L'entreprise libérée, ça marche ? (FR) - Jean-François Zobrist at FlowCon France 2019

[00:00:01] Well, then. Hello everyone, and to all of you too, while you're here. Uh, Dragos told me, 'You're giving a presentation on the company, management by trust.'
[00:00:16] Now, I'm going to show you something that you know very well in your respective companies, I think.
[00:00:21] It's all the people around the guy who feeds them, and who don't trust the guy who feeds them.
[00:00:27] And so the guy who feeds them doesn't trust them. Because we agree that all the guys around the hole, there's not one who brings back a penny.
[00:00:34] We agree, they're supposed to help the guy in the hole.
[00:00:38] But in fact, they have internal role-playing games that make them not even know there's a guy in the hole feeding them.
[00:00:43] You follow me so far? So, in fact, the definition he gave of management by trust is that of the liberated company. Now, the liberated company is not a utopia, there are 600 of them in France. And I know them all over the world. In France, there are about a hundred that I know particularly, for different reasons.
[00:01:01] Either because they are emulators, they are people who in the 90s came to see us and copied. They copied everything. Man is good, love of the customer, uh, there's no performance for happiness, etcetera, etcetera. Groups of 6,000 people who copied everything, it worked. Small companies. And then, nowadays, you have big things like Sodexo. 840,000 people. I know that approximately because I have a nephew who is partly in charge, a small part of the liberation of the entire Sodexo group in the world. And then the boss of Sodexo, Pierre Bellon, seven, eight years ago, in one page, said, 'We're going to liberate Sodexo.' And he took a slogan that we invented, in a small Picardy foundry, in the 80s. Namely that a happy employee makes 5 points of cash flow, an unhappy one makes 5 points of cash flow less. There are 10 points of cash flow sleeping there, said Pierre Bellon. And he stops the situation, the quotation there. The real quotation, it continues: there are 10 points of cash flow sleeping. And let's not forget that a clumsy foreman can make dozens of workers unhappy.
[00:02:10] A clumsy manager can make hundreds of employees unhappy. That's where the problem is. And the big problem of the company is there, today. It's that we have more indirect than direct, and the indirect are paid by the direct. Supposedly to help the direct, and we mess up the direct. They play their own role-playing games, which have nothing to do with productivity. So, I noticed, I've done about a thousand conferences since '90, since '90, the APM, the foundry syndicate, said, 'Hey, a small foundry that has half, a quarter of the work accidents, without structure, which makes 20-20% cash flow.' So it's always that that they put forward. The CNPF, uh, the Medef at the time, now, uh, all the circuits, the chambers of commerce, who make 20 to 25% cash flow in the automotive industry, where we lower our selling prices, without increasing them, having a ridiculous absenteeism rate, without unions, etcetera. That's what interested people, the 20-25% cash flow. And that's what destabilizes. So, that's not the goal, huh. Things need to be clear. I always fix this board, this panel, because it's what balances everything, huh. You see, in '47, it was a small company that, since '47, made 2-3% cash flow. And then in '83, we went up to 8%. In '84, we went up to 11%. And then after, for almost 25 years, it stabilized between 20 and 25%. Cash flow is not the goal of the company, it's the breathing.
[00:03:38] It's the means of sustainability. It's the means of duration, it's the breathing. Alright? So, uh, how did we put that in place? Well, there's one thing I noticed. All over the world, in Timisoara, I saw a company of 1500 employees, liberated. In Singapore, I saw two. In Mauritius, I've traveled the whole world with APM. The APM, for those who don't know, it's 9,000 bosses who go back to school one day a month around the world. And interveners like me. And systematically, all over the world, I saw two components of differentiation, always the same. What differentiates the liberated company from the classic company? Well, the classic company is in the 'how'. It dates back to Fayol and Mayo, 1915, two engineers. who said, 'We set an objective for the company, we divide an individual objective, and through procedures, operating modes, we determine how each individual position will achieve its objective, its objective.' And we sanction the gap that we control, which is between how it was done and how it should have been done. In the liberated company, we are in the 'why'. And that's the essential thing, that the essential message I gave to Isaac Getz when he wrote his first brilliant book, 'The Liberated Company' in 2005, and which he took up in his book, by the way, quoting me. That's the big difference, in the liberated company, everyone knows why.
[00:05:07] The worker knows why he's working at that pace. Because when the salesperson goes to purchasing, and from time to time I used to go because my salespeople told me it was good to go, because I didn't want to work. Well, I always took a machining worker and a founder. And when the buyer said, 'We have to lower prices by 30%. Or in Turkey. Which means nothing. We never touched 30%. We never saw 30%. I translated into French, saying, 'Well, you have to make 17 pieces, at most per hour.' And there, the dialogue starts, you realize, sir, 17, 17 pieces, etcetera, etcetera. And generally, I used to tell the operators, the workers, 'We're not going to work to lose money, if it's not possible, we don't take it.' But they always took it because they knew it represented 20 jobs at home. And it's the workers who explained to their buddies when they came back that they had to make 547 pieces an hour at all costs because the other jerk was going to Turkey, he didn't care that there were 20 families living off that in Picardy. So all the workers know why they work at that pace. They know why they work those hours. Because I've seen that many times. A hunter friend says to his friend, 'You can't do three weeks in the afternoon, I'll do the morning.' It's them who determine which team they go into. He knows why he works on that machine, he knows it's that machine. Because he participated in the purchases, in the purchasing attitude. And at our place, it's the workers who go to receive the machines in Japan, in Germany, in Italy. Because we start from the principle that someone who works 7 hours a day on a machine knows better than any ergonomist if that button is there, there or there. He knows the why of everything, the worker.
[00:06:41] And the 'how' he is free. He adjusts his machine. He controls his own production. Who knows better the dimensions that change than the guy who makes 4500 pieces per hour? It's not quality at our place. At our place, everything is self-controlled, there is no control of self-control.
[00:06:57] Because most companies pretend to do self-control, but there's shipping control. As soon as there's shipping control, it means we don't trust. The commercial at our place.
[00:07:09] When I arrived in '83, there was Michel who was selling.
[00:07:13] There was Antoine who was doing the ranges. So there were already tensions because Michel wanted the price in one week, the other did it in 15 days. After that, there was Jean-Luc who was a project manager. Then there was Jacques in purchasing.
[00:07:24] So all these people worked with bonuses, objectives, meetings, stuff, well. And there's one thing I learned from a certain Sojichiba in Japan. He says when there's a problem, you don't have to manage it, you have to eliminate it.
[00:07:38] So very quickly, I brought all four of them together and said, 'Why don't you exchange knowledge among yourselves, so that in a few months, we'll have four sales representatives who can prospect, who can do the ranges, who can choose the machines, who can choose the right machines, who can buy, who can choose the suppliers, who can do everything?'
[00:07:52] And who bustled. So very quickly, they put their offices in the middle of the machines, they were responsible for their own production. So the salesperson, as soon as he was with the client, he often took a worker with him, by the way. Because they said, 'You see this part here, we turn it at 450 an hour. This part here, we would have to turn it at 460, can we or can't we?' That is to say that he validates with the production staff if we can do it. And in his head, he can imagine the flow, what supplier, what he can imagine everything in his head, without paper, without paperwork, without anything at all. So he knows the 'why' of everything, and he is totally free of the 'how'.
[00:08:30] Very quickly, I'm going to explain, we removed the bonuses, the objectives.
[00:08:34] It's an idiocy, it's an advance on the structure, huh. That's the first difference. The first difference is the company we learn about in school, even today, we're still stuck with Fayol and Mayo in our big schools, huh.
