Marc Le Menestrel

The Wise Power of Utopian Thinking

Marc Le Menestrel — 2019-05-10T01:57:00Z

Imagining an ideal world is a powerful tool for enhancing proactivity and leading organisational transformation.

Today's shifting global dynamics have increased the pressure to navigate into the new and the unknown. Alas, afraid of how the world is evolving; eager to keep for ourselves what we have; willing to preserve the certainties that we have built in our heads; enticed by a new philosophy where we are supposed to maximise happiness — we continue to resist and reject change. Why embrace the future if it is this painful? Why become aware that our world is collapsing?

To avoid a growing sense of helplessness and despair, we then run faster towards that light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of embracing the unknown, we become even more blinded by what we think we know.

Companies only learn agility in order to increase productivity, grow their revenues and make more profit. Governments engage in stakeholder consultations but their conclusions, coincidentally, always happen to confirm the initial intentions of those in power. People are concerned about plastic in our oceans but they ignore why this issue has become so salient. We change in order to remain the same and this is not good enough to meet today's challenges.

As Einstein wrote in 1946, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”

Utopian rationality

Business rationality is at the core of how leaders think. Yet, it has to evolve. In my teaching, I invite executives and directors to become smarter than rational. I do not propose to throw out rationality. Rather, I want to overcome a rationality that imposes itself upon a complex reality in a totalitarian fashion.

To identify a goal, choose the best action to reach it, then measure the consequences and finally claim success once the task is done is not smart enough. In a world full of surprises, we need to dream beyond our goals if they are to have meaning. A sense of purpose is essential for long-term value creation, as the dream that drives our goals will ensure the relevance of work beyond the next quarter or business cycle. We also need to realise that we may not attain our goals, and that can be an opportunity because they may need to be changed. We should never be prisoners of our goals. In a world ready to be deeply disrupted, we need to love what we do right now. Anchored in our values, we can appreciate where we are at present and have our eyes fully open. Instead of serving a system that is at risk of destroying our humanity, we should make sure to put the framework of rationality to the service of our values and dreams.

The ability to dream our future world into being can help us survive. It is also a powerful strategic exercise. At INSEAD, my experience is that the building of a utopia allows executives and directors to free their minds from confining intellectual prejudices. The method draws from the three core principles of Wise Power: duality of mind, emotional maturity and generosity of soul. It is a way of thinking, feeling and dreaming that enhances our ability to meet the world half-way. It is especially useful for important and difficult decisions. Wise power consists of the ability to face surprising, even unpleasant truths bravely and honestly, although they may directly contradict our firmly held beliefs and preferences. Wise leaders are much less susceptible to the fear of the unknown that underlies defensiveness, because they perceive the deeper dynamics of the landscape around them. Instead of being fixated on the light at the end of the tunnel, they learn to pause and see that the tunnel is in fact made of beautiful trees, each of which is also a door to another space where they can discover, learn or just be.

How to generate a utopia?

Now more than ever, strategic business decisions must be taken in light of other realms of power. It is thus essential that utopias encompass the political, social, technological and natural spheres, as well as business. This allows leaders to embrace the growing expectations of multiple stakeholders across myriad issues.

Complex, ambiguous grey zones have a perfect right to exist in these utopias. For example, you do not have to choose between business having freedom to operate, and governments possessing scope to regulate – you can have both.

As participants present their utopias in class, it is liberating for them to express these contradictions. Executives are typically constrained in a discourse where business interests dictate everything. However, they are also citizens eager to exist more fully and freely at work. As they share their utopias and listen to others', they become conscious of common predominant themes: a form of social equality, a government that cares for the common good, technology at the service of humans and not the other way around, and harmony with nature, among others. These commonalities transform what might have seemed an exercise in fanciful idealism into something highly relevant to the everyday exercise of executive power. The unthinkable suddenly becomes almost feasible. The lines between utopianism and executives' habitual “realism” begin to blur.

Why utopia?

Peel back the layers of realism, and you will often find cynicism and pessimism feeding fear a steady diet of rationalisation, e.g. the world is so corrupt, boldly engaging with it is useless. Some cynicism and pessimism can also be valuable. Life is not black and white — and we also need to tame some messianic tendencies that bring us back to the authoritarian form of leadership that we want to transform.

Utopian thinking enables us to perceive the big picture, including the things that upset or even repel us, in a usefully optimistic light, in terms of what could be. It gives us the courage and confidence to see the distance between reality and our dreams as a space of opportunity rather than ipso facto defeat.

Applications of utopia

Utopian thinking can be open-ended, but it can also be tailored to address specific business problems. I have used it to find solutions for a multinational energy company facing a disastrous situation. The company was heavily criticised in the media for its role in the environmental devastation and worsening quality of life of local communities. In response to being painted as villains in the press, executives had adopted a stance of denial of their responsibility. Their relationships with community leaders and government officials were at an impasse.

