“Roadhouse blues”; what strategy and leadership can learn from 19th century Paris city planning

I once read a book called “The house I loved” by T. De Rosnay. Its primary storyline is that an old woman hides in her house and dies when the building is taken down. No worries, this is not a spoiler but a favor: it is a very badly written book and now you don’t have to read it anymore.

Sometimes though, inspiration comes in mysterious ways. In this case it was because of the reason in the novel for taking the house down in the first place, which is because of the renovation of Paris under prefect Georges-Eugène baron Haussmann. It is one of those things that you know happened but which never quite caught your attention in a real way.

A long story short, I was intrigued by this episode of Paris and started a search for a real book on the topic. What I found was the beautiful, inspiring, well-written, funny and genuinely entertaining ’Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris’ by authors Carmona and Carmiller.

Don’t let his surname fool you, Haussmann was a very French man, the German name points to his Alsace family origins. As prefect of the Seine he received a mandate from Napoleon III to ‘renovate’ Paris. A process which he took to with unbelievable zeal creating numerous boulevards (notably the twelve that converge in a star into the Place de l’Etoile with its Arc de Triomphe), a new water management system, a giant sewer system, new bridges, an underground channel running from the Avenue de la République to the Boulevard Bourdon, the new opera building amongst many other feats. In the process of this he destroyed (or renovated) an estimated 60% of medieval Paris and put tens of thousand of Parisians out of their homes. Speaking of collateral damage. His name remains in the exemplar of all Parisian boulevards, the Boulevard Haussmann (where, on number 102, lived Marcel Proust from 1906 through 1919).*

I tried to figure out what attracted me so much in the book, what it was that grabbed me in the story. It might be because of the singularity in thinking and focus. Napoleon III had, long before becoming king or emperor or even having a substantial chance of ever becoming these, had a dream of redesigning the capital of ‘his’ country. It is only luck that he found somebody with the same focus that had the skills to actually deliver this vision. I believe this is the key: Napoleon III has vision, and Haussmann starts to share this vision and puts his enormous delivery power towards it.

Big vision and strong delivery is a combination which you often see in politics or business, sometimes combined in one individual but more often than not in more than one. A Minister or CEO with a ‘dot on the horizon’ in combination with a secretary-general or business manager that is able to deliver. 

It reminded me of an interview with former Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer. In this interview, by Jeroen Smit of ‘De Prooi’ fame, he discusses leadership and points out to the dual task of on the hand formulating one or two ‘big goals’ and on the other hand overseeing (on a high level) the day to day operations and finances of a business. In his case the big goal was evident: he became CEO when the company was in trouble because of the so-called ‘reserves scandal’, his primary goal was damage control and restoring confidence in the company (markets and employees alike).

It is something to think about. Your time is limited, which I don’t mean in a fatalistic sense (although it is true in any sense you want to interpret it) but in a very practical one. Any role you are in during your life is limited in terms of time, CEO or Minister or business unit manager or team member alike. On all levels and in all stages of a career it is useful to formulate your One Big Topic (‘OBT’) for the role you are in or about to take on. And stick to it as long as you can.

Napoleon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann redesigned Paris by having an OBT, Royal Dutch Shell is back in shape because Jeroen van der Veer had an OBT, ABN AMRO arguably got in trouble because Rijkman Groenink kept switching his focus, Angela Merkel keeps pressing her OBT (the European fiscal union) and will undoubtedly prevail in the end.

If you don’t have an OBT you will be remembered for doing your operational duties, if you are remembered at all. If you keep switching your OBT during your tenure you will hardly accomplish anything because of a lack of focus.

* Trivia: Haussmann was buried at the same Pere Lachaise cemetery as the mentioned Marcel Proust and The Doors singer Jim Morrison – the architect of another ‘roadhouse blues’ if you wish.