The conclusion drawn in François Dupuy’s trilogy Lost in management is unequivocal: Taylorism (compartmentalised and repetitive work methods with a pyramid management structure) has failed and there is a need to transform organizations in a way that accounts for both their agents and the context in which they work. 

For its first live event on 8 April 2022, the EDHEC Alumni Reading Club had the pleasure of hosting the author to discuss the third volume: Businesses can’t be changed by decree. 

Dupuy is an organizational sociologist and has written several publications on bureaucracy, change and management in institutions. This event was an opportunity to hear his point of view on these issues, in these post-pandemic times of hybrid working.

From the abstract to the concrete 

Organizational sociology has shown that most managers and top executives find it very difficult to reason in “concrete” terms. A business is a place of abstraction, yet knowing how to decipher the way it operates is a pre-requisite for any action. Nowadays people are forever looking for miracle recipes to implement, but applying a solution without seeking to understand the nature of the problem removes the action taken from its context. “Stop finding solutions to problems you don’t understand”: Dupuy believes it is essential not only to distinguish between symptoms and problems in order to find a solution, but also to properly understand the context. This is a notion that he says should be tackled in the early years of managerial training. 

This necessarily involves managers listening to their staff. Dupuy adds that this must be done with empathy and based on two principles that will enable you to appreciate your different interlocutors and analyse a given situation:

• Recognise that there is not just one truth but various perceptions and show an interest in that of your interlocutor;
• Don’t be judgemental. 

For, as in any process of change, systematically going through phases 1/ understanding a problem, 2/ looking for a solution, and 3/ implementing it, the most important phase by far is the first. Dupuy emphasises this point: “once you’ve invested in your knowledge of the situation, your understanding will provide the solution”.

Count on the “intelligence of those involved” 

To resolve a problem or undergo a transformation, it is essential to understand and account for the intelligence of those involved. This sociological concept relating to human intelligence in businesses is about the capacity of all agents to find solutions and strategies that are consistent with the context in which they work.  

The pandemic has been most revealing in this regard. For example, Dupuy refers to a study he worked on from March to December 2020 focusing on 9 companies (7 of which are listed on the CAC 40), for which hundreds of interviews were conducted. They all point to the same conclusion: the crisis was managed with a hands-on approach. But to ensure the continuity of business, this hands-on management required “organizational disobedience”, which meant circumventing the rules and procedures laid down by the company’s back-office teams, on the basis that they did not enable business to carry on as before. This attitude is the perfect expression of human intelligence, because if those concerned had blindly followed the official procedures, they would never have coped with the crisis. Intelligence here is about understanding the context you find yourself in and adapting your behaviour accordingly so you can keep on doing business, something all 9 organizations understood very well. 

Questioning bureaucratisation

Are procedures and tele-working compatible?

Many companies found that they operated as well if not better once relieved of the “bureaucratic clutter”, but did they definitively act on that and maintain the levels of trust placed in hands-on management and staff members? It’s an open question and one that Dupuy says it is too early to answer. It is noteworthy that although certain organizations haven’t penalised staff on the ground with more bureaucracy and have even simplified certain processes, others in contrast have issued new crisis management procedures. And so businesses that proved agile and operated by drawing on the intelligence of their staff risk running up against problems of bureaucratisation brought about by tele-working. For example, teleworking brings greater formality: as you have probably noticed, when informal exchanges by the coffee machine no longer take place, interviews and meetings must be formalized. The operating methods of each business also have an impact on this notion of processes. Surprisingly, those for which working from home is simple are often the most bureaucratic, those with the steadiest rhythm (meetings always planned in advance, no immediate pressure from clients, etc.), because the visibility and predictability of the way they are organised facilitates tele-working. In contrast, in “agile” companies that require spontaneous meetings and brainstorming sessions to meet client demands, working from home is more complicated. This leads to the introduction of procedures, bureaucratising the way things are done.  

“The era of bureaucrats” 

This topic of bureaucratisation and the ever-increasing number of procedures is the focus of Dupuy’s next book (co-written with 3 other authors), L’ère des bureaucrates. It sets out to compare tangible management practices in the commercial and administrative sectors. Contrary to the notion that public management is inching ever closer to private sector management, the reverse is in fact happening, with the latter becoming increasingly bureaucratised. As for New Public Management, it calls for much more cooperative and collective work in administrative structures.

For big firms, such bureaucracy is becoming an obstacle to the recruitment of talented young people, as the fastidious processes in place negatively impact attractiveness. 

Food for thought about how best to combine formality and agility to move forward!

The “Grow your mind” reading club is open to all alumni: don’t hesitate to join us to discuss enriching reading material with your peers. Every 2 months, club members vote for a book to read and meet at regular sessions to discuss it, share their ideas and debate. We hope to see you soon at future events: be sure to check the EDHEC Alumni community’s schedule of events.