By inviting participants to conceive of the best resolution imaginable for such conflicts, we foster within them an appetite for the unknown. They start envisioning ways to use their companies' wealth and power for mutual value creation, together with locals on the ground. Most importantly, they become more aware of the pitfalls of a confrontational non-market strategy. Instead of maintaining the belief that they can save the world if they become a force for good (another way to remain in the ego-driven authoritarian form of leadership), companies can cultivate a global vision in which they interact with other forms of power in a more respectful and harmonious manner.

Imagining utopias can also be useful for established organisations in the midst of market flux. For instance, a session on utopian thinking applied to the future of mobility allowed executives of a car manufacturer to better appreciate the multiple facets and layers of their situation. Rather than being constrained by the established discourse and culture of their company, they could engage at different levels and discuss the deeper changes driving the shifts in their industry. They were developing a sense of where they stood within this larger ecosystem and could find new levers to shape their culture and their identity. Instead of nurturing fear and helplessness, their uncertain future provided meaning.

Developing utopia

You do not need to wait for other people to apply utopian thinking. You can start yourself as an individual. Just think of a high-level challenge facing your organisation, industry, or even the nation or region in which you do business. Then apply your imagination to the problem, working through the different perspectives of the relevant stakeholders. Do not fear contradictions and allow space for the commonalities of good intentions and diversity of values. As a transformation of your own mind-set, the exercise will teach you to fear less and embrace more. You can scale up the benefit by involving your team – sharing your ideas with them and adding their contributions until a collective utopia emerges. This dream will help you select your objectives and identify the key stakeholders that can help you. It will also change your attitude to the world. Less afraid to envision change, you will look for opportunities to contribute to a better world beyond strict business objectives.

Marc Le Menestrel is Visiting Professor for Corporate Governance and Sustainability at INSEAD.

I thank Benjamin Kessler, editor at INSEAD Knowledge, whom I met when I arrived in Singapore. It has been the start of a productive and pleasant collaboration, writing short pieces for this online outlet.

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The 3 Principles of Wise Power

Marc Le Menestrel — 2018-09-27T01:48:00Z

If you know how to harness the power of your mind, heart and soul, you will be wiser in the face of surprises and disruption.

One of today's damaging and common leadership misconceptions is the confusion of power with external control. All too often, we think of power as the ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others, or to force the course of events to conform to a predetermined scheme.

But there is an equally necessary kind of power, which is exerted inwardly. It turns out that power is as much about the ability to adapt to the world around us as it is about shaping the world. As the global business landscape becomes increasingly complex, our ability to develop our presence and gravitas has become an indispensable companion of authority.

A harmonious balance of inward- and outward-directed power is what I call wise power. It is the embrace of dualities that helps us meet the world halfway: in between what we want and what is offered to us. Beyond the illusion of full control, wise power is an art of surprise.

So what is wise power? Fundamentally, it is the ability to master the deeper dynamics – not just the surface phenomena – affecting the world, an organisation, a team, an individual, a conscience. Leaders developing their wise power train their attention towards the underlying forces shaping their environment and themselves. They are not as easily blindsided by threats or challenges. As their thinking is not beholden to entrenched prejudices and patterns of behaviour, they can devise more effective and more meaningful solutions.

The first step towards cultivating wise power is to loosen our mental and emotional grip on the tools that enabled our success thus far: our knowledge, experience, skills, philosophy, etc. These dependable tools can still be retained – actually, they are part of us and could not be discarded anyway – but we must be prepared at any time to stow them and grab hold of the new. Especially for high-achieving leaders accustomed to emphasising the will, wise power requires letting go.

Three principles

Three principles in particular are key to developing the self-mastery that nurtures wise power.

First, a duality of mind that comprehends multiple sides of an issue, rather than being restricted to the side that conforms to our pre-existing vision of things. With wisdom of the mind we can go even further, overcoming the mind's natural tendency to create inflexible oppositions. We learn to see a world large enough to hold contradictions in tension without forcing resolution – i.e. a both/and instead of either/or mentality. By being conscious of the way we look at things, we also develop our ability to choose how to look at things.

Second, an emotional maturity that allows us to cope with distasteful things just as well as we naturally warm to other things. The world, after all, contains plenty on both sides. The tendency to shrink from things we dislike diminishes our sense of reality and, by extension, our cognitive agility. Emotional maturity develops our ability to know both our likes and dislikes and to recognise them as feelings that we project onto the world, not innate properties of things. We needn't abandon, nor even resist our natural judgements of goodness and badness. Instead, we need to be fully aware of them so that we can create some distance. Because we can feel without being controlled by our feelings, we learn to influence our emotions while we are influenced by them.

Third, a generosity of soul that feeds on dreams to inspire and motivate real action. When we are well connected with our fundamental dreams and aspirations, we are more susceptible to shift an unexpected turn of events into an opportunity. Instead of reacting to all the things that can make us fail to reach our goals, we learn when and how we must change our goals to succeed in life. Loosening our grip on transitory goals reduces fear of failure and discomfort with the unknown. Instead of being prisoners of our goals, we dream beyond them and learn to master the art of surprise that life can be.

