The book. In the reception room of the head office, on the platform, the CEO faces around fifty new employees. “With us, you are free. Truly. There is no hierarchy or bosses, you are your own boss. It is expressly forbidden to give orders. What do you want, I am a disciple of May 68, I have a horror of authority: I want people to have fun in my society! “ Gadama Inc. is not just any company: it presents itself as a faithful application of “participatory democracy”.
When offered to join the group as a philosopher, Thibaud Brière enthusiastically accepts. “Except that not everything went as planned. I was gradually convinced of the perversity of the management style that I was responsible for promoting, in the use that was made of it ”, reveals the author of Toxic Management (Robert Laffont). The book delivers a chilling testimony on the manipulation of conscience which is exercised today in the business world.
If the name is fictitious, Gadama Inc. actually exists. It is a company considered as a managerial benchmark, from which many others come to seek their inspiration. It is intended to be a foreshadowing of what the world of work will be tomorrow: in a network, between peers, not very hierarchical, participatory, underlines the one who joined it between 2012 and 2018.
The need for transparency
The corporate philosopher takes part in the meetings of the board of directors and the management committee, conducts training courses for technicians and managers and circulates in the brands of the various subsidiaries. Recruited to identify the values of the company, in order to then disseminate them and to establish a climate of confidence, he must in reality transmit orders under the guise of humanist values, make the members of the organization adhere to the particular doctrine of the CEO – “Like Amazon, Google and Apple have instituted the function of” chief evangelist officer “, which has the merit of clarity”.
During a welcome day for newcomers, the president and main shareholder, renamed “founding father”, insists on the total transparency that everyone must demonstrate, and concludes his speech by evoking the recruitment of a philosopher house, entirely free in his words, to which he passes the floor. “At the end of my intervention – moderate and cautious since I have just started – he expressly asks me to reserve from now on some of my most incisive criticisms for the meetings of the board of directors. ”
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