Pierre Pezziardi - Do you really need Elon Musk to achieve debureaucratization in your organization?

[00:00:05] Hello everybody. So, we've been talking a lot these days about deburo bureaucracies and deburocratisation. Some people they'd like to use a chainsaw for it. We have here ministries, we had the former Ministry of Public Action that said that he would deburocratize at every floor. So I was I thought it was a good idea to to discuss what is bureaucracy, what is the problem and from the perspective of of a 12-year journey inside the the Ministry of in charge of the digital public affairs. Um it's a 12-year story I think. I hope in the administration, I hope it would be it would show some insightful some insights even if you work in the private sector, which because public sector does not have a monopoly on on bureaucracy. And this is my first takeaway. So what's the problem?
[00:01:13] You you uh you've seen probably that we uh we had large failures at delivering projects. But we are not the only one, but we we've been spending half billions for instance trying to build large HS systems and we failed. We didn't deliver. So maybe the names of Louvois, of Sirène, Scrib. I'm talking about billion. So it's it's all money, all taxpayer money. So but we call that tragedy of the execution. We and we all know that because you you are project guys. You you know the waterfall kind of failures and things, you you know this. But there is another tragedy I'd like to talk to you. Breaking. The tragedy of the purpose.
[00:02:09] It might happen uh have happened to you, but uh uh we discovered that um doing more IT uh was not synonym for a better world. I I've been for instance there's prescription now 20 years ago uh what for banks and I built I built on time, on budget and I was congratulated for for this success. Uh system for reporting, for assessing the uh financial risk of the bank. So basically it's a 100 million euros calculator that ads up all the the assets of the bank and says it's and says green or or red red lights. the bank the bank is at risk or the bank is not at risk. It's called Basel 2. Um and it costed the the the bank 100 of millions, which those millions, that's what you pay when you pay your credit card. You understand.
[00:03:14] And we had a financial crisis in 2008. I guess you remember. And so I called my former colleagues at the banks where were working in and asked, hey, how was behaving the system yesterday when when you went bankrupt. What was the color of the light? And of course the color of the light was green. Oh shit. it's a problem. You'll understand my my 40 crisis and I mean, we we've been building a system to assess the financial risk of the bank and the day before the bank currency the system goes green. So it's useless. And we we could agree upon the fact that instead of investing in such a system, in paying my my wages, and you remember you paid for my wages for this useless system. Maybe we could have hired four journalists and we would have been better informed. Because actually the system was hacked by um uh uh standard and poor uh rates that was false. And so all that system was uh uh uh uh fragile enough to uh uh uh not to be able to to detect such such a problem. We this is my example, I have plenty of that. You know here in France we have uh for you French lucky guys. Guichet unique des entreprises, the Universal uh uh desk for your uh uh company formalities. And it's it's rated one out of 10. You know, even Anpocoin.gov, even the the the the website, the public website, they are at least rated seven. And it's been they've been working on it for 10 years.
[00:05:25] And they delivered this. And when you tell them but that's a low, so low ranking for for an user. Say no, you you got the wrong temperature, you won't you don't you don't understand. So what's what why I so I asked myself why do we build useless systems?
[00:05:46] What has happened? I mean, nobody is stupid in those teams. Nobody is mean at the end of the but we delivered this. And we we thought that there was a a an with the with we we computer scientists, we when we build a system, we know that we we rebuild the entire organization. If you get a conflict between two teams and you try to build a system, you you build a system with two databases, reconciliation and things. You know that, that's Conway's law. we reproduce in our products the the the scheme of the organization. If if it's a silo, you will build a system with silos. And I was in that.
[00:06:38] And in those silos, we often see that there is a in large organization, there is an accountability crisis. I mean, nobody in a silo is responsible for something. We are mostly organized among features team.
[00:06:58] We have the legal department, the IT department, communication department, production, etc. Actually what our customers want, and here the public sector, is they want impact. They don't care about the silos or how we are organized. But they prefer to uh uh that we uh diminish the school failure, that we remove uh uh uh thermal cars, that we uh decrease violence against children. And this you cannot see that in the organization. You you won't you never see a an organization that is structured around a purpose.