The principles in practice

Let's take a practical example. How could we apply the principles of wise power to a business problem involving, say, technological innovation? First, the cognitive agility that comes with duality of mind allows us to better understand why innovation could be both a blessing and a curse. Indeed, innovation is a major source of competitive advantage for business, yet it can also pose a risk for the environment or for society, locking us into technological choices that are in fact detrimental over the long term.

Moreover, new technologies can often be frightening, as they carry the threat of our own obsolescence. Emotional maturity helps us recognise that the fear of technology has good sides, e.g. sensitivity to early warning signals, consistency of identity, healthy scepticism toward fads, etc. By accepting these emotions, we can avoid becoming the prisoners of innovation. Facing our fears thus feeds the process of cultivating wise prudence.

So what is the purpose of technology? What is the dream beyond innovation? These questions are of crucial importance. As leaders, our ability to answer them with a vision is a powerful asset for organisations. It creates motivation and develops passion for the future. It attracts and retains talent. The power of a dream helps us find a genuine purpose and a meaning in technology. It guides our technological innovation towards a better world rather than making innovation an end in itself.

A wiser approach to crisis management

Wise power also helps in managing potential ethical crises. In the face of a serious accusation of organisational wrongdoing (e.g. corruption or illicit business practice), the first principle – duality of mind – compels curiosity. Rather than immediately dismissing the accusation as inconsistent with what we know of the organisation, we need to seek out all available information. Instead of resorting to reflexive denial, wise leaders may ask the company's accuser, “Oh, if you know something that I don't, tell me everything. I may not be fully aware.”

The second principle – emotional maturity – encourages compassion. Instead of reacting in outrage, we might say to the accuser, “What you tell me makes me feel very bad. I want to do something about it.” Acknowledging and making space for the emotion not only establishes common ground, but it also builds credibility. This breaks the feedback loop of violence (verbal or otherwise) that can make a bad situation even worse.

The third principle – generosity of soul – points the way forward. As wiser leaders, we train ourselves to give substance to responses such as, “What we ultimately want is for the company to be useful to society.” If the accusation proves to be true, action can be taken to bring the organisation's culture and conduct back in line with its original ideal. The crisis can become an opportunity to return the purpose of the business to its rightful place at the very core of organisational activity. The organisation is likely to emerge from the firestorm both stronger than before and with a renewed sense of purpose.

With wise power, we care for end results while learning to forge our own path, aligned with what is most important to us and with a vision and purpose beyond the immediate goal.

Marc Le Menestrel is Visiting Professor for Corporate Governance and Sustainability at INSEAD.

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Angola: Searching for a new Spirit by Looking at the bright side

Marc Le Menestrel — 2016-12-08T04:44:18Z

December 2nd, 2016 was a historical day for Angola. Not because I was invited to speak at a conference on Corporate Governance in Luanda but because this is the day President dos Santos decided not to present himself to the coming elections. After nearly 40 years with him, Angola is in search of a new Spirit. I looked at it from the bright side.

And this is not necessarily easy. As Angola was to access independence from the Portuguese at the end of one of the most sombre European dictatorship of the 20th century, Angola was also discovered to be the bed of a great amount of oil. Under sea, yes; expansive to extract, yes; but of excellent quality. And as Angola is nowadays the largest oil producer of oil in Africa, it has also been the victim of the fall of oil prices in the last years. To be sincere, it has somehow been the victim of oil since its discovery: the famous Dutch disease or Oil Curse that characterized countries which rely too much on the sole wealth of oil to drive their development. But I said I was looking at the bright side. So the question is: how oil can help to nurture a new bright spirit for Angola? I witnessed the strong belief that it should not be through violence. Everyone wants to forget the bloody civil war and build on the stability which followed by the victory of future ex-President, his army and his party. I sincerely hope that the days ahead will allow the national forces to hold the ground and protect the country. With slightly rising oil prices, and a global momentum to move away from a carbon-based economy, there is a great chance to have the right amount of added value from oil to support a diversification. It was especially interesting to learn at the conference how people there dream of self-sufficiency in basic sectors such as agriculture, textile or raw material for construction. In Angola, globalization may not preclude autonomy.

A second most important question was also very much related to the global dynamics of the time: under which conditions banks can help finance this transition? If the dedication of Angola banks seemed sincere and competent, the question arises from correspondent banks that can ensure the connection of Angola's economy with the rest of the financial world. In our discussions, the power of the mighty dollar system was very much felt: as the given currency for oil of course (oil represents 95% of exports), but also through the norms pertaining to transactions and governance. Angola is asked (forced?) to adopt the accounting standards of the United States. And it is interesting to note that such exercise of power uses ethics and anti-corruption efforts as a means. Sensitive to this dynamics, and to the emotions felt by a country so proud of its political independences after a long-fought battle, it is not obvious to find a bright way out. There is however no other solution than taking the best of all systems. As Deng Xiaoping said (around the time Dos Santos came into power!), capitalism and communism are two ways to serve the welfare of the people. There is no need to oppose ideologies and there are many smart ways to combine them in order to avoid the worse of each. Angola may fiercely come to terms with practices that now belong to the past and it may do so without selling its soul.