[00:08:44] The company is how. The 'how' is dictated by people who have never done it, or had an internship. And trained by people who themselves have never done it. This thing is surreal. We are in the 'why'. And the 'how', it's those who do it, because it's the one who does it who knows, says Kawakita. Kawakita says it's the one who does it who knows. Alright? It's always been that way, huh. In the Middle Ages, the master carpenter, he didn't study, huh, he proved what he knew how to do. The second difference is that the liberated company is in the management of the uncertain, the classic company is in the management of the certain.
[00:09:19] Management, through men, by men, for men. Two things: you can't cheat with men. Secondly, all men are different. So what we do in Brittany cannot be done in Alsace, nor what we do in Marseille. And Isaac agrees with me on this: we don't accompany anyone, we don't know how to accompany, that's a job I don't do. But I start from the principle that you can't accompany.
[00:09:40] We can propose a path, and the path will lead each company where it needs to go. I'll get to that. So we have the management of the uncertain because the world is uncertain, because the world has always been uncertain. Because since the dawn of time, a hailstorm will compromise a year's work for a winegrower or a farmer. Because the most exact science you can imagine, there is a science. which has 554 ground stations, 10 satellites, computers that do millions of calculations per week, which permanently monitor, day and night, precise things. Atmospheric pressures, temperatures. Not predictions from great specialists who calculate oil at $160, you'll see $200, and they'll find themselves at $40.
[00:10:22] You follow me? It's called the weather. The weather and all these means do not guarantee anything beyond 48 hours, and they regularly make mistakes in their forecasts. Take the same day, two different weather forecasts, you'll see. With the same means, we can't. So, we don't make forecasts, we don't make budgets. We don't make budgets a year in advance! We don't know what the weather will be like tomorrow. A business plan for 10 years! Ridiculous!
[00:10:48] For us, it's every day, more and better, for my internal or external client. In my village, for my children.
[00:10:54] Originally, it was for my children. Then we added 'in respect of the earth, our children', it was fashionable. Every day, we're in the present. And you, you're in management, numbers, by the numbers, all the numbers are wrong, we can make the numbers say what we want.
[00:11:07] The unemployment figures sometimes we count the DOmTOM, we don't count them. I looked, I had proved, just by changing the distribution of fixed costs and variable charges on machines, we can change the rate of a machine by 50% compared to another. Huh. So, you are in the management of numbers. of the certain, when you know that the world is uncertain. You invent certainties. We make business plans for 10 years.
[00:11:32] Today, we have something to do, we can't, it's not in the business plan.
[00:11:36] We make a budget. Oh, we can't, we don't have a budget line. But do you realize? So that was created in the glorious thirty years, where the structure was put in place. What were the glorious thirty years? I had to go to war. I went to Smithers as an officer in the nuclear warheads, powder, nuclear warheads, or the Jones. I don't make war. And starting from the enameled basin, I used my energy to mount the washing machine in the bathroom, it's the bathroom. all that surrounds it, the washing machine, the laundry, the dishes, the television, that's it. And that created an incredible Africa. And the parasites arrived, Parasitos, who live at the expense of others. HR. who consider man as a resource. Man is the ultimate goal. HR means to make happy. It's an apiarist, as they say in Quebec, it's nice as a formula. Because there's no performance in happiness. And the management controllers.
[00:12:27] Marketing, marketing. Think about the others, I didn't understand what that mess was. Design at the market price at Sojichiba. I know. Look at Sojishiba, design at the market price. We listen to the market, we're in the present. And we react immediately. Metaction, Jean-Christian Fauvet, problem, immediate action. It's reptilian, without thinking. Which will generate an action, a reflection, then an immediate action, and an imperfect action, an imperfect action, we'll get there. Kawakita, Kawakita who tells you.
[00:12:54] No problem, but a unique and perfect solution. The perfect solution to a problem is the sum of the imperfect solutions put in place by the one who does it. Because it's the one who does it who knows.
[00:13:06] So here are the big differences there are. How, why, management of the uncertain, management of the certain. So how did we put that in place? With Isaac Getz, we've had a relationship of friendship and more than that since 2004, when he wrote his first books. We realized that there is always a liberating leader. That's a term he invented.
[00:13:26] This liberating leader, man or woman, has spent their entire career in the company.
[00:13:31] Either because he is the owner, or because, like me, he felt good there. I spent 42 active years, plus 5 years as an active administrator, for a group, one person, then his son, then his grandson.
[00:13:42] And so this guy still leaves his mark on it, well, the classic combination in classic companies where the boss changes every 5 years, it doesn't work. Every 5 years, the guy, to prove that he knows something, he changes everything.
[00:13:54] However, in a company, when you have your specific equilibrium, like in a couple. In a couple, we get used to each other for two or three years, and then when we've found the right positions, we don't change anymore. It's the same here, you shouldn't change anymore. You shouldn't change every 5 years. Because the team we found in Picardy is not what we'll find in Alsace, or what we'll find elsewhere. Alright? So what's my background? I am a metallurgist, a metallurgist, a metallurgist. The only thing I did was, out of curiosity, in the 60s, at CNAM, evening classes, I followed a training course in OST, Scientific Organization of Work. And there we were in the middle of Taylor, Fayol, Mayo. Pardon. But the professor always said at the end of the class, 'Young people, never forget that behind machines there are men, and it's the machines that are at the disposal of men, and not the other way around.' After, in '68, I remember precisely because it's my daughter's date of birth.
[00:14:48] I accidentally discover that Japan is the second world power.
[00:14:52] A country that received 600,000 tons of bombs on its head, including two atomic bombs. Devastated industry, no raw materials, second world power behind the United States.
[00:15:04] Unconsciously, I put a watch, unconsciously.
[00:15:07] And then I learn Kaizen. Kaizen plus Judo. I have a judo friend who was crazy about Japanese things. And I said, 'What does that mean?' Well, Kai is progress, performance. Zen is happiness, well-being.
[00:15:20] Performance for happiness. Not by control. And then I listen to Shiba already, Sojishiba. Because very quickly, I organized a trip to Japan in '75 for the founders. And there I understand three things that most bosses have never understood.
[00:15:36] In Japan, there are no figures, no numbers.
[00:15:40] We always talk about a number of good pieces per hour paid. We don't care about the price of the piece. We don't care about the price per hour, it's wrong. When I go from 100 to 110, I've progressed.
[00:15:50] In Japan, we never talk about spending less, doing less. Doing less is not reptilian. Reptilian is to do more. Eat, eat. Have more wheat. Never make cheaper wheat. I'm the first generation that wasn't hungry. My mother was 14 in '40. She was hungry for 4 years. And always more. Huh. And then there are the Japanese tools. And I understand that Japanese tools are tools of autonomy. SMED is for the worker. 5S is for the worker. TPM is for the worker. We translated 'quality control' as 'control'.
[00:16:21] The last Soviet country in the world, says Ryx. The only Soviet country that succeeded. But until when, says Ryx. Cerex is a very nice formula, 20 years ago he already said, 'France is a thoroughbred ridden by an obese jockey who thinks he's the horse.' He understood everything.
[00:16:38] We translated 'quality control' as 'control by quality', but all 'control' in American.
[00:16:43] It's to master. To control is to check. It's the mastery through quality. And I understand that, that's why very quickly, we sent our workers to Japan. Every year, we send 30 workers to Japan. It's them, but not tourist trips, it's done by a pro-consultant. A guy I knew in the 80s, Lippmann, uh, it's organized, it's about understanding a tool, TPM, then we look at how the Japanese do TPM. And then I had a friend who had a large factory in Alsace, he had liberated it, he did the same thing with the workers, with the same accompanist, the same factories, but not at the same time. And then the Alsatians would see what the Picards had seen, and the Picards would see what, because a Picard doesn't know, etcetera. You see? That's what I understand. That's my background, Shiba and Jean-Christian Fauvet. It was in the 80s, in the same way, there was the AFPI, the professional training association for the metallurgical and mining industries. The foundry. I hear something about Jean-Christian Fauvet. Sociodynamic. Metaction. I go there, I go three times in a row. And Fauvet befriends me, which means that afterwards he came to audit us. Like Shiba, he came to audit us regularly and advise us. Huh. So that's my background. I started working in '65. As a metallurgist.