[00:07:42] So when we keep on thinking about this this existential crisis saying, but what we are talking about flow here, but what is what is we want to maximize? I mean, am I maximize the flow that was that was useless in the end? I mean, the flow of functionalities of of the Basel 2 application. So we shall maximize if not impact. And obviously, as we can see, our organization, they do not produce systematically at least impact. And but when you see that you cannot say that, hey, all your organization is rotten and you you have to change all, everything is broken. So this cannot be known and it would be pretentious and uh it would be useless. What we tried so we started 12 years ago, we engaged volunteers. We said that okay, the system is like it is. At least it brought us where we are. Bureaucracy is the the system that achieved this. It's a bureaucracy that raised this apartment. that makes you uh uh uh transport today. But it's faces serious concerns today in 21st century. So we engage people under a new manifesto. Manifesto is something that you can say at every moment in your life, I mean, I'm out. And the manifesto is, you know, the Agile manifesto in 10 points. Here we made it even simpler. There's three points. There are three points, purpose, incremental, autonomy. So it's it's a Daniel Daniel Pink that that's formulated like this. Purpose is that we every team should have should be driven by impact and know this impact. Incremental is that we should deliver and deliver and probably we should get out of the thinkers and doers pattern. And autonomy is that the team is in charge. And maybe you'll recognize that uh uh um few teams are in that kind of uh uh organization. So what happened?
[00:10:05] Here in France is the manifesto that you can find at beta.go.fr. the needs of the user before the needs of the administration. incremental, the team works without knowing what is the final result. The team does not run after a specification, it runs after impact. And uh the team acts in trust, so the and the rest of the organization trusts the team and notably uh uh has the ability to roll out a product.
[00:10:45] So these are some volunteers that we started with and uh some you you may know some some state startup. We call those teams state startup. They're internal teams. Uh maybe you know the pass culture which is an app for engaging young people in culture and notably uh uh the most uh uh low-income people.
[00:11:13] And what we did with those we we tried to act the system. So all the system didn't change. And for some innovation, for for some new public services, like you you may know no just which is the CO2 calculator or démarche simplifiée which uh uh is now uh every day uh uh delivers
[00:11:39] a million of of administrative forms. So we made those team grow, grow their impact and realize and this is my third takeaway that we can manage those uh uh um such autonomous teams. And how do we manage this and we we asked them the question, how do you prove the world is better with your product? Which is a question I ask to myself every day. And it looks like a silly question, but maybe you you can try to figure out for yourself. How do you prove the world is better with your product? You you know much very often. You are given a specification or requirements saying, hey, do this, the world will be better for sure if you do this. But actually it's at most a bet on maybe the word is uh.
[00:12:43] And when people when you you ask this question often how is how is it better? You you are answered but the impact is multidimensional, it's I mean, I have I improved the quality, I diminished the delays, I improved the reputation. So everyone will say and we have complex formulas to say impact is complex, costs are simple, are a simple figure. Impact can be measured by several metrics. So this is true. But even though it is true, um I don't trust teams that come to me and say my I have 10 metrics for my teams that I've been improving. Actually when you uh uh you can physically act on only one metric and because metric is a focus. on what you what you want uh improve or uh so the first uh uh idea is that we choose
[00:13:56] for each of the startup, we have 150 startup today, state startup. You have a team and you have one metric, even if the impact is multidimensional. Let's take an example, the past culture I mentioned.
[00:14:15] It's now used by 2 million people, young people, but you know, what is the impact that is uh uh uh that we seek? Is not to uh uh give money of cultural money to uh uh uh young people that have enough money to that would have gone to the to the movie or to the theater. The impact is that we want my neighbors in the San in the in the suburbs, you know the the kids that say not for me. It's not for me. You won't you won't go. You won't even let me in with my shoes and you you know the barrier. you know the barrier. This is the target. This is not the wealthy young in a sixth arrondissement of Paris. And go on, try to figure out what we want those kids to say, hey, go where you didn't want to go. How can I measure this? The measure is that I want the impact of culture is not the sum the of the number of transactions so a kid went to a concert or a kid bought a book, but it's just the the impact is just the kids that are underprivileged that do this. And this is the metric. For this has been the metric for three years. Because imagine if we had, we would have said, hey, we have succeed the past culture varies 1 million transaction, but only wealthy kids. We we would have wasted public money. I mean, they didn't need it. What we wanted is that the underprivileged go to the theater. And that was the metric for three years. You you realize so there are many of a metric that we could have choose. But this is the one we focused on and this has made our management, this has this is the way where we started with five and now culture is 150 team. And this has been the direction that we choose and it has helped us solve conflicts, all our conversations were on talking about this. This this is impact. This is what you talk about.