To this end, the obvious bright side of Angola is the proud richness of its people and of its grounds -be it off shore or for agriculture. We dreamed of them leap-frogging to a green and circular economy that uses wisely the new conscience of our unsustainability. Besides the wise men who founded the economic successes of the country over the past 15 years, it was wonderful to meet a new generation of Angola people proud of their roots and farseeing in their visions. The unity provided by Portuguese as a language spoken all over the country is certainly a resource. Moreover, it seems that Portuguese themselves, who were very present at the conference, and expatriates in general, are grateful for the wealth Angola provide to their business or to their home country. In the difficult circumstances of the time, there is an obligation and an opportunity for a win-win post-colonial relation, based on a sense of care for the country itself and for its promises. The question is thus whether these Angola leaders will dare to invent their future on their own terms under the pressure of external conditions, be them coming from other nations or from nature itself.

This is in this context that I deliver my speech on governance as the wise use of power. Treating the global level as well as the corporate and the personal levels, I proposed three principles for the wise use of power.

Firstly, a principle for the mind that I termed duality. As the mind naturally thinks in classes and value-judgement, I invited participants to make the effort to think contrarily to their natural categories and to their prejudices. As Hermann Hesse wrote in Siddharta, “the contrary to any truth can be as true as the truth itself”. It is thus necessary to suspend judgments and apply critical thinking to our natural thoughts, beliefs and methods.

Secondly, a principle for the heart that is certainly called love. The mind can be treacherous to motivate us and there is nothing better than doing what we love to do it sustainably and with courage. Moreover, being able to accept our vulnerabilities helps to have the emotional maturity to thing broadly and creatively.

Thirdly, a principle for the soul that I called dreams. In a time of disruptive uncertainty, dreams can be like a light house in the storm. We do not necessarily head straight towards them, not even reach them exactly, but they offer an irreplaceable sense of guidance for our vision. Dreams help to avoid the many traps that direct routes hide below the surface.

It is with a sense of achievement that INSEAD organizers concluded the conference. There is a genuine opportunity for such events which allow conversations to take place beyond polemics and prejudices. An academic approach combined with a strong sense of relations in the respect of diversity, all with a superb organization, offer a bowl of fresh air in today's difficulties. In such conferences, the brilliance of INSEAD alumni prove that INSEAD is a business school for the world and it was indeed my privilege to be part of it. I wish Angola, its people and its Alumni to find a bright new spirit for the days ahead.

Gaïa @ Rocklands: A Dream Project

Marc Le Menestrel — 2016-10-18T16:56:15Z

My first visit to Rocklands in South Africa in 2014 was a calling.
From the rock art of our ancestors the San people, I felt African for the first time.
Guest to some beautiful wine farm in Stellenbosch, I felt white. Forgiven by the blessing of Madiba, I felt in need of redemption.
And it is among the boulders of Rocklands that I knew how deeply I was a climber.
I dreamed of discovering my self and its shadows in this eternal landscape and in this society of social transformation.

To lose yourself in the Rocklands landscape is to find a path within Gaïa

Serendipity offered the opportunity to push forward a partnership between INSEAD in Fontainebleau and the University of Stellenbosch. This led to the African Directors Program and its leading-edge intention to train directors in a vision of business at the service of ethics, responsibility and sustainability. It was also the occasion for me to try a new relation to money: I would dedicate my fees to some social project in the country.

The San our First People

The San, our First People

From there, my intention would help me to meet people. I entered into conversations about what could be done. Climbing grows at a rate of at least 20% each year in Rocklands, bringing tourists of a special type. Climbers stay for a much longer time than flowers' lovers, cherish the wilderness like Bushmen and like to bond with local people. Even for the farms where crops remain the main source of revenues, climbing disrupts the social dynamics.

Alas, willing to “do something”, most of my ideas and the ones generated with these discussions were inappropriate. They were an opportunity to take conscience of my prejudices. I needed to clean my mind to let the dream take its own shape. I needed to heal my soul to let the dream have a life on its own. I needed to be ready not to do anything so as to perceive a form of energy independent of my self.

While visiting the Sustainability Institute in Stellenbosch with my co-director Arnold Smit and my friend Desiré Gird, I thought of my soul brother Txema Gomez and his idea to build boulders for outdoor climbing. We then pursued this in Barcelona and Txema, seduced by the idea, proposed to build Gaïa for Rocklands. He had built the first Gaïa has a self-present for his 50th anniversary and it had a very special meaning to him (see his song below).

Txema Gomez, climber, poet, composer, Gaia builder... Here in Rocklands (photo James Frost)

I came for 2 months mi-July 2016 and things then began to flow. My local friends Charité, Becky and James all pointed to JP and Tracy who I had met the year before. That night, we spoke a lot about Indaba and the spirit of the Bantu people, the power of the landscape and the tragedy of the San people. That week, the climbing school they were animating received so much gifts that JP and Tracy decided to hand over to Elizabeth Fontain, the local primary school. All sign pointing in the same direction, they said we should build Gaïa there.