[00:17:57] In a new activity, a new factory that was created by a genius after the war, who created a group, the Plum group, 30 companies, 12,000 employees in the long term. He judged men and not their ideas. He judged me at 21, he was 51, I was free my whole life.
[00:18:14] Sometimes I did things without asking him, by the way. What you're doing, that's a stupid idea, damn it! It's a stupid idea because, because, because.
[00:18:23] Now you're on the field, if you believe in it, do it. So that's also a characteristic of the liberating leader, he has no ego, he is free, he is intuitive, but he is free.
[00:18:35] So I join this group to create this metallurgy laboratory. So all of that, I've detailed it, I've written four books, but there's one that summarizes the whole story and especially that has very beautiful stories of workers that I lived throughout my life, very, very beautiful workers. It's called 'A Little Naive and Lazy Boss'. And Dragos has the file, I gave it to him. Ask him for the file, he'll send it to you. Read it diagonally because it's very rich in very, very beautiful stories of workers. I lived it in 47 years of career. In '70, we bought a company, a foundry, Favi, because it was for sale.
[00:19:08] And from '70 to '83, I was 25.
[00:19:11] I'm going to, I'm going twice a month to develop alloys, to do my job as a metallurgist.
[00:19:17] And I became friends with four kids who were my age, 25, who would end up as foundry managers, or salespeople, or in the design office, and responsible for accounting.
[00:19:26] And the boss at the time was a good man, who had a big window in his office, who never went down into the factory. Everything was done from his window. Alright? Uh, and he liked meetings. Monday morning meeting. To reassure themselves, because the problem with bosses is that often on Saturday and Sunday, they haven't had any sign of allegiance.
[00:19:45] So on Monday morning, they're not sure they still have the biggest one.
[00:19:49] So the meeting is like that, report, report, report. Who has the biggest one? It's you, Mr. Director. There you go.
[00:19:57] Don't laugh, it's true, huh.
[00:20:00] And then, they had the same problems, without ever solving them, because they wouldn't have anything left to say the following week, well. And while they were discussing like that in their meeting with lots of dashboards. But no cash flow.
[00:20:10] Cash flow is the temperature of the company. If you make more than 10% cash flow in the automotive industry, it means you don't have a temperature. When you're 37, you don't know why you're in good health. No, we don't take the temperature, they follow the dashboard everywhere. They had fun. And during that time, I went to talk with the workers. Because I'm a talker. Which means that from '70 to '83, I knew all the workers, their machines, their first names. And I'm a manual person, I still have eight motorcycles, but I built two flying machines, building a motorcycle is a thing, building, especially I built a flying boat with plans from 1933 and wood from Castorama. Uh, I'm still a handyman, anyway. Who has the biggest dick? It's you, Mr. Director. There you go.
[00:19:56] Don't laugh, it's true. And then, they know the same problems without ever solving them, because they would have nothing left to say the next time. And while they were discussing like that in their meeting, with lots of dashboards. But no cash flow.
[00:20:09] Cash flow is the temperature in the company. If you don't make more than 10% cash flow in the automotive industry, it means you don't have a temperature. When you have 37, you don't know why you're in good health. No, we don't take the temperature. Once, the rats, dashboards everywhere, you know. That amuses me. And during that time, I went to talk to the workers, because I'm a chatterbox. So from 70 to 83, I knew all the workers, their machines, their first names. I'm manual, I still have eight motorbikes, but I built two flying machines, I built a motorbike, it's a thing. Especially, I built a 'pou du ciel' with plans from 1933 and plywood. Actually, I'm still a good handyman, you know. So I knew their machines intimately.
[00:20:50] In 83, the boss of the company decided to leave. And my boss, well you'll read that in the book too because it's Homeric, one morning he calls me, 'What are you doing?' 'Nothing special.' He takes me in his helicopter, he drops me off on site, he gathers the factory, and says 'the new director is him,' and he leaves. Without asking my opinion. Anyway. For the record, three weeks later he calls me, he says 'Can we eat?' Well I say 'no.' The instruction is: 'you stay.' 'You make money, you don't go to prison.'
[00:21:17] So, 'you don't go to prison', that boss taught me, like all directors, to respect all laws without understanding. It's not your job. Go further than the law, pay more taxes than necessary, you'll look like an idiot but they'll leave you alone. And that's what I've done all my life. Huh, it's paying more taxes than necessary. Every four years they caught me for a blunder. And during that time, I had fake documents. Uh, evaluation interviews, I always refused to do that. So we did fake documents. Roll my chick.
[00:21:46] So, in March, he shows up, I send all my executives to Fové training, and I send certain executives who were starting to see Lippman, who was starting to do that, talk about TPM, which I didn't know, I had been to Japan before, to learn how to use Japanese tools. In August, I close the window, I brick it up, I don't use it. I delete the reserved parking spaces where it says 'customer'. And then, I had, I had also understood Matsushita who said 'the West will lose' because it addresses the hands of the employees. We will win because it addresses their heart and their brain. And unconsciously, I don't know, I'm waiting. How could I do it? The entrance to the staff was brown, dark, because if the guys put their feet on the wall, it doesn't show. I paint it in yellow. And when the painter told me that, I said, 'I want it to show when we put our feet on the wall.' I'm going to put a lot of neon lights, so that people arrive tanned when they leave. Uh, and then the urinals weren't great, I'm going to have them made in marble. The plumber tells me, 'We're not going to put that because if we lean on it, it's going to fall.' I say, 'I want it to fall if we lean on it.' It's my way of marking the thing that addresses their heart and their brain.
[00:22:51] First executive meeting. So they were expecting it, my buddies. Out of 80 people, I had 40 workers making parts and 40 in the structure. Line managers, things, stuff, foremen, anyway. And I tell them, 'This is the last meeting.' I will never have another meeting. I will tour the factory every day. Uh, and I forbid you from holding meetings. You will only hold meetings when there is a problem. And I demand that the meeting lasts as long as you haven't put an action in place.
[00:23:20] It's not about saying 'we're going to move a machine,' no, no. You move the machine, right away. Okay? And I tell the accountant, 'You drop the dashboards. You give me a statement of operations every month, I want the cash flow, on the 20th of the following month, not before. I prefer the accounts to be accurate on the 20th than fake on the 5th.' Okay? And we're in the factory. And what Kawakita said happened. Kawakita said, 'If you want to make your troops cross a river, don't build a bridge, start by making them dream about the beauty of the other bank.' When everyone dreams, don't build a bridge, you will arrive where you want to arrive. The problem with change is that we don't know where we're going to arrive. You initiate it and leave some chances to chance. Go out! And chance will create circumstances that are like stepping stones. And it's only when you're on the first one that you'll see the second one. And from stone to stone, you'll arrive where you must arrive. That's why the circumstances are specific to your company. And that's what I did unconsciously, because when I turned around in the factory, the first circumstance was Marie-Hélène. I see a young mother who arrived late because her little girl had a fever and she was waiting for the doctor. She tells me, 'I'm going to be sanctioned.' So I go into the offices. I see Martine who was in charge of that, I say 'Martine, Marie-Hélène...' 'Oh yes, it's the second time, we're going to fire her for a quarter of an hour.' I say 'Stop, stop, stop.'