[00:16:53] And maybe if you listen in the uh uh in your organization, we talk about about we we talk a lot about cost. And we talk very few about impact, about the value. And this is culture and this is what we we're going to dive deeper into the culture. So this is was important and the example that this is the thing we talk about, this is how we decide that we should do that or that. We always negotiate under this impact. We choose one. You know another law that is Goodhart's law. That when measure becomes a target, it says to be a good measure. I mean, we all want our bonus. Yes. So in the end, we make it work, we make it we make it green so that is green. That's why we uh uh so I have no solution, pre-pack solution. If there was a solution for for for the problem of management. But I'm just testifying that what we do is to avoid this effect, we change the measure.
[00:18:05] For instance, when the past culture has succeeded, it has reached 85% of the kids population. So it was a success and the metric that the underprivileged were were using it was good. So at some point the metric could change and now we're entering years where the the team is tired. It cost a bit too much and maybe the metric for one or two years will be reduced works, reduced costs. And there's no problem with that. There's no problem because it's when you do that, it just what happens in the conversations of the team. It creates a focus.
[00:18:54] And I I realize that many teams lack focus. They are following, I mean, a a a director for um for a college, a for a collège, une high school uh uh here in France, he he has more than 10 uh metrics that he has to that is supposed to optimize. And maybe the metric for one or two years will be reduced works, reduced cost. And there's no problem with that. There's no problem because it's when you do that, it just what happens in the conversations of the team. It creates a focus.
[00:18:52] And I I realized that many teams lack focus. They are following, I mean a a a director for a college, for a college, a high school. here in France, he he has more than 10 metrics that he has that he's supposed to optimize. 10 metrics.
[00:19:18] So or our management was to use one and change often. This is my takeaway.
[00:19:28] The the second that I we learn is that uh um we see always the the shape of this large project or the complexity of the the terror that uh uh that creates the complexity or the the the the the difficult objectives. And we realize and now I'm that any ambition can be reduced to fit in a six-month iteration. But even for non-IT things. I did the uh local farms in six months. But we could also, you know, um legalize the cannabis in an experiment uh at uh uh in a in a town, you know, it's nice that six months. Even though we think that the legalization of cannabis is a huge problem that is unsolved, that we have been discussing a lot, but nobody agrees and we just talk about it.
[00:20:31] And we don't do something to appreciate what who's right, who's wrong. And this is why maybe something that you're convinced of. But why I put it as takeaway because it's not something that is familiar that that the people are familiar with. When when we did the start the state startups, all the people they say, yes, well, it's okay, you're good. It's interesting. You have success. But this is the periphery of the system. This is not the core system. You cannot do complex thing in the core. You are just uh uh uh sympathetic barbarian around. You are doing things uh uh at the periphery.
[00:21:22] And this this is the culture that for the for the internal where it's complex, it's got to be big. Where it's complex, it's got to be big. And we say the opposite. Where it's complex, we have to be the smallest and the fastest. It's the paradox. The more uncertainties, the faster you have to go. When we started pass culture, we didn't know what it was. We had the the order from the the president of the Republic. That he he took the idea from Italy. When you from Italy, where there was a pass culture that ended up as a 30% uh uh fraud. Say all the kids fraud. So basically the the the command that we had is hey, do the thing that uh uh ended up in a fraud, in a massive fraud in Italy, do it in France. That was the specification basically. So So we discovered what was the pass culture actually. When we ask the kids and we we understand that they they wouldn't go uh I mean, museums are already free and they don't go to museum because there's nothing new in a museum. And so those images, those representations, they were the problem. And in order to make them move, we have to invent something uh uh uh that has that has to see with that that looked more like a media than like a payment system. And that this we discovered it. We could not figuring out figure it out before.
[00:23:00] So and today the system, it's 200 million kids that are using it every day. You can access any cultural offer in France, you can buy a book, a concert, a theater. And and this applies to also to large legacies. But this is not the the beliefs of the organization. It's not the board.
[00:23:28] As you can see, the state startup have become quite a quite a thing. There are more than 100 and a half, 1,000 and a half people working in those kind in those kind of teams.