The Small World (Gaia Boulder)

Since I couldn't fix the world

I built a new one

For me and for dreamers

Some say I am a fool

And I agree with them

It is my own protection

Homage from my heart

It cannot contain my tears

Witnessing so much pain

Turn, turn my small world

The climber becomes stronger

In the end it is just a game

Beware climbers

At the location of New York

There is a tricky move

Hold on and pull hard

Keep breathing

You will make a virtuous jump

It is the magic of this boulder

When each revolution

Is at the service of joy.

Txema Gomez

The day Txema arrived from Europe, the school was running its annual Climbers' party and Annatjie Domus, its headmistress, was already announcing the welcoming of Gaïa at the school! Unio Joubert, a climber, had joined the school a few weeks before and would become a most inspiring and supporting fellow. Thanks to Charité's husband Edu and her mother Effie, Dr Strauss accepted to lend us a workshop close to the school. Thys and Marc from De Pakhuis were eager to help lending us the necessary tols. I found help in the local suppliers to order the fibreglass, the resin and the rest of the material.

Painting Gaïa (photo Scott Noy)

The building of Gaïa itself took less than 3 weeks. From the start, James Frost joined the team and became Txema's first acolyte. Lisa, Clara, Scott and Kaddi, Jim and Elmar were helping in a thousand ways and especially to draw a beautiful map of the earth on the ball. The children would come to visit from time to time until we brought the ball to the school. We had no holds and found a great help from Citirocksthrough its founder Robert Breyer and Metoliuswho agreed to contribute as a sponsor. Gecko Grips also agreed to make a special price for us and I contacted Mike Behr who was willing to help by giving holds. Everyone wanted to help the success of Gaïa.

Gaïa Spirit

The end of the construction was the beginning of the work of Gaïa itself. It is as if Gaïa was a spirit guiding the whole project, finding its way among the people and taking form in the material world. We wrote the two phrases Txema and I had selected: “Each turn heals – It is a game” on the South pole.

The Gaia Ball

Gaia (Mother Earth) Ball is the brainchild of Catalonian climber and master builder Txema Gomez. The project was funded and spearheaded by Marc Le Menestrel a French climber and sustainable business expert. The message from the ball “healing each turn” and “it's a game” is an open invitation for movement by climbing on the ball. The speed of the rotation is controlled by a rope-brake system that can also be fixed to create a static climbing device.
This project will allow learners to climb on only the second of its kind rotating climbing globe and we believe develop both cognitive and physiological life skills. By moving on the Gaia ball problem solving will enable learners to learn how to regulate and control their bodies and minds. Self-regulation is thus taught and the hope is that our learners will in the future be able to use this amazing tool independently and without adult supervision.
This project is part of a larger drive by organizations such as the Rocklands Rangers to develop and promote climbing within the local community of the Agter Pakhuis area. The future growth of climbing we feel can only help healing in our school and community.-Thank you to all the hands that helped to build and erect this new fun learning solution.

Unio Joubert
A link to Unio Joubert's account of Gaïa on CLIMB ZA

With Gaïa, I have learned to lead a dream project with the spirits, in the flow and at the service of some energy for social transformation. I felt the magic of life and I felt the healing very much, and in particular for the white man in me. Healing was happening to others I guess, even if it is always very difficult to judge from outside. And sometimes healing takes time and goes through phases. What was obvious was the joy of the kids climbing Gaïa after school or during their Physical Education class. I hope the images and videos pay tribute to this.

Thanks for helping Gaïa

Txema – James - Gim Huay - Lisa - Clara - Scott and Kaddi - Jim - Elmar - Desiré - Becky and James - Lizzie and Connie - JP and Tracy - Charité and Edu - Dr Strauss and Effie - Thys and Marc - Unio and Annatjie – Arnold - Lauren – Mike – Robert - Brooke – Kurt - Jaco

Coaching and the mystery of existence

Marc Le Menestrel — 2014-10-27T13:35:47Z

Who are we? Are we these physical bodies incarnated while writing or reading this text? Are we these complex selves that psychology researchers study? Are we metaphysical souls lying somewhere in some spiritual world?

Are we the expectation of our father, of our mother, of our ancestors or our peers? Are we the memory that our children will keep of us, or the children of our children?

Are we also the person we talk to, the ones we live with or those with whom we work? Are we a cultural entity, a tiny bit of humanity?

Are we the butterfly that I saw this morning? Or the flower that was feeding it? Are we the trees and the forest, the sea and the sky, the earth as a planet? Are we all the planets of this solar system, and also other stars? Are we the universe itself?

Could we be everything like the Poet David Whyte invites us to be in his beautiful poem “Everything is waiting for you”?

