“The notion of manager needs to be revisited to be sustainable over the long term. He is no longer the one who decides, but he must be able to lead the collective to adhere to a common issue”declared Pascal Daloz, the general director of Dassault Systèmes, during the inauguration, on March 13, at the Paris-PSL School of Mines of the “Bauhaus of transitions”.
This research center has just been created to develop a new management culture adapted to current profound changes: in ecology, health, mobility, etc. “We are being hit hard, subjected to enormous transitions in all directions. How can we support leaders in managing the unknown? French engineering training is not at all prepared for this”underlined Denis Bonnet, vice-president of research and innovation at Thales.
What we are sure of is that we don’t know much. Contemporary transformations have awakened the Cassandras, who do not fail to mention the massive job losses to come, or the lack of visibility on the future of work. In spring 2023, Goldman Sachs announced hundreds of millions of jobs threatened by generative artificial intelligence. The prospects for employment development linked to climate change can also be alarmist and hazardous, given the number of mysteries surrounding the transformation of professions. How to move forward into the unknown?
During the period linked to Covid-19, companies applied uncertainty management which, for years, had proven its effectiveness in political or health crisis situations: crisis unit to manage the emergency, platform for eavesdropping, reduction in the number of hierarchical levels to shorten and accelerate the decision chain, reinforced network communication.
Create collective dynamics
Uncertainty management has been instrumental in maintaining activity during the pandemic, bringing the disruptive mode back into fashion and, with it, Joseph Schumpeter’s theories of creative destruction. But researchers now believe that, to move forward in the long term, the disruptive mode is no longer the appropriate response. The future of work needs preservation more than destruction.
They indeed wonder about the “preservative creation”. “What the world needs for tomorrow is really these two words”estimates Frédéric Arnoux, president of STIM, a company that supports large groups in terms of innovation strategies.
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