[00:23:44] Uh the Empire, the rest of the uh IT is roughly half a million people. So you have the uh the ratio. So what we uh what we did and maybe you're uh uh figuring out and say could it be could it be something in my own organization? And we've been answered often that okay, uh we understand what you want to do with uh with teams. You want to allow an impact culture. But we are not in such an organization as I said. So, I made a picture to figure out the culture, the dominant culture. Of course, it's a schema. So, in most of the legacy organization I met with, the in gray, the the dominant culture is what I call authoritarian paternalism. I mean, the the boss is in charge. The boss is in charge, you mostly are children. And as we said, teams are in charge of means, functionalities. Not impact. The boss is the boss, command and control is enforced. You autonomy is weak and you uh if you want to deliver, you have to uh negotiate with the boss. And when you uh uh follow the conversation, try to understand what drives the people, um the compliance is something that drives the people. I mean, avoid conflict avoidance, avoid the conflict. It's okay, uh it's okay that the customer is not happy provided the boss is happy. Compliance. It's okay. Prefer to have the boss happy than the customer happy. And this is the what has developed in our um not only in public sector, so that in every large organization. And in blue, what we try to do is that hey, this is the beta, what we call the beta zone. That's why we call that beta.gov.fr. It's the incubate culture. Here, as I mentioned, teams are in charge of impact, measurable impact. Uh they are given autonomy, so autonomy is the the result is that you control them but after, you leave them.
[00:26:19] And they are driven by impact.
[00:26:22] So you you have two cultures here. And the the interesting point now is what happens in a 10 years journey when you mix those cultures, can they melt together? What's happening?
[00:26:40] So, let's call them the barbarians and the Empire. Not to say that the the there are kind barbarians and mean reactionary conservative. I mean, they are all it's they are all okay. I mean, the the Empire is okay to say, hey, don't don't innovate around because my duty is to run the system like it is. Even though it is not perfect and they are right to do so.
[00:27:16] They are right. And they they they they don't like innovation because it it brings the risks and what they are judge at the end of the day, the Empire is judged because it has made the system work as it is. Even and the barbarians they also it's also okay. That they say, yes, but we can do better.
[00:27:41] But it makes a conflict between them.
[00:27:45] Um and we as I mentioned, we tried to uh we we did incubator, we have a central incubator, we have uh uh another 10 10 incubators in the ministry. all this 1,000 and a half people. So they they have been working besides the the Empire and it it doesn't change the way the Empire works. I mean, it it worsens the relationship between we them. It makes this. So jealousy, violence. And because they're doing differently. So we had the tension between. And when the startups were big, like in Paul for instance, we have large and successful startups. We say, hey, okay, now it's eight people team in the incubator. I can bring and what we call transfer. Transfer it into the organization.
[00:28:50] And I let you imagine what what happened when we do that. Is that you you you have a bunch of eight people and here you have a bunch of 1,000 people and with a difference a deep cultural difference.
[00:29:09] So this does not end up well. We've been losing or most of our startups when doing so, are trying to transfer. Because the people they were reintegrated in the their department. Oh, you are doing mostly communications. You go to the communication department. You are doing UX. Okay, you are in the maîtrise d'ouvrage department. Um So the the teams were eaten and digested by the culture. The dominating culture. You know what Peter Drucker said, once said that culture eats strategy at breakfast. So the culture is really strong.
[00:29:50] So um so this has not proven to work and we we lost a lot of people and we saved some startup by creating independent organizations. The pass culture is one of them, the Gip inclusion for underprivileged workers. We have several of them. And because it was so hard to go back to the organization and say, hey, look, it can be, it can give you inspiration. It can change, this does not work this way. Violence and destruction. So this is my last takeaway.
[00:30:32] It takes time. So I we imagine that we could change the world. Hey, doing differently with volunteers showing the way, paving the way. And say, hey, it's so easy to change now you will be in a uh uh uh uh less authoritarian organization. It does not people prefer uh their uh uh habits to the impact, to other things actually.
[00:31:09] So what we did. To reduce the amount of people working in the authoritarian paternalist organization. That we grow the incubators. For from the incubators, some big successful teams that were responsible for an impact emerged. And we knew that we could not uh replant those teams inside the legacy org, so we created new ones.