If we can give so many answers to these questions, it is because we are profoundly and inherently free to answer the question “who are we?”
We are ever free to dream who we are and who we would like to become.

Whoever we think we are will not give justice to the mystery of ourselves. Each answer to this beautiful question is merely a frontier between who we think we are and who we think we are not. Exploring this frontier is like inviting the mystery of existence to a conversation with who we think we are.

In my coaching, I like to work with people at the frontier of themselves, inviting them to discover their selves beyond the frontier of their own thoughts, beyond the constraint of their own beliefs. This process is both a cognitive and an emotional process. It is also a mysterious one because it creates a surprising experience from which the participant can learn about his or her own mystery.

This learning is not meant to be therapeutic in the sense of liberating someone from some suffering. Although this may happen, the intention is rather to work in a genuinely integrative manner so as to unleash the full potential of the participant. In this manner, it shall be seen as an integrative approach towards improving decision-making and peak performance. I personally like this concrete outcome of the sessions, which enhance the meaning of the effort of the participant and of the coach in the context of a professional coaching.

This activity has become one more way for me to integrate what I have learned in my own life so as to bring the mental, the heart and the soul at the service of a fully lived existence.

More on my Brief, Integrative, Inspiring coaching sessions.

Fear – Failure - Fortitude

Marc Le Menestrel — 2012-11-26T10:56:00Z

When I stepped down as a professional athlete and started a more "normal" professional life, one of my biggest surprises was people's attitude towards failure. As if “others” were trying to never fail. I had my successes as a rock-climber, but I was very aware of many more failures. In climbing, as soon as I was completing a route, I was trying something harder, and failed. Until success is reached, climbing is like a succession of failures. It does not mean that I looked for failures, but the idea was to fully accept their necessary existence, and to manage the bitter, unwanted feeling that comes with our defeat.

I was therefore especially interested when I was proposed by the Lisbon MBA to design and run a workshop on failure. Its pioneering session on November 23rd, 2012 worked well and was praised by the participants. As an experiential session, most of the content was coming out of them as actors of the learning process. For instance, one of the first sharing from a student was to formulate that

"the opposite of success is not failure, it is not trying".

Indeed, an important key for turning failure into fortitude is to realize that it is part of a learning process.

The central experience of the class is an epic journey, built around the archetypal myth of the hero and its quest. Besides a few words for the guided visualization, we used a musical composition due to Jean-Michel Robert. After having experienced the journey, Jean-Michel composed a 6-part piece using Chinese cymbals, Thailand gongs, electronic music, guitar, oak and other artifacts. I was glad to combine such a beautiful piece of musical art with our work, in the spirit of a deep yet playful endeavor.

At the end of their MBA, and in the difficult economic context of Portugal, the session was timely, allowing students to work on the fear of not finding a job, one of their most important goals for the forthcoming weeks. In the afternoon, another guided visualization exercise helped them to formulate the goal beyond the goal, and thus to reinforce their capacity to confront their actual challenges with full potential.

Description of the session

In this experiential session, participants learn about failures, fears and their role for future successes.

We use the art of conversation, with others and within ourselves, to explore the surprising world of our shadows, and to eventually embrace our experiences beyond the imperative of being always successful in everything.

We give a special emphasis to the distinctions between objectives and dreams, between professional success and self-accomplishment, and between individual and collective failures.

Targeted outcomes

• Increase awareness about failures and fears

• Develop participants power to manage fears and learn from failure

• Increase participants future resilience

Illustration

Beowulf and the Dragon – H.E. Marshall 1908

To go further

Leaflet used by students for their personal learning.

The International Day for Failure, an inspiring initiative of Finish young entrepreneurs, to be celebrated on October 13!

Fail & Learn: Tuuti Piipo, who collaborates to the International Day for failure, has gathered a series of resources and references (articles, videos, books...) around Failure on this Kippt bookmarking service.

Dream your way to success

Marc Le Menestrel — 2012-08-28T09:10:59Z

It's not all about business plans and spreadsheets and getting to the next goal. The picture of real success is at least partly in your mind.

Business schools give you the tools: financial literacy, management and economic theory, marketing… it's how you put it all together in the working world that determines success or failure. And that ability to combine is not necessarily a logical function, but one that involves a certain amount of creative thinking - the kinds of right brain activity we think of as having minimal importance in the office or on decision making.

However, Marc le Menestrel believes that psychology and emotions have everything to do with the business world. He describes the complex web of forces that drive decision making as “dreams”.

This is the first two entry paragraphs of an article entitled "Dream your way to success" by Grace Segran for INSEAD Knowledge. Based on an interview carried out in Jakarta, Grace is introducing the theme of dreams in executive education.

Maybe it is this article that attracted the attention of CNN's journalist Rose Hoare who wrote a piece entitled "How seeing the big picture could bring success, fulfillment" which features excerpts from an interview she conducted with me. Below is her first two paragraphs, featuring the Dreaming Sessions and INSEAD:

(CNN) — Performance targets are built into an annual review that tells you how well you are achieving at work. Salary is another way of keeping score. But some experts believe in order to find real career fulfillment, you need to look beyond short- and medium-term goals.

