My personal development in the next generation company
Workshop 9: What are the new relational and self-management skills in future adaptive enterprises? (Jean-François Vermont)
While the entrepreneurial world is changing at a rapid pace, led by a few pioneers of new forms of organization, collective intelligence and horizontality, the question of new relational skills that will be relevant in future adaptive enterprises is more relevant than ever.
The health crisis caused by the coronavirus makes it possible to think about these questions in a concrete, experimental context. This pandemic and the constraints it has imposed on the various organizations have made every cog and every member of a team essential. Everyone has been able to better grasp their own role, their place in the team or what constitutes the core activity of their organization.
But beyond this positive aspect, let’s be realistic: the biggest structures no longer have a choice, at the dawn of an economic crisis on an unprecedented scale. They will either have to adapt or disappear. The current organizations, which are too slow and not agile enough, may well not persist. This is demonstrated by the tens of billions already paid out by the states to come to the rescue of their national flagships.
Shouldn’t we be witnessing in this Covid-19 episode the end of purely hierarchical and “top down” organizations? It is a little early to say, but the forms of maintaining respective activities during the confinement period give us some indications of the agility that might be required from now on. The ability of companies to reinvent themselves will undoubtedly require the empowerment of all actors and stakeholders as well as increased interpersonal trust. These capabilities and values are precisely central during the period of confinement and recourse to remote working. In short, decentralization is today an essential quality for those who wish to adapt in real time. The example of hospitals and their management of the health crisis is significant in this respect: the response to the pandemic was managed from below. It was indeed the healthcare teams that had to improvise and adapt to resist the wave as well as possible. The result? The front lines made the right decisions, bypassing the traditional hierarchical model.
From this to predicting a future with shared governance for all companies? It is hard to imagine the approach being applied to very large structures whose cultures are not at all prepared for this kind of transition and functioning. However, in its principles, self-management does seem to have certain keys to adapting to any challenge: inclusion of all stakeholders, new mentalities, spaces conducive to dialogue and co-construction, etc.
