French Management

This week’s Economist is full of facts regarding “the French way of work” (Schumpeter, 19.11.11, www.economist.com).  BVA (a polling firm) says that two fifths of French employees actively dislike their firm’s top managers and that out of 10 countries surveyed France ranks last for workers’ opinion of company management. Separately, less than half of French staff consider that their managers help them reach their goals compared with two thirds worldwide. TNS Sofres (a market studies firm) showed that France is unique in that both middle management and the lower level workforce are “largely disengaged from their companies”. Further studies cite that contrary to popular myth both inside and outside France, French employees are far from lazy: there is a strong work ethic but the “problem” according to Schumpeter is that human resources are poorly managed.

The context of this problem is that French management practices might have to be improved if French firms are to remain competitive in the global market place. Schumpeter therefore goes on to describe French management and in reading the editorial I was reminded of a now old but evidently still very relevant article in the Harvard Business Review, “The Making of a French Manager” (1991, J.L. Barsoux and P. Lawrence, www.hbr.org). The key points that Schumpeter outlines are also detailed by these authors as the fundamental observations of what “makes” a French manager.

Here is a summary followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors”).

French Management

The authors set out to research what made French management successful (within the context of the early 1990s when France was being hailed as the “new Japan”); however they concluded that the French model produces a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. Here are their key points:

Management as an intellectual activity

The emphasis is on intellect rather than action: “the French do not share the Anglo-Saxon view of management as an interpersonally demanding exercise where plans have to be sold upward and downward”. Instead, managers must be clever: “they must be able to grasp complex issues, analyse problems, manipulate ideas and evaluate solutions”. The downside for this is that it is assumed that with their engineering background, French managers can usually solve anything “assuming they can detect the problem”. This is not always the case since “spotting problems is less to do with IQ than talking to people, asking the right questions, listening to answers and sometimes improvising.”

Leadership and Organisation

Centralised, rigid and highly hierarchical, the organisation is based on respect for authority. With very little accountability at the top, “there is a clear connection between the intellectual manager and the organisational centralisation. Senior executives believe they owe their high position to their intelligence and cunning.” By implication, all the “critical” decisions are made centrally, and those at the centre have to be informed of everything “so they can check other people’s decisions.” Compartmentalised, there is little in the way of decentralisation or “empowerment” of the lower ranks.

Grand Ecoles

Intellectual superiority is confirmed early in life: the French education system is referred to as “mathematical Darwinism – survival of the most numerate” with a heavy emphasis on the sciences leading to a supposedly (cf. Schumpeter) meritocratic system where the best students become engineers and end up with the best grades at the best schools. The problem with this “meritocracy” is that it leaves little room for meritocracy in the workplace since senior management and leadership positions are “secured” for the grand ecole graduates with self-replicating replacement strategies and old-school ties.

Career Development

Development is “inegalitarian” and more “a case of sponsorship than ability”. It is expected that grand ecole graduates will stay with the same firm for life: Michelin is cited as not recruiting persons for jobs but instead seeking “to fit the job to the person”. For the end of careers, similarly “ill-defined posts are set aside to accommodate burnt-out managers.” Career development therefore principally means “acculturation”: “being schooled in the thought, ways and folklore of the company.” Back to intelligence – if you are “clever enough” then it is otherwise considered that you can cope with anything. “Formal training is largely irrelevant, reserved primarily for the lower echelons.”

Et alors?

The authors conclude that the French model of management with its emphasis on intellect “serves research and strategy formulation well but is perhaps less well suited to flexible responses in fast paced industries where planning from the top can be cumbersome”. Noting all the above points, a further conclusion might be that that if your business is complex project engineering that requires a lot of detailed planning, then France is potentially the place to be; if however you want a business which is nimble, innovative, practical and flexible, then France is perhaps not the place to be!

Whilst this article and Schumpeter’s are similar they were both looking at French management through different lenses: in 1991 it was what can the world learn from France; twenty years later it is what can France learn from the world? Knowing that many Anglo-Saxon management theories simply do not work in the French culture (ref. any other article in this blog) and vice versa, then Schumpeter’s “problem” becomes highly nuanced. Do French management methods have to change? Possibly not! Even with low employee engagement and low work-satisfaction, an engineering-style management culture appears to be durable in France. Can French management methods be exported? Probably not! The same engineering-style management culture does not appear to be viable anywhere other than France.

The challenge therefore materialises for French companies operating internationally. Whilst French multinational companies might have exported their management methods twenty years ago, a multinational French company will today have to adapt its management methods to remain competitive globally!