At INSEAD, an elite business school in France, ethics professor and decision scientist Marc Le Menestrel conducts four-hour 'Dreaming and Visioning' sessions with senior executives, as part of a four-week program intended to hone decision-making.

The Spirit and the Power of Money: A Creative Session at THNK

Marc Le Menestrel — 2012-06-30T12:07:02Z

On June 27, I discovered THNK, the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership by delivering a creative session on the Spirit and Power of Money.

I met the participants of their main Creative Leadership Program in an old brick building, entirely renovated as a spacious, open, colorful and adaptable place. We all sat in a circle on cubes with a very diverse energy. Some of us had taken a short Taï-Chi session while some others were arriving straight from their outside life.

We began with a dialogue exercise of active listening. In pairs, one was responding to the question “How have you been doing with money so far in your life?” while the other was trying to offer the most trustful space by simply listening, without judgment nor interpretation. This already brought us to a common space and we could follow with a guided journey.

We all reached a safe and comfortable place to meet ourselves in the future, learning about who we are, about the Very Important Persons who accompany our inner and outer life, about work and about our achievements. Those who wanted could prepare themselves to be taken in a journey inside the journey in an attempt to meet the spirit of money. In this first exploratory step, there was no other intention than having a first meeting, and maybe also collecting some appropriate message or share some feeling.

I liked very much the sharing of one participant, who met a horse that would flee whenever he was getting closer. On the other hand, the horse would come to him whenever he was walking his own path. Then, as the encounter developed, he was able to ride his "spirit of money" in a transformed relationship.

The atmosphere was thick with our spiritual presence and it was joyful at the same time. I attributed this success to the maturity of the participants, already so much open to living their life as an adventure. After a pause, we could then move to the second part of the session dedicated to the power of Money.

Participants had read my case “A Day at the Big Bank” that I had prepared with Julian Rode in early 2008, anticipating the financial crisis for the top leaders of Bank of America. They presented their strategy to a Board chaired by Brenda Childers, the Director of the Amsterdam Institute of Finance and featuring Kwela Hermanns and Menno Van Dijk from THNK. The board was prepared to be tough on them in order to explore the tensions between corporate strategy of a Big Bank and our willingness to move towards a more ethical financial system.

Participants did a wonderful job, but to some extent, maybe not as creative as they could have been. When trying to analyze their strategies and the way they were presenting, I had the feeling they were somehow impressed by the board and the power of money it represented.

The ambiguity of our relationship with money, well expressed and analyzed by Lynne Twist in her book “The Soul of Money” (which was by the way a main source of inspiration for my work on my own relation to money), was somehow preventing them to express their full potential. Clearly, this could be a good learning, in particular when participants will later look for financing their own projects. I hope our experience with the Big Bank will motivate them to be fully daring with their own social entrepreneurship endeavors.

Eventually, this session allowed us to audaciously raise the fundamental questions of the role of money. I think of them as divided in three main realms of different scales:

– What is the role of money in this world?
– What is the role of money in a company?
– What is the role of money in an individual?

In the design of my pedagogical flow for this special creative session, I looked for each participant to develop their answers from themselves to the world. For most individuals, money is a means at the individual level. Maybe it could also be considered as such at the corporate and global levels?

Dreaming of a world where money would truly be at the service of society, of companies and of individuals, as a sort of universal means towards infinity of specific purposes is nourishing a paradigmatic change that I am trying to contribute to.

Dreaming to change the role of money is at the same time obvious and impossible: a perfect opportunity to re-invent ourselves.

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Immersed in Balinese Spirits: INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Conference 2012

Marc Le Menestrel — 2012-05-26T12:56:00Z

For the 2012 ISEP conference, Hans Wahl and Felipe Santos, from the Social Entrepreneurship Center at INSEAD, had the wonderful idea to locate the events in Indonesia.

We met social entrepreneurs in conferences and workshops, discovering a new generation of women and men who are setting up companies and organizations at the service of others, of Nature or towards some special cause. They are envisioning money as a means and not as an end and dream to re-invent business. I was invited to talk about values, ethics and transparency, bringing my expertise of the "dark side" of business to these already enlightened entrepreneurs. I structured my brief talk around three key messages, each one around the words proposed to me:

Values: "There is an infinite diversity of values. Each one has some specific value which is not fully measured by money taken as a common value".

Ethics: "We are not as ethical as we like to think, and even if we are a social entrepreneur aiming at some noble cause, we should spend some effort to have a critical look at our unethical side".

Transparency: "Transparency is a wonderful criterion between theory and practice to assess ethicality. Beyond being transparent about our ethics, being transparent about one's vulnerabilities allows us to create trust and receive help".

In Bali, I had a special dreaming workshop for ISEP alumni, where I invited the 16 participants to board a boat by bringing their chairs inside the U formed by our tables. We made 8 rows of two, side by side, towards east. I spotted a wooden dustbin and took it as a drum. I began to give rhythm to our journey.