[00:31:38] We call them operator, but call call it org version 2. So you you understand the the under the skin, the boss is in charge of the both the legacy and the new org. Because you cannot change everything at a time. And we apply our manifesto. My product is I'm delivering a new organization. So I won't deliver it at once. Otherwise I would say the opposite and I'm saying. So my product is a new organization that I pretend is more efficient and uh uh easier to live in but let's do it uh incrementally. So the incubators creates successful teams. And when you have to uh perpetuate now from the France Connect button that you may know France Connect, the démarche simplifiée, uh la suite or those things that will last now that will be public services for long, we create a new organization where it's where where dominates the culture of impact. So, you you understand and you
[00:32:52] and this is the way uh we uh started the the transformation. For instance, I see that we have people from France Travail. That are that are suggest that you you they do a session I guess tomorrow or this afternoon. Tomorrow.
[00:33:10] They they they maybe they'll talk about it because the the where we are the most advanced is in France Travail. Like this.
[00:33:19] And and this is this works at France Travail because the big boss wants it. And that's will be my last word. This this is you understood that nobody it's more comfortable to to to remain in the in the statu quo. And most people, most leaders don't will will remain in the statu quo.
[00:33:45] And this is possible when there are strong leaders. That prefer to impact on uh uh but that they know that they will have conflicts. Most leaders they are they prefer avoiding conflicts than trying to have more impact. And this this has proven to work only where leaders there is such leaders. That's why we the transformation I've been describing here is has not happened everywhere all at once. And don't expect it to uh uh to happen all at once. It can only happen where leaders are okay to uh uh with that. And I will sum up this in in what I what I've learned is always ask yourself purpose, how is the world better because of us? And this I am sure this is not the conversations that you have in your teams and just doing so is change the world actually. We talk about this, how and and and often the answer is uncomfortable. It's that's why I changed several times a job because I realized that no, I'm not providing any any uh any impact.
[00:35:19] The there is always a path to break break break down a complex problem into not into path. But into a six-month beta that from which we can iterate. And when when I'm facing people that say, no, it's impossible because look, this is an infrastructure project, so your theory doesn't work. Or this is blah blah blah project because a nuclear plant project, so your trick doesn't work.
[00:35:54] I I the the trick here is to to start with the abuse of the current system. Because they are the ones that will accept your your rotten beta, I mean, the the first version of your your product. So there is always a path and we always find it that and and to deliver something into a complex system, start with the abused system. The the abused, the the user abused by the current system. And last but not least, let's take the management, the manager point of view. It's okay and it belong it is part of your manifesto to talk about autonomy of teams. And you want autonomy, we all want because we we think that we deserve autonomy, we are responsible people. And most of us are. But why why is that that we are taken for children most of the time?
[00:36:51] Think in the mindset of the boss. The boss, he feels responsible, he or she feels responsible. And drive by purpose, driving by purpose rather than by means is kind of vertiginous.
[00:37:11] Because the reflex is to control, is to be sure that.
[00:37:17] So, what we and I leave you with the Saint-Exupéry quote. If you want to build a boat, don't call your men to deliver the tasks or collect wood, but rather teach them the beauty and immensity of the sea.
[00:37:37] And but it's not that easy and it is all often the root cause of all our problems. That how do how do I leave myself as the boss? What is I used to be a a a paternalist boss, somebody that thinks he's a hero of the situation. I will solve the problem, I will explain you, explain to you. So I will engage in the thinker, doer relationship. And this has been a limitation of many managers.
[00:38:15] So what we are doing today is that we are building the school for managers.
[00:38:21] So we are building inside what we call the campus du numérique. Because as Goldratt says, this is our main constraint, I think, the perception of what is the job of managing.
[00:38:36] I'm finished right now and thank you for your attention. Now for questions. Do we have time for questions?
[00:38:45] Any questions? A question for questions.
[00:38:48] What time is it?
[00:38:49] It's okay. Are there any questions? What's the time?
[00:38:08] And this has been a limitation of many managers. So my what we are doing today is that we are building the school for managers. So we are building inside what we call the campus numérique because as Goldrat says, this is our main constraint. I think the perception of what is the job of managing. I'm finished right now, and thank you for your attention. Now, place for questions.
[00:38:45] Do we have time for questions?
[00:38:48] Any questions?
[00:38:54] Are there any questions?
[00:38:56] What time is it?
[00:38:56] Are there any questions?
[00:38:58] Come on, you have time, 5 minutes.
[00:38:59] Oh, 20 minutes, great.
[00:39:04] Thank you very much.
[00:39:06] It was excellent. Thank you very much for this.
[00:39:09] Thank you.
[00:39:10] What happened that you changed from that paternalist command and control person into this person?