[00:24:34] We sanction a mother who arrives late? Because you think people deliberately arrive late, do you? But Mr. Ford said there's only one worker in a thousand who's not serious. All the rest is my fault, it's because I put in place a system that allows good workers not to be serious. And I go down, I take a case, you gather the factory. Everyone is at dispatch. I go up on a pallet, I say 'Do you realize?' We sanction a mother who arrives late because she has a sick child? But your schedule, I don't give a damn, damn it! If you don't have work, leave an hour earlier. And I tell the interviewers, 'Fire the clocks, the time clocks, the alarms, it's all nonsense.' Mr. Ford invented that to educate peasants. Because a peasant doesn't have a precise notion of time. Okay? And then I tell the crowd, 'But wait, you're not paid for for, you're paid for the love of the client.' Not for a schedule. If the customer likes the parts you make, he will give his money. And we can stay in the village for our children, that's the goal. And then I held it for three hours, I said, 'You shouldn't like someone who delivers late.' At the time, everyone had stock. Someone who delivered 15 days late was a good supplier. I say, 'Monday is not Tuesday, it's factual.' If we don't respect the deadline, we can't say we're doing quality, because quality, when you see the part, you don't know if it's good. And then we decide, I make them vote, intelligently. I don't make them vote 'who is for', I make them vote 'who is against'. Huh? On the fact that from now on, we will never be late again.
[00:25:58] We'll work on the weekend if necessary. And in the same breath, I say, at the time there was 6 to 10% inflation. You can't like someone who raises their selling prices. And if we don't raise our selling prices, one day we'll be the cheapest on the market. And I, and I talk to them about Japanese tools. I talk to them about SMED. I say, 'Over there in Japan.' Workers take two hours to change production. Where professional setters take a day and a half, that's what we did at home. It's like in competition, we change a car wheel in 5 seconds. Where it takes you half an hour. Huh? And we decide that we will never raise selling prices again since that date. We never raised selling prices again. That was the first. So there, I started to decline, saying, 'This is an ephemeral success.' But I say, 'Wait, I need to find a motto,' because all regimes have a motto. And I find 'equal for the client'. I go to the design office. I tell the guy from the design office, 'Wait, make me a logo with 'equal for the client', and then 'equal for the client', 'ready for the client'.' Equal. And you put the butt of quality. So they made me the foundry ladle, and then at the cost of studies, the processing cam, so the laurels were yellow at the time, gilded.
[00:27:02] Then after the eco-friendly fashion, we manage it ourselves. Because all foundries, all foundries, we work 100% with recycled materials. It's all in the butt. And then after that was a guy from the design office, because very quickly I said, 'The goal of the company is to last like the tree.' The tree only serves to last. The tallest tree in the forest doesn't know it's the tallest. So I changed the exit of the parking lot so that we would go around a tree. Then it's a guy from the design office who told me that. He said, 'Here, we're going to do that so they understand well.' Uh, wait, I'm looking for the drawing there, it's there. There you go. And we posted it everywhere. There you go. If the customer loves us, he will give his money to last in his life. So, as long as you talk about time,
[00:27:39] you can't talk about the client.
[00:27:42] Second stepping stone. Éliane. October. Éliane, I still see her on her machine, you know. How long have you been making these parts? 'Three years, sir.'
[00:27:53] And for three years, you haven't talked to the machine, you haven't checked your parts? Oh yes. Well, you don't do it. But the line manager, the foreman, wait, wait, wait, that's my problem.
[00:28:03] Do you know how to do it? Yes.
[00:28:06] Do you want to do it? Oh yes, I'd be happy to. There were six of them. I brought all six of them. And all six tell me the same thing, tell me the same thing. And there I tell myself if I leave the shipping control, the guys from shipping will do everything to block the parts to prove that my nonsense doesn't work. And I tell them, 'What if I remove the shipping control for your parts?' And they tell me, 'Trust me.' Now, that's a basic rule. When you trust, go all the way. Otherwise, it doesn't work. And I tour the factory for two days. And I ask everyone. And 80% tell me, 'Yeah, I want to, yeah, I can do it.' Then 15% tell me, 'I know how to do it, but I'm not sure.' I take two people, instead of their godparents.
[00:28:48] You are the ones who control these parts, and you are the ones who train this one when he's ready to be autonomous. Then the 5% who told me 'I don't want to,' well I said 'the controller will pass,' and little by little they changed. What happened is that in the factory tour, before, there was the controller-adjuster who passed every two hours. He took a quarter of an hour each time. And they tell me, 'But why do we check every two hours, it never goes out of tolerance limits?'
[00:29:11] Well, check every four hours.
[00:29:13] Why do we check every four hours, it never goes out?
[00:29:16] I didn't understand. Well, I said, 'Check after the shift.'
[00:29:20] And then I realized afterwards that the controller-adjuster, to justify his place, didn't put himself on nominal. Unconsciously, instinct of conservation, he put himself there so that it came out. The workers, a worker told me one day, 'You know, Mr. Zavrice, when I stop to have a coffee, it's because I'm annoyed.' It's not when it goes fast. I like it when it goes fast. It's when it doesn't go the way I want. Well, he put himself on nominal. We never had a bad part again. Huh? So there, I reflected, the cash flow started to take off. Already with the cost of hours, the cash flow had taken off.
[00:29:54] Because we gained half an hour of working time. Because before, the workers arrived 20 minutes before, before clocking in. They talked about football images. Then they clocked in. Then they changed. Then they left at 6:30. After that, they were 20 minutes before on the machine, talking about football images, then they left at 6:00. So and they were happy. Huh? The cash flow started to rise. A cash flow that was at 3-4%, it started to go to 4%, we checked every month. Huh? And there, when we start to control, the cash flow starts to take off. But seriously, I don't understand. It's Taguchi's loss law. Taguchi says the cost grows like the square of the distance to the nominal. When you are nominal, you are at minimum cost. That's the tolerance limit, okay? When you deviate, the cost grows, the parts are good, but the cost grows like the square of the distance to the nominal, and he demonstrates it with Gauss curves, and I demonstrate it. If it amuses you, you go to Savie.com, Fichuti, I rewrote it in Judeo-Christian Picard, 100 tools of quality.
[00:30:51] Because quality tools were translated by engineers for engineers, it's incomprehensible. Okay? And I also demonstrate Taguchi's law of loss. That the cost grows like the square of the distance, a simple example, no, I'm not going to say it, there are too many women. I was going to say that even a woman can understand. No, it's for, I can't be misogynistic.
[00:31:10] I can't be misogynistic, I have two daughters and four granddaughters. Fortunately I have two sons-in-law.
[00:31:19] Uh, the cost and so the cash flow, the cash flow takes off. The cost grows like the square of the. So, what did I realize afterwards? The whole structure doesn't put itself on nominal. The structure is paid to manage dysfunctions. Unconsciously, it doesn't put itself too far from the tolerance limit so that it comes out. If you had more corrective actions, a follow-up plan for corrective actions, what is the structure for? Third stepping stone. I discover in October, there are four stones, I assure you. I discover in October that there is a heat premium in the foundry. Heat premium! I gather the factory, I go up on a pallet, it's not because we give money that it's less hot. And we talk all afternoon. And we decide to a certain extent that everyone had 20-25% premium each month. Premiums for presence, for things, for stuff, for objectives, etc. We agree that everyone, for two years, has been there for two years, even me, we put it in the salary, there will never be any premium again. Then we agree that, it lasted all afternoon, we agree that we will make the difference between the good worker, the good engineer and the bad one, by giving 0% increase to one and 10 or 15% to the other, and 0 to the other as long as he hasn't changed or left. And we agree at the end of the day to make a premium strictly equal, as long as we have three years of seniority, just to prove that we have all contributed to the system, without any hierarchical or seniority consideration. Which will be based on cash flow. And I'll explain what cash flow is. It's the GWP and the tax revenue. So you can't cheat with that.
[00:32:47] With that, very quickly the workers had 18, 19 months of salary. And I, I put my pride in it, it was my only premium, I had the same premium as a worker. On that, the rates went up by 20 to 30%.
