders. They bind themselves legally to pursue a purpose different than profit maximization by including a charter in their company statutes.

They ensure solidarity among their stakeholders such as those that have prevailed in merchant marine for centuries: in case people have to be laid off due to a crisis and their sacrifice allows afterwards a return to profitability, the people laid off receive a special compensation.

Having worked in different environment (public, private and not-for-profit), they understand the various mindsets of their different stakeholders.This increases their capacity to form alliances with actors with different interests and federate them to pursue their purpose, in benefit of the whole society.

Laurent Ledoux

CEO of EurActiv.com

or

+32 478 62 14 20