[00:39:19] So, as I told you, I cannot have a plan, I cannot say we have we are we're going to take the ministries by alphabetic order and and debureaucratize. This this doesn't work. The process was where can I find leaders that are not satisfied with the status quo. And I found those leaders not amongst the aristocracy of states, like we call grand corps. You know, to to be the the boss in the state, you need to to have a a good scholarship and you are they are basically two schools to to get there. So all the managers, most of the managers are basically in the public sector are good pupils. The really good pupils. They they had and none of them is uh uh uh very few of them are are concerned with the with the it's useless to to talk and to I'm doing very little conferences for instance. I'm not advocating. Because it's so personal that you have to meet with those leaders and see if do you uh uh uh comment you appreciate more the the impact possibility than the problems that we will raise that invariably cause problem, tensions, violence, culture strikes, and you have to meet with leaders that despite this they want they want it. In in a world that's where most leaders are rather interested in no conflict, my next position realized requires that no conflict. So meet with meet with uh uh leaders is has been the method and it's the limitation in the in the Goldrat way. I mean, maybe in 10 years, I'll go back here and uh only France Travail and the we have been the because you you have to raise the the the the ratio. For uh uh half million IT workers, we engage uh say uh uh one 1% of that. We apply 1%. So it's fragile still, it's fragile, it relies on few people. And maybe more questions.
[00:42:06] Thank you.
[00:42:09] Um, you talked about uh transferring people from incubator to uh legacy organizations. Uh, my question is, uh, did you try to do the other way? I mean, transferring people from legacy organization to incubator. To change the culture of uh the legacy one?
[00:42:31] Exactly, yes, we did, we did so in in France Travail and this this was has proven great. So the the gateway between I mean, I'm not showing you the solution. And uh putting gateways between the two worlds is um I think a good idea. We had you know, uh solution architects at the uh legacy org from France Travail that you that he used to work with projects in this culture etcetera but in in his deep heart he was a maker. So he they we we made the we made a call from the incubator saying, hey, come in. Come in and a few people came in. And this has improved the relationship between. So I encourage you to do to do that. Exactly. So but uh at the maker level it works. At the manager level it does not work. The culture is so so different.
[00:43:36] More questions?
[00:43:38] You had a question?
[00:43:39] No.
[00:43:39] I think it's case.
[00:43:41] Thank you. Uh, thank you for this inspiring conference. Uh, we are working on on on a project which is similar to what you're saying, but we're calling it more empowerment, which is probably another name uh for the same purpose. Um, how how do you measure, because metric is important as you said, how do you measure in a transformation such as empowerment, as we call it, uh that you progress?
[00:44:16] So, thank you for the question because as I told you, the impact question, how do you measure success, how do you measure is the the the cornerstone of the question that we are not talking enough. So the the first is uh metrics, impact, measuring is is just a maotic, it's just something to for the to focus on discuss, to discuss, to improve discussions. So when you want to grow a culture, you have to imagine that you have a magic uh thermometer, a tempo temperature um thermometer. Thank you. always. So this is the way I do it. So first, I have a magic thermometer, so I can see everything in the real, everything. For free. And so when when you are what we are dealing with is that we we would like to measure like the feeling of autonomy. The impact produced per week per we would like to measure things like this. So we we're going to assume that we uh say we have proxies of those measure and maybe we we will change. Uh for to answer your question, what is interesting for today is for instance,
[00:45:46] the the the incubator management team, it it rules for 10 incubators and there are three, four people that are managing. So their product is the network of incubator and they want to measure progress of the incubators and the people living there.
[00:46:06] And uh and today, as you imagine, there there are incubators that are well managed that deliver uh impactful startups. And there are uh incubators that less ambitious, often with old-fashioned management and it's not black and white. And uh what we decided to when we talked about uh uh uh how they could manage their how they could manage their year, is that you should figure out just do a uh uh a qualitative assessment and I'll ask them, look, there are the the 10 incubators, put one to five stars. From you what you think, from what you have seen, from and and when you disagree, discuss. And this is the better measurement because we have discussed of what why why have I rated three stars the incubator of the Ministry of Agriculture? And I rated one star the the incubator of the Ministry of Interior. This could be interesting, we don't have time to discuss that, but this is interesting. So we prefer qualitative discussion over quantitative uh uh measure that that often and I mention it means replace the ends. Often people are more confident with very precise figures that are second order figures. than uh uh uh order of magnitude of impact, qualitative figures, surveys, samples, sample surveys.