[00:32:58] The very next day. My executive friends, we didn't understand. We said, 'Damn, we put the premiums in the salary.'
[00:33:04] And it lasts. And it was only after three weeks that there were some ladies who were gathered for the after-snack, and there was Mrs. Noël who was not far from retirement, I like people who are not far from retirement, they feel free. I tell Mrs. Noël, 'I don't understand. In the offices we don't understand. You had up to 25% premium, we put it in the salary, the rates went up everywhere.' She says, 'Yes, sir.' There is a gesture that is from the day to pass. I read it, then I listen to Mrs. Noël, I don't understand what that means. Yes, sir, it's less tiring to do this than to do that.
[00:33:35] Well, you didn't do it before? She tells me, 'But sir, think about it. If we had done that, we would never have had a premium.' I say, 'I don't understand.' She tells me, 'Come see.' She takes me to the machine, she says, 'Look at the counter, sir.' They're behind the machines. We're not allowed to go behind the machines. We had to count the parts. It's easy to say like that, but when we stop to change the skip, we had to not forget the count, there were times when we forgot to count, we put the machine in breakdown to make sure not to exceed. It adapts to people's stupidity. Their physiological gesture of less fatigue was 30% to 20% higher than the forced gesture they had. When you make 20 to 30% cash flow, or 20% more, the cash flow explodes, huh? That's when we got to 25% without investment, without anything. Fourth and last stepping stone. In March, we came back to an enormous affair, you'll read that in 'The beautiful story of the forks' in the book I gave to Dragos.
[00:34:27] This affair, which started at 50 days, 100 days, 200 days, and went up to 8000 days, meant that in one year we had doubled our turnover.
[00:34:35] And not to touch the existing. That's the interest of meta-action and immediate action. We invented a process 20 years ahead of ISO. We didn't do a process, it's not to touch the existing. As the existing was working well, the existing was collapsing, the cost, machining, etc., with, well. We ask him to put the machines in line, to put the foundry costs in line. I put a telex in the middle of the machines, before there was only one telex in the factory, which was in a small service called the commercial action service, which took three days to send orders. I put the telex, put the machines. We choose 30 volunteers, men and women, who are well-regulated, only volunteers, well-regulated and well-controlled. On D-day, I tell them, 'Here are the orders.' So we had removed the shipping service in the meantime, we had removed the 'carif', it was the workers themselves who loaded the trucks, that's important. When workers load trucks, it's out of the question for a truck to leave not full. When the workers put the truck on dispatch, they deal with it, the guys. You have to go all the way. And I told them, 'Here are the orders.' 'Here's the truck, deal with it.' I didn't say 'deal with it.' I tend to say 'figure it out.' 'Figure it out' is a management term for me.
[00:35:48] Uh, you have a, you have a text that I adore, which is there.
[00:35:53] The good prince is the one who, by suppressing constraints and exclusions. Constraints and exclusions, that damn structure, that's what it does. Huh? Allows each existing, existing, existing in his to flourish at his own will. We don't make people happy against their will. It's at his will, you have to put in place the conditions for happiness. Huh? To act without acting, which is not doing nothing at all. It's a form of laissez-faire to make sure that things happen by themselves. That's 'figure it out'.
[00:36:20] 'Figure it out' is to let it happen so that things. And I told them, 'Figure it out.' If Peugeot loves us, it was for Peugeot. We called it the mini-factory Peugeot. We are the kings of oil. If Peugeot doesn't like us, we're dead, for all we've invested. The very next morning, I said, 'Yeah, that's good, but it would be good if someone coordinated, and then we discussed with us, Bernard would agree.' An old agricultural worker. Well, I said, 'Okay, we'll call him the leader.' And as he gives me this idea of the leader, I had the idea of taking Jean-Luc, who was one of my sales reps who did everything.
[00:36:51] I tell Jean-Luc, 'You drop everything, you only deal with Peugeot, you take your office, you move it near the machines.' And I create this duo, but it happened like that, I mean, without reflection. It happened with, I like this friction, this expression. The Picards, they do 'read, read'. They do 'their, their'. They do 'going, going', they say. Doing as we go. There you go, we do as we go. We do, we do, we do. We do, it's Fové's meta-action, doing as we go, doing 'read, read'. I like that formula, it's very practical. Huh? So, we create the mini-factory with the leader and the sales representative. The lead time, which was 10 to 12 days on the other side. Lead time is the time between when I unload the ingot and when I load the final parts. There in six months, by doing nothing at all! They did it on the weekend, at night, I don't know. Oh, Mr. Zavris, we'd put a small counter there, we'd gain 5 parts an hour, it costs 50000 francs, in three weeks we'd amortize it. That's it.
[00:37:49] The lead time went from 12 days to one day.
[00:37:54] So the lean, the agility and company. It's simple.
[00:37:58] You put the computer in the middle of the machines. You tell the productive, 'Here are the orders, here's the truck, figure it out.' You go through the structure to multiply to modify the structure. The structure is dead on its brakes, your tricks can't work. The lead time, which was 10 to 12 days, on the other side. Lead time is the time that passes between when I unload the ingot and when I load the final parts. In 6 months, through actions of nothing at all, whether they do it on the weekend, at night, I don't know. Oh no, but in your factory, we'd put a gulotte there, we'd gain five parts per hour, it costs 5000 francs, in 3 weeks we'd amortize it. There you go. The lead time went from 12 days to one day.
[00:37:54] So, Lean, agility... Come on. It's simple. You put the computer in place of the machines. You are productive, here are the commands, here is the truck, manage yourselves. You go through the structure to modify the structure. The structure is standing on the brakes, it can't work, your tricks. All the... all the... every time it's like a conference. Before me or after me, there are people who give conferences on Lean or agility. It's anything, your thing!
[00:38:22] It's anything, you shake your intellect!
[00:38:25] You pass through the structure to modify the structure. It's standing on the brakes, the structure. I mean, it's the instinct of conservation, don't forget it, don't forget this one, for crying out loud. Lean is very simple. The computer controls the machines. Let them... train the workers, train the workers. Let the workers be autonomous without training them, it's just as lazy, it's like saying to the Venus of Milo, you can put a finger in your nose. Give them the means to do it, for crying out loud! So what do we do with the structure? Well, it's very simple, there's a large part that has left. I have adjusters who wouldn't admit that workers could do 2 hours of what they did in a day and a half. They went elsewhere. And I put that in the design office. In the design office, I stored it in 3x8.
[00:39:05] Since '83, I explained to the technicians and engineers that it's through our brains that we're going to win, it's our brains that need to be put into 3x8.
[00:39:13] When it's hot, they go into 3x8. Three shifts on the same machine, the same project, but that kills creativity. Then when it calms down, they switch to 2x8. But that's their problem, it's all self-managed. Right? I put them in there. And then, the 14 conversions I had... Well, I had an adjuster who spoke Italian. But he became a salesman for Fiat. We trained him. It's not a problem. We only trained him for Italy, when you do a CAP, they teach you customs laws for the whole world, here it's just customs laws for Italy, that's all, it works very well.
[00:39:42] You follow my reasoning, right? So very quickly, what did I do afterwards? Well, I stripped it down, I made a mini-factory for water meters. I made a mini-factory, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Then we ended up with 14 mini-factories like that. And then, what did we achieve very quickly? Very quickly, we had two departments. Because quality, then I had a quality agent in each mini-factory, a maintenance agent.
[00:40:01] Quality became culture. You know, quality wasn't about foolish indicators to deal with, you know. So I eliminated them, I spread them out in the mini-factories. So 14 mini-factories, each one attached. So after that, very quickly, because we played with Shiba's matrices. Shiba, I told you I'd send a little book about it to Dragos. Shiba, he did the conception at the cost of the market, just by playing. We, we grew up in water meters. This company was created in '47 to make sanitary ware. Siphon, washbasin. Then I had a temporary that made water meters. Then we went into automotive, and by playing with Shiba's matrices, we saw the breakthroughs. The electric motor. We, who came from washbasin siphons, but because we had a damn culture in our design office, you know, we expanded. We made the prototypes and preferred the motors of the Tesla. Then we invented a resin that kills bacteria.
