Playing collective, a necessity today – Les Echos business – May 21, 2017

Should personal interests be erased from the general interest? Can we go beyond dividing lines to realize a project that makes sense, engages and creates a link? Can the antagonisms of yesterday prove to be vectors of renewal and innovation? Profound transformations, carried out in crisis contexts, by large governmental organizations, political as well as from the business community, are rich in teaching about how a leader composes and activates a collective efficient.

The main success factor lies in the capacity of the leaders of these organizations – especially number one, the first of them – to think and embody the “AND”: openness and demand, innovation and continuity, short and long-term, or even individual and collective success. Instead of opposing or competing, “collective leaders” give meaning, co-construct and shape a project in which they ensure that each of the parties interested in the project can earn more than lose.

When the balance could lean negatively, they call for the General and long-term interest to lift potential obstacles and oppositions. Because the role of a leader is not to satisfy everyone at the same moment, but to find the right balance in the gestures intended for one and the other over a given period. Above all, it is up to him to ask, when necessary, the arbitrations indispensable to the attainment of the shared objective, beyond projects and special interests.

 Leveraging diversity and competence 

Contrary to the images of Epinal, the first criterion of an effective collective is neither the homogeneity of its members (course, genre, diplomas, experiences, socio-professional categories, opinions) nor the apparent degree of harmony within it (“we are always agree “. “Decisions are quick, we have the same methods and training”). The most important is the knowledge of the leaders of the strengths and weaknesses in attendance. This allows them, in all humility, to recognize the talents and complementarity of the people who surround them without taking in the least shade of the world. These leaders know that the best solutions, the most relevant innovations and the most enduring growth, are born from the positive confrontation of each other’s views in the respect and the reciprocal requirement. This positive confrontation avoids the pitfalls sometimes so close to the so-called surface collective. 

 Set clear game rules

Common success is a bonus for individual successes and contributions. This is why the positive confrontation implies, for each of the members of the collective, as for its leader, to accept three common rules of the game. First, to take…▶ read more about the article  

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