Leadership in screwed-up times

Pr. Santiago Iniguez invited me to take part in an on-line conference today, the IE Virtual Summit "Paving the Way to Recovery". The panel also gathered Rory Simpson and Mark Hall. Here is the transcript of my answers to Santiago's questions.

Part I. The crisis and leadership

Santiago - Could you please share with us your thoughts and main experiences at work during the present crisis over the past weeks?

Mazars is active in 92 countries, with a strong presence in China and especially in Wuhan. Hence, we’ve been in crisis mode since 1 February. I’m part of the Group crisis management task force. We went through four interconnected phases: protect our people, ensure the continuity of our services on distance, secure the viability of our firm on the mid- and long-term, envision the aftermath. In parallel, we live by five guiding principles: hope for the best, plan for the worst, be responsible citizens, be present for our people. And stay home.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst and stay at home.

What are, from your work perspective, the analogies and the differences between the current crisis and 2008 or other previous crises.

Analogy: the search for efficiency is a fairy tale for cruise speed periods. What really matters for society, organizations and firms is resilience. Resilience is not just the ability to fight back, to cope with the situation. It’s your capacity to learn from crisis to transform yourself and fight better when the next crisis arises. Other things equal, Mazars had to deal with serious crises in the past five years and they have helped us be more resilient today.

Another commonality: states are not over, and we need brilliant people not to renounce to politics and public affairs.

Difference: 2008 was a financial crisis which eventually became systemic. The Covid-19 is a challenge to mankind, which, like 9/11, shows that everything in this world is not just about economy. 

It is often said that crises are the acid test of true leaders. What are the major features which, in your opinion, are required from leaders in the current circumstances?

The worst-case scenario is a leader in search of a crisis.

Crises, as Warren Bennis said, are crucibles, and they can reveal leaders. But the true test is for democracies and their ability to gather and promote superior teams of leaders combining expertise and decisiveness. It is also true in the corporate world; for instance, at Mazars, the CEO does not manage the crisis. A task force does it, and he stays in a critical decision-making position. Having a lone nut making isolated and irrational decisions with no superego is not the point. There is no worst thing in those moments than a Dr. Strangelove, whose sole objective is to prove that he is The Leader. 

Part II. The future of work

In many countries across the globe, many workers have been asked to stay at home for at least 15 days. This has fostered telework, virtual meetings and online interaction. How may this influence and anticipate the future of working relations?

There is a running joke at the moment: who leads your digital transformation? (a) The Chief Technology Officer (b) the CEO (c) The Covid-19. 

I can see a mix of 5 impacts for the future of work

-      The productivity of the knowledge worker will increasingly be envisaged under the one of the distant worker.

-      Companies will have experienced the appealing option of non-presence in an office, and it will echo the wish of people to work whenever and wherever they want. Time for smart work environments.

-      At the same time, the values “being together”, travelling, connecting for real might be higher than ever.

-      The “war for talent” and subsequent employer branding campaigns will be challenged by how employers behaved during the crisis.

-      People will seek back for stable jobs, performed for 4 days a week max, and combined with other activities. Slashing might finally become the next normal.

If I may suggest something more philosophical, the centrality of work in life and societies might be challenged too.

Following this crisis, what changes do you see in the work of the CEO and the members of the C-suite?

There is nothing so useless than doing efficiently what should not have been done (Peter Drucker)

I don’t know, we’ll see. What I know is that during crisis times, you need to respect counter-intuitive rules for leaders: (1) it’s not about centralizing leadership, it’s about empowering effective response teams (2) the commander in the field, not the rear echelon or the headquarters, is always right, unless proved otherwise (3) Care about people, don’t patronize them. When you give a phone call, it’s not to tell, it’s to ask and display empathy and comfort. But will these rules survive once the crisis is behind us? We’ll see.

Part III. Training, education and lifelong learning

What should be the training priorities at companies in the near future?

It really depends on your industry. If I stick to mine, the professional service firms, I would not insist on contents but on “meta-capabilities”.

-       First, anything that reinforces “cognitive skepticism”, the ability to think critically and build your own judgement

-       Second, curation. The increasing availability of contents makes the ability to navigate the bulk of existing material a primary capability for managers and their organizations.

-       Last, but it needs the first two: research, leading to thought leadership, in other words the ability to create knowledge, not to consume knowledge. 

How will the current crisis affect Globalization and the cross-border mobility of talent?

For better or worse, the Covid unites all humans under a same condition, more than any other crisis has. Speaking here in Europe, it’s probably an opportunity to reinforce the protective role of the European Union, likely not as it is today, and renew the European sentiment, which was forged against another enemy, nationalism leading to war.

There were already the seeds of a multipolar world in the air. Here we are.

Second, the welfare state will be back on the agenda, including for populists. And we will need well-educated leaders to work for the public good, not only for the private sector. This will inflect the curve for management schools.

What are your thoughts regarding the impact of online education in the future? 

There is a “bonanza effect”, of course. However, all signs in our organization show that people are very attached to getting together at one point, also. And again, the future of online education is about curation, not content.