[00:40:52] Because a doctor told me, 'I perform open heart surgery, Betadine lasts three quarters of an hour, and mine lasts six hours.' An algae that kills bacteria. And then an algae that kills salmonella. Just by playing with Shiba's matrices.
[00:41:05] So, that also amazes people. They're like, 'Wait, coming from automotive, how can you go into electricity? It's not the same culture.' Well, we expanded. Afterwards, what do we have? Out of 650 people, we have 8 administrative people, 8 accountants, and an IT specialist who don't have much to do. Because at his place, there's no shift work, there's just an increase. We don't do overtime. When someone works 8 hours, they recover. When they owe 8 hours, they come on a Saturday. They manage among themselves, it's not managed. We don't even manage inventory, inventory management. There's always some idiot who lost a thousand bolts. 'Oh, lost a thousand bolts! They stole a thousand bolts!'
[00:41:37] I know the first time he came, he told me, "They stole a thousand bolts!" "They stole the nuts otherwise!" "What the hell are you doing with bolts on bolts?" So we do a physical stock every month, it takes 2 hours, it's done. They don't have much to do in accounting. And so we made emulations all over the world like that. So, you can see, it worked like that for 30 years. You've seen the results there. Again, the cash flow for me is...
[00:42:02] If you're not a leader, make things happen in your space of freedom. You have a space of freedom. You can't convince with words. You can only convince with the results of your actions. Uh, there's, years ago, a young engineer from, uh, Pierre Alexandre, from Michelin calls me. He told me, I read your books, I read the books of, by the way. The Eastern countries. All my books, I'm going to do it again, often I'm going to Russia to do Moscow again and then Ukraine. I've never been to Ukraine, I have confidence in Ukraine. Where they come from, they have such an appetite for it, you can't imagine. My books were translated into Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Bulgarian. You can't imagine the appetite they have for this type of company at home. It's something incredible. So, and each time, what, what, how does it materialize? By cash flow or by something that increases very strongly. The Michelin kid, he tells me, "I'm trying to move the lines, I can't." I said, "What do you do?" "Head of line." What is it? I have 30 workers, I make tires. I put you in a space of freedom. Confirm it to him. Go for what you believe. Things will happen. Eight months later, he calls me, 'Yeah, you were right, very quickly we made 20, 30% more tires.' It took six months to get back up. Because the structure blocks information. That happens to everyone, that idiot who does things like that without investment. Okay? And without structure. It still went up. And then the boss comes down, which proves he never came down. He says, "You drop it, you go to the steering committee, you generalize." He says, "Now the boss would like to meet you, with 150 executives." I couldn't come for four months. Four months later I go there, he says, "You know, you know, it's changed." There was a Michelin boss who came, a shareholder, we showed him the pilot site and the others, he told me, "You drop it, you go to the national level, and you generalize it worldwide." Three years later, I go to Shanghai, and as usual, Michelin, Decathlon, etcetera, for a conference, and I ask the Michelin people, "How do you know me?" "Pierre Alexandre." You see? In other words, don't despair. Don't be convinced by words. Do what you believe is right, good, and in the right direction, in your space of freedom. It's the result of what you do that will prove that. Okay? So, also in the little texts that I like, because it's very good, it's not that it guided me, but, uh... There, it's de Gaulle. I'm not a Gaullist, when someone is dead, they're dead. To this poor world that deserves to be managed. Managed, managed, damn it! Management comes from 'ménager' (to manage/handle with care). Management comes from 'ménager' and the Italian 'manipuler' (to manipulate). To say 'manipuler', the Italians, when it's an object, they say 'manipolare'. When they are individuals, it's 'magnaria'. It's manipulated by managing.
[00:44:34] In this poor world that deserves to be managed, you have to advance step by step, stop the strategies! The good strategy is not to have a strategy, but it is a strategy! Step by step, and at each step, we say, what can I do? Look at the circumstances, at each step. Right? In this poor world that deserves to be managed, I speak step by step, according to the circumstances, for crying out loud! We don't do, often I give conferences.
[00:44:55] So when it takes a whole day, I show a film. There's a remarkable film that I recommend, a journalist from FFR3, who spent a year in the company. It's called "Question de Confiance" (Question of Trust), Favi. You'll see the film, right?
[00:45:06] It's often when I give conferences, I show the film and then I go around and ask people, 'What would you like to start with?' Oh, as early as Monday, remove the punch card! No!
[00:45:16] Wait for the circumstances! Or you create them, you wait for them, you hide. If you ever have the chance to have a mother who's late and gets sanctioned, or a guy who broke down and gets sanctioned, you jump on it, you make the higher-ups scared. But there, in this poor world that deserves to be managed. You have to advance step by step, proceed according to the circumstances, and respect people. Why do some have a parking space and not others? That's not respectful. Why is coffee free in offices and not in factories? Why are the toilets nicer in offices than in factories? Why, why, you know? Never forget who feeds you: it's the workers who feed the bosses.
[00:45:52] You mustn't forget that. Imagine a factory of bosses. It wouldn't have much value.
[00:45:58] No, don't laugh. We've completely gone off track. Don't forget that we're talking about a billion every day. The strength of the liberated company, the 20-25% cash flow, is a margin of maneuver. In 2008, there was an enormous crisis in the automotive industry. All my colleagues went into the red. We had 14% cash flow. If it had lasted 5 years, half of the automotive suppliers would have gone under in Europe. We were fine. It can't last a billion every day. It's imperative that companies, even, there are 25 pilot sites of EDF that cover the French territory. I spent a day with them, they are enthusiastic rebels who are moving all the lines. Why? Because EDF will be sold by apartment, because Europe will impose on countries that they no longer have the monopoly of energy. If they go to Bouygues, they'll have to bust their ass, guys, huh. And that's why they're going towards the liberated company with the complicity of the general management. We're going backwards in France, huh? Oh, Jacques's advantage, retirement at 55. We'll take a billion every day to keep doing that.
[00:46:56] And it's the same in our companies. What companies have to bear as a burden today, it's pretty bad, guys. I don't care, I was born at the right time, I was supposed to go to war, and I didn't. I'm the first one who didn't go to war. And I'll die before ecology and the economy of shit. So, deal with it. I'm leaving you a world where, for the first time, no one is ready to die for their country. That's a major step forward. I'm the last idiot who was ready to die. I was educated to bash Cossacks. From the age of 17, every Sunday morning I went to see the military to do my military service, then after 15 days blocked to become a non-commissioned officer, and then after I had to become an officer. I was going to bash Cossacks. Okay? I'm facing a generation that leaves no threat of global war to its children. You know, that's that's a achievement. Even in North Korea, there's no idiot who's willing to die for their country anymore, I'm convinced. I mean, it's a colossal advance in history. I don't know, there are people who died for Hitler or for the king or for the queen, it's anything, that stuff. You see, this colossal advance. On the other hand, economically, we have an extraordinary country called China. Who wages an extremely intelligent economic war. I go to Madagascar and I provoke people in Madagascar, I tell them, "The Chinese are robbing you!" But sir, the Chinese, you give billions to our leaders. They give us crumbs. They build hospitals with Chinese workers, so they build the hospitals. They train doctors at home, so we have doctors. In return, they take our uranium. We do nothing. They're waging a fabulous economic war. We're not doing it.