[00:47:56] Um, so this is a general philosophy, but my answer to your question is assume that you are measuring something that is multi-dimensional and like in the quantic world, you are seeing some of the things, not every reality you have. saying that I'm I'm looking like this. Uh all this is the the purpose of the metrics is not the metrics. It's the discussion. It's the discussion with the boss, with the team, with the just the discussion. We don't care actually about the figures. often because as we know we it it will make us lie in the end. So this has my my two advices for your question. More questions?
[00:48:48] So okay so
[00:48:51] Hello.
[00:48:52] Hello.
[00:48:53] Hello.
[00:48:54] Thank you for the question, 20 for the presentation, it was great.
[00:48:59] Thank you for the question.
[00:49:01] Uh, earlier we talked about transfer here, but did you try to transfer only the product?
[00:49:05] So the question is, did you transfer the team or did you transfer, did you try to transfer only the product? Um, yeah, we did everything.
[00:49:18] Though when you transfer the products even worse. So if you transfer with the team, at least the team will be there to defend the choices that are embedded in the product. The technical choices, the design choices, the it reflects the choices, it reflects the discussion of the team. All right? And you imagine that when you transfer this and you put that in another culture that where there are different conversations and uh different then and people value different things. I mean here, maybe they value speed, here they value security, compliance, what. So when you try to uh transfer an asset without the team members, it's it's completely rewritten. Actually, you have always the same pattern, hey, this is rotten code. Rotten code. And and always the whatever and what you must understand is not they're not saying rotten code that they're saying code that we wouldn't have produced like this here. So they will destroy it even faster.
[00:50:31] So this is the the recipe we found is uh really to protect the teams. So we also we we we've made fusion acquisition, we we uh we uh um aggregated startups to to make them bigger and provided them with a a public company. For instance, the we get maybe some of you know PiCS, the the uh if you have kids, PiCS is a company, public company, uh platform de l'inclusion, which is 10 startups for uh uh underprivileged workers that help underprivileged workers, we made them a specific organization to to host the startup and to to to make them grow. And this is how we saved some of them, but you should not miss uh um mis-evaluate the the the difference in the culture and uh again, we've very and be very benevolent.
[00:51:36] I I used to be angry. I used to be angry. I'm no longer angry. Everybody is okay. Everybody's doing it and nobody's mean actually. Nobody's mean. There we have just different priorities and our culture.
[00:51:58] I think. I will let you. Ah, we have one last question. The last one. Yes, baby. We have a mic.
[00:52:14] Hello, thank you for the presentation. Uh, how did it start because it's quite complicated to make the first move, I think. So I'm very interested in it.
[00:52:27] Oh, thank you. Uh again, it's a personal uh answer. Of course, I told you that transformation uh uh would require the motivation of some people, so it was at the origin of that, there was my own motivation. And what and then I introspected to why am I doing this? Uh I've been uh I've been a computer scientist really and um I built a company, a consulting company that I booked that I sold. And I I quit this company because of the Basel II story. I mean, we are doing uh uh digital product but they were uh limited by the the structure. So I I saw in the uh in internet Wikipedia, bla bla car and in the large organization uh uh I had as customers, they they wouldn't allow me to build those the Wikipedia of their corporate. Those systems and this made me quite uh uh angry again. That's what was angry, anger. So I left, I created uh as I knew banking very well, I uh I co-founded KissKissBankBank that you may know, is a crowdfunding platform. I mean, doing banks with that bankers, that was fascinating me the the power of computers.
[00:54:03] To to imagine new systems.
[00:54:07] And uh we sold KissKissBankBank to la Banque Postale. So I was the possibility of uh uh living my life uh at Oleron surfing or doing something else useful. And uh this ID was long in the past and uh that we but it was probably driven by the the desire to build a great product that could free up organizations because I was sensitive to uh the distress. I mean, what struck me when I go to the public service is the the amount of people that are depressed.
[00:54:47] I mean, if you are in a call center of a bank selling a Blackberry to old people, you can't be depressed. I mean, I wouldn't understand. You are working for an ugly purpose. But if you're working for the public service, and it struck me that they they couldn't get pleasure they so I felt it was an injustice. And it gave me a lot of motivation. So you say it's very personal, and I thank you for this question.
[00:55:19] Okay. Thank you very much. Have a nice conference.

Transcript