Towards the Island of your Dreams with the Balinese Spirits

We left the island and paddled hard to cross the waves to pass the reef. We called for fishes, dolphins and seagulls to show us the way towards the island of our dreams. We experienced the void of an entirely flat horizon. We found our island unexpectedly, once we were sure to be lost, and nearly capped just before reaching the shore.

From this low place, I invited them to leave everything they knew behind and, with empty hands, start exploring their dreams. I was to stay by the boat, playing the drum to maintain the connection with their intention. They could meet the people of their dreams, if any, and observe whatever they could sense. They were watching their spirits busy at work, or not, witnessing animals or other forms of wildlife. They were looking for a treasure to bring back as a help to face the challenges they identified in a previous session. Some were exploring a forest or a mountain, others a town or a village, while some were just partying with friends and having their good time. Most of their discoveries remain mysteries to me, as I was alone with my boat. An old man did come to me and, placing his hands on my feet, he told me to nurture humility as a treasure.

Many came back to the boat at my call their smile so big it would rip their face apart. Others looked neutral or absorbed. It was anyway time to board and paddle hard to quit the island. It is indeed back on the boat that some received their appropriate message. One was told there was no other treasure than life and nothing to look for except existence. Others were cherishing their piece of nature, an animal, a thought or a feeling, on their way back home.

While opening our eyes in the room, we slowly moved towards a big board where we could share some of the words we had received from our very important persons. One realized he was the important person to be cared of. Another told us about the ugly island she discovered, to finally go around her nightmares and discover her dreams hidden behind. Many humbly shared the beauty of their dreams, the overwhelming energy they have inside and this uncontrollable connection with the source of our love. For a few, it was also an opportunity to have the courage to be gentle to themselves, and to realize that it may be time to do what we have always known to be good to us. I personally liked when an Indonesian brought back the forgiveness of her mother, by thus forgiving us all, in acceptation of all the vulnerabilities that make our richness.

I believe we were all ready to make our dreams come true in this world, wherever it lies.

About spirituality and social entrepreneurship, read the article "The Next Revolution is Spiritual" from Ben Bowler, one of the participants, in the Huffington Post.

What are Chinese MBA students dreaming about?

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-10-24T13:07:00Z

While teaching a class on business ethics at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai in October 2011, students asked for a teaching about meditation techniques. Often, issues of ethics in business connect us with questions that can be overwhelming and for which mental control is of little help. It is thus important to learn how to keep a protected sense of self, a harmonious connection with our emotions, and a firm grounding of our body. I proposed them a dreaming session modeled upon the Dreaming & Visioning sessions that I give at INSEAD for executives and that include specific and directed meditation exercises.

In a first duo conversation exercise, students learned the practice of active listening while the other is unfolding at will his or her self-awareness of dreams, successes, failures, ascending influences and cultural constraints. There is always a moment of truth when confronted with “tiny but frightening requests” as David Whyte writes in his beautiful poem Sometimes. I could watch the flow of these intimate conversations, realizing how much Chinese could openly speak about themselves, with this gentle and playful attention that I had already observed among Chinese climbers. As they were speaking in their own language, I could stop by and listen without any risk of intruding, observing facial expressions which are so different than the occidental ones I am more used to.

After sharing our learning, which included both the pleasure of the art of conversation and the silent power of listening, we joined a sacred and secret place in ourselves where we could feel safe and comfortable. We dreamed and met ourselves in 15 years. Although I do guide these visualization exercises, mixing my early training in sophrology techniques when I was a professional athlete with psycho-spiritual techniques coming from Milton Erickson or Michael Harner that I have learned later on, I have no access to what participants have been dreaming about and this is exactly what I want. My ethics in these moments is to make sure each one has his or her own intimacy fully respected and shared only when appropriate.

However, we do have an opportunity to share some aspects of our dreams, in particular our encounters with Very Important Persons, those who accompany us in our life as loved ones, mentors, inspirational figures or spiritual guides. We share what these persons would told us if we manage to live our life at our full potential and anchor these experiences in a form of theatre that is inspired by the work of Sue Jennings on "Theatre, Ritual and Transformation" with the Malaysian Senoi Temiar, a tribe that I spent time with and had the priviledge to share some of their dreaming decision-making techniques.

This does not prevent us to have fun as much as being deeply moved, as I have gladly discovered that we do not need to take ourselves too seriously in these experiences. There can also be lightness proper to the atmosphere that I am trying to create around us, with trust in the group, trust in oneself and trust in the facilitator. I particularly love when we laugh at ourselves which hopefully happens often, as a proof that we are close to what makes us truly human.

Finally, we ended with a fresco of our most important values on the whiteboard, as a way to share the words that could guide us towards the life of our dreams.

I keep a vivid memory of that unique afternoon, and of the gift I receive afterwards: a diner at the Sichuan opera, discovering this stupefying magical mask changing art, Bian Lian, as an invitation to the discovery of the multiple selves that populate our own.