[00:48:27] So make it go up in your stuff, the bankers, the bankers, ah, they're really screwed there because of negative rates. Damn, negative rates, we hadn't foreseen that. Those who make business plans didn't foresee the thing, huh. Good. Uh, uh. So, the liberated company is not just a trend. It's surely a way for many companies to survive in the long term. And again, I don't care, I don't give advice, I don't sell my books, I give them away. I don't give advice, and I'll die before it gets messy, a priori. Okay? Do you have any questions, you bunch of fools?
[00:49:04] Oh, I forgot.
[00:49:07] So, and good. Briefly, I skipped the essential. The rules of coherence at our place, is that we have a shared dream, like in the village. We have two limit values, like in a couple, in religions. In a couple, there are two limit values: trust, fidelity, respect for the other. It's a kind of limit, and then we separate. Uh, Catholics, love your neighbor as yourself, do not do to others. The Jews, the Jews are the same, Isaac told me. Uh, the Muslims, it's there's only one God, his name is Allah, and respect for tradition, the five prayers. Us, it's man is good. So all control papers, trash. The customer's love. Any paper that isn't a customer, trash. You know, it's our limit values. It also works for layoffs. One day, I had a quality agent with a bachelor's + 3 who told me, "Oh, I'm not available to the workers." I tried to convince him, but I couldn't at the end of half an hour. And I said, 'Well, I'm imposing a training on you.' It's not a sanction. 'And I'm giving you a 10% raise to follow your training properly.' Do as I say. Your training is to spend six months on the machine to learn what a worker does, because you're bad, and the love of the customer, your customer is the worker, so if you're not available to the worker, you're not within the limits. I won't go there. Notice of dismissal outside. Boom. The limits, they must be real limits, huh? I did that one day for bankers, and a banker told me, 'You dismissed a guy who said that?'
[00:50:11] I said, "When you're cuckolded, you don't do anything?"
[00:50:14] So there you go, that's our coherence, it's in the values. You'll have it in the book later, huh. The values of use, the car or not the car. There's only one worker, each month there's a jury of workers who judge the best action of a worker. We don't have an idea box, our workers' ideas are judged by engineers. We are a workers' jury that judges a worker's action. Okay? And each month, each year, there's a worker who gets a car. That's the car, not the others. There's one who has a car, it's not everyone who has his, okay. I'll stop, I have two more minutes. Good. And so. Then there are all the values, you'll see that in the book. That's my mail. Again, I have nothing to sell, I don't want to do, I don't do assistance. If by chance you want to continue exchanging, well, we'll exchange. I'll never tell you what to do, I don't know. I'll tell you what I do, what I would do. Now you deal with it. Any quick questions?
[00:51:03] No, yes, it's rare that I have questions, but generally it surprises people so much that... What? Yes, but wait.
[00:51:12] Or you speak too loud, but wait.
[00:51:14] Yeah, thanks for the talk. You talked about Sodexo at the beginning. What did they do to free up at Sodexo?
[00:51:21] Well, for now, I know my nephew is doing a colossal job in his small domain. He, he is an IT specialist's nephew. He has to find the backbone of all the programs that can serve a Japanese as well as an African, etcetera, etcetera. They started this process. I only know that for now, but it's ongoing, it's started, huh. Well, there was an official document from Bellon, 5-6 years ago, certifying that they had started and that they were using this formula.
[00:51:44] That's what I know.
[00:51:46] Thank you.
[00:51:53] But an intelligent question, huh? But not the kind of question like, "It can't work because..."
[00:51:57] No, no, no. No, no, I think it's great, it's, well, as an approach and everything. We are trying to move towards that, but we are still far. No. On the other hand, I have a question that has always intrigued me about the liberated company, and I would like a concrete example, if you experienced it in your company. What happens, for example, when there is a conflict between I have never had a conflict, when you don't have a structure, you don't have a conflict, the conflict is the executives. No, no, but wait, the workers can't hear each other, for example. There can be two individuals, for example.
[00:52:26] Wait, wait.
[00:52:32] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[00:52:33] How, how do they solve that?
[00:52:35] That's the card of egos.
[00:52:38] Okay. At our place, we do that in the company. You have our values. You have the clients who are in the middle. And here's our link. Our link is not hierarchical, it's Homo, it's McGregor, it's it's Fauvet, it's it's cultural. I've never had a conflict, the workers resolve their conflicts among themselves, I don't know anything about it, I've never seen it. Because an engineer...
[00:52:55] Okay, but then a disagreement in that case. A disagreement on how we do things. Imagine there are two workers who don't agree. How, finally, do you have examples?
[00:53:01] It never happened, damn it, what do you want me to tell you?
[00:53:06] Okay.
[00:53:08] Wait, when the boss does his factory tour every day, you defuse a lot of things. I'll give you an example. One day I was doing my factory tour, and there was Liliane, I said, 'Hello Liliane, how are you?' And I felt something was wrong. And I asked, "What's happening to you?" Oh, I'm not a thief!" Then all her friends arrive, "Yeah, she's not a thief." "What's happening to you?" And actually Liliane, she had her accounts at L'Écureuil, I think, and she was going to get married. And she asks L'Écureuil if she can get a loan, a worker's loan, you know. And she tells me, 'I don't understand, I'm banned from the Bank of France, and I only withdrew 2000 francs at the time, and they tell me I have an overdraft of 4000 francs.' I call the boss of the savings bank there. I ask, "What's this mess?" Oh yes, but it's not me, sir, but we changed boss and he said that we couldn't. I said, "It's not me, the idiot." She calls me, I say, 'Wait, do you know Mr. Bome?' She says, 'Pardon?' I say, 'Do you know Mr. Bome, the regional director?' I said, 'He's a close friend of mine.' What you did there is a shame. We never go back on a collaborator's decision. You had promised this lady an overdraft, and because what happened is that by making overdrafts, it's inconceivable to do that. You re-establish the accounts immediately. If you don't do that, it goes up in mayonnaise in the factory, and it ends in class struggle. The boss, I could give you ten examples of things I defused nicely like that, because I was walking around the factory.
[00:54:25] Okay, so it's you, in fact, when there's this kind of blockage, there's still someone who But why do you imagine something? You see, but you're in the classic, you're looking for the, you're looking for the flaw so that the mess doesn't work.
[00:54:36] But no, not at all!
[00:54:37] Yes, come on, stop.
[00:54:38] I'm trying to figure out how to solve this kind of thing.
[00:54:40] No, no. Wait, I never imagine what could happen. Okay? I never imagine what could happen.
[00:54:49] Well, I manage it as I go, it's all common sense. You know, remember one thing, the percentage of, that's Jean-Christian Fauvet, no, not Jean-Christian Fauvet, Baranton Confiseur, Auguste de Baranton Confiseur, director 33. It's a genius polytechnician who wrote maxims.
[00:55:04] He says the percentage of imbeciles is the same among workers as among engineers. There's a big difference, statistically. It's that a worker has common sense, and the engineer, he's logical. And logic without common sense is a catastrophe. Well, there's that thing, you know.
[00:55:19] I also translate it as the percentage of idiots, it's the same.
[00:55:22] Still you?
[00:55:23] Yes. And what happened at Favi once you retired? Has it changed?
[00:55:29] What happened? Wait, what's your question? I didn't understand your question.
[00:55:33] Well, you retired a few years ago.
[00:55:35] Well, that, that's classic, it happens to all companies. I trained my successor for 10 years. Max, the great Max, he was a genius, the master of his destiny until the end.
[00:55:47] 85 years old, cancer, he told me, "We'll never see him diminish." A letter for his niece, a letter for his notary, a letter for the police, a bullet in the heart, boom. He had sold his entire group, his entire group he had sold, except us, he didn't have time because we amused him. And then there was Tesla, you know. He had a son who died, he had a grandson of whom he said, his ego killed his intelligence. Because I said, "But why are you selling the group? You have a grandson!" The grandson, as long as I was an active administrator, he did nothing. As soon as I left, he fired 50 employees of my successor.
[00:56:17] And he took over the commands. He joined HR, so a union.
[00:56:21] He put technical directors, the best ones left. My consolation is that we were 650, then 300. When we made 10 to 15 million net, he didn't put 5 million in 2 years. It's that all the good ones left. My workers who knew how to do everything, my leaders, they are foremen or heads of small departments elsewhere. My salespeople who have it all, they've taken one who took a small company of 250 employees. The system is simple. The healthcare mutual that had 6,000 employees, you know, two bosses, one English, one American, the German dies, the American, when he retires, he had trained his successor, but his son who went to Harvard.
[00:56:54] The kid who went to Harvard messed everything up. It's classic, the biggest problem of the liberated company, except Sol, Sol. In Finland, at 10,000 employees, for 30 years in industrial cleaning, it's the cleaning ladies who make the promotions, who go looking for deals, who decide the prices, who buy.
[00:57:10] Who decide prices, who buy. She is in the central office with nurseries for children. And her children, she made them work in the factory. They didn't go to the big schools. And there it continues. The problem is that in schools, we don't learn this kind of thing. We learn the how, we don't learn the why. That's the big problem. So, Gor, a very intelligent company. Gor started to do that since the 60s. That was in 80.
[00:57:33] With a principle: make money, have fun. Enjoy making money. If you don't enjoy making money, change, change here or elsewhere. And he dispersed the share ownership among all the employees. Even the cleaning ladies have shares. So the Gor system lasts.
[00:57:48] But that's the problem, that's it, even if you train your successor, the guy who has 100% of the shares does what he wants. Another question. That was an intelligent question.
[00:57:57] Yes. Yes.
[00:58:01] I'm going to ask a dumb question, I'll say it right away. Do you think that in terms of a liberated company, there is a necessity that those who are part of the company, a necessity of? Do you think that those who are part of the company work a minimum amount of time together?
[00:58:23] I'm in consulting, so most of the time I spend is with clients, and it's not with my other colleagues. So the question is, can consulting companies like that really free themselves without without having a common life?
[00:58:38] You deal with it, I don't know how to do consulting.
[00:58:40] There.
[00:58:41] Doing consulting means taking the client where he doesn't want to go. I don't want to. I tell my life story, you take it, you take it, you don't take it, you don't take it. No, but everyone has their own job.
[00:58:49] Thank you.
[00:58:56] You want me to do your job, you're crazy!
[00:59:01] No, but read Isaac's books, read my books because they're all very simple, my books. You do Lulu.com Favi or Lulu.com Zobrist, you have all my four books. So I have the fifth book, which is only 150 pages because it's a summary of everything I think, it's really a summary summary. It's currently being corrected at Cherche Midi. Now it's complicated because they are precise, the lady.
[00:59:20] Hello. You were talking about liberated companies, so private companies.
[00:59:26] What about administrations? So we know that today there are things being put in place in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and it works.
[00:59:34] Yes, in Belgium, for sure.
[00:59:37] And today at home?
[00:59:39] So wait. In Belgium, it remained for I don't know how many months without government. And so I have a friend I know well who totally freed the Belgian SNCF, and when, but totally, that is, they let people work at home, etcetera, etcetera. And when they came back, they said, 'Well, it's a mess anyway.' I said, 'Sir, when we did it in 3 weeks, we do it in 3 days. Do we change or don't we change?' However, that guy, they gave him a golden parachute to leave. In France, you have EDF that moves a lot, with the pilot sites. You have a complete department of the SNCF, who for 10 years, 5,000 people, were totally liberated, and they had a firewall with kids who made fake documents for the senior civil servants we blame every year.
[01:00:21] The problem is the senior civil servants. The ENA was created by de Gaulle in '46 because the Germans managed France for 4 years. In '50, it was supposed to close, the ENA. Every year, because I, like everyone else, often criticize the public service. These poor people, every year we give them promotions of senior civil servants that they absolutely no longer need, who don't know what to do to keep busy. It's a catastrophe. So, and Pepi was aware. Now that Pepi has changed, I don't know if it will last, this thing, because the unions never realized this thing. Uh, but there you go, it's there's an enormous inertia. However, I met a guy who was responsible for 6,000 people in social security, a big department, who is freeing it up, and who managed to neutralize, because he was a polytechnic mine engineer, but he also had polytechnic mine engineers under him, huh? By giving them confidential missions in studies, with a big salary so that they leave him alone. The problem is the structure that blocks. The problem is what? It's that, uh, the structure, there are some, I met some. Because I have a brilliant emulate there, Alexandre Gérard, I recommend him to you, he's brilliant when he gives conferences.
[01:01:27] Alexandre Gerard, he visited Canada. We gave conferences in Canada with Touret and Kiza who gave conferences like that. There, they have groups of bosses who try to progress through collective intelligence exchange. And in a group like that, there's a guy from Polytechnique Minéana who is in a bank, he was responsible for a big bank, for all the real estate. In 2 years, he doubled the turnover, tripled the profit. The structure above, not all the way up, gave him 50 employees so that this idiot would leave. Because if he stays, he'll screw up all those idiots. The problem is that, you know, it's that.
[01:01:59] It's that a clumsy executive can make hundreds of workers clumsy. And again, they would cost less to remove to Club Med for life than to the factory. Anyway, deal with it, it's your problem, I did my job.
[01:02:13] Another question, should we eat?
[01:02:17] No, it's for you, I'm leaving because I have to go to the North. I'm from the North, you know, with the right to strike, because it's you Parisians who go on strike, it's not us. Continue.
[01:02:26] And do you think that sharing the company's capital is a factor in the company's success?
[01:02:32] You have a very deep voice, and I don't hear deep voices well.
[01:02:36] We'll do custom-made. Go ahead. What did you say?
[01:02:39] I was saying, do you think that sharing the company's capital is a factor in the company's success?
[01:02:44] So, then, I advocate without organizing. Every time I organize, I do stupid things, so I stopped. And I tried to advocate for it. Because as we were ahead, my boss was not opposed, he told me, "But... That's not interesting. So I tried to advocate for it. But it didn't catch on. Picard, he has what, 18, 19 months of salary, that's enough for him. And I wonder if that idea isn't an idea of the structure, because the structure says, "We're going to do that, we're going to distribute the capital," and we give one to the worker and they take 20.
[01:03:12] We take the pretext of the capital, of the sharing of capital with the workers, so that the structure gets the big share. You know what I mean? I'm not convinced that the guys who make added value will... They have the power! As soon as the worker is free of everything, you know why he is free of everything he does, he has the power! He decides his own leave. The guy whose wife works elsewhere, who doesn't work, who doesn't work in August, well, he'll go to the factory. He arranges in advance in the Peugeot-Volkswagen factory, because the Peugeot-Volkswagen factory works in August, you see? He has the power, in fact. He has never... You know... I had an... well, you'll see the film "Question de confiance Favi". There's a professional trade union delegate who tries to enter and can't. The guys don't even take the papers. And he says, "Inside, the boss has set up a system of self-exploitation." Well, yes. They self-exploit. I have a friend, I always managed to use informal address with labor inspectors and to make them laugh. Because they are the most dangerous as well as the most precious people. I have a friend, a departmental labor inspector, who told me, "You invented Marxism." You gave power to the workers.
[01:04:16] Well, yes. So, as long as they have that, they have power. Well, again, I believe that capital sharing is an invention of the structure to take the pot.
[01:04:23] They give meters to the workers to justify the fact that they took the pot. I'm not a communist.
[01:04:30] Well, I didn't answer your question. Well, sometimes I answer off-topic.
[01:04:34] Thank you.
[01:04:36] Well, that's all? How much time is left? Well, listen, have a good meal. You have my email, if you want, we'll exchange. Okay?

Transcript (Translated)