Volume 11, Numbers 1–2

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
SPECIAL REPORTTen Years of Learning in
Companies: A SoL France
Research Report
President’s Note
Étienne Collignon

Part One
Report on the Action Research
Irène Dupoux-Couturier, Béatrice
Quasnik, Catherine Redelsperger,
Alain de Vulpian

The Words to Say “Learning”
Triggers of Learning
Pathways to Learning
Practicing Learning in
All Its Forms
A Particular Type of 		
Change Agent
Companies Stretched
Between Two Poles
Conclusion
Part Two
Getting It into Perspective
Learning in Light of Evolving
Social Practices in France
Catherine Redelsperger and
Béatrice Quasnik

Toward a New Type ofSystemic Leadership: An
Awakening Awareness
Irène Dupoux-Couturier

Empathy, Socioperception,
and Anticipation
Alain de Vulpian
Published by The Society for Organizational Learningreflections.solonline.org
ISSN 1524-1734

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p u blis h er ’ s N ote 1 1 . 1 – 2T

he conception of SoL 		
was inspired in part by
the possibility of a network of vibrant learning communities around the world,
united around some common
questions and informing eachother through diverse interests.
C. Sherry Immediato
We have always imagined that
Reflections is a vehicle for that cross-fertilization. It istherefore a dream come true to share with you a recent
edition of the Cahiers de SoL France featuring their
10th anniversary research project report on a decadeof learning in companies.
Summaries of the content follow, so I would prefer 		
to focus on SoL France as a learning community andas a leader in developing the SoL network. When I participated in the 10th Anniversary Symposium, I noted
how SoL France has in many ways been the heart of
the global SoL community. They hosted the first global
meeting of SoL members in Bordeaux in 1999 before
we knew enough to call such things “forums.” Membersof SoL France were among a few visionary leaders in2001 who called for regular global “jamborees” where
members could exchange their questions and learnings, and expand their networks of collaboration. They
hosted gatherings in 2002, 2004, and 2007 for global
coordinators to determine the goals, time, and placeof such meetings, leading to our forums in Helsinki 		in 2003, Vienna in 2005, and Oman in 2008.

Facilitating such collaboration is indeed remarkable,
but as the following report implies, it has been thesmallest part of SoL France’s activity. In most instances,the larger SoL community has been invited into SoL
France’s explorations. As soon as I begin to recall
specific topics and conversations, others come tomind, and I am reminded of the significance of thiscontribution.
I won’t recount the details of this history here, but I
believe all of us have benefitted. I hope you will join
me in acknowledging SoL France and its long-timecoordinator, Irène Dupoux-Couturier, for their leadership and service, and for truly stimulating our collective intelligence.
While I expect that this particular report will elicit 		a fair amount of admiration among SoL members, I
know I join SoL France’s leadership team in also imagining that it will be matched by emulation! I hope moreof us will respond with our own action research reports
so that we will expand our collective understanding oflearning in companies and beyond.
And so we present to you this special issue avec plaisir(with pleasure)! Enjoy. n

C. Sherry Immediato
PublisherP resident ’ s note | colli g non		 president ’ s note 1 1 . 1 – 2

Ten Years of Learning in Companies
É tienne Colli g non
President of SoL France, Solvay Senior Expert LearningW

hen we decided toresearch a decade oflearning in celebrationof SoL France’s 10th anniversary,
we couldn’t have imagined
how much this initiative would
enrich our own thinking andaction. In this issue, we share
Étienne Colignon
the results of 18 months ofwork by four perseveringresearchers. In a world in economic crisis, they felt 		
an urgent need to interact with the companies being
studied and analyze the systems in action. In eight fieldsof research, they followed the energy at work, feeble
sparks or strong collective dynamics, wherever it
flowed. They listened and allowed the reflections andlearning to emerge, their questions sometimes triggering new advances. As a group and with the companies
they studied, they lived the experience of an action
research team to the fullest, an experience that wasitself profoundly enlightening and in harmony with 		the topic at hand.

The intermediate results of the research had an amplifying effect in SoL France. Here really was the road tothe future! We hadn’t been mistaken! The members of
SoL France, whether company managers, consultants
working toward learning, or change agents, all felt
encouraged to take bold steps in going further in initiatives and in developing deep and effective capacity.
This shift occurred in a difficult economic context thatraises questions about the society we share and thatexhibits a growing interest in the values we represent.
Our research confirmed that the visionary thought
involved in learning is not a utopian fad. People at different levels of responsibility and in many organizations
often work together to quietly design progressive projects, transform organizations and people, and find away out of crisis through the development of humanqualities and capacities.
This research project has already brought members 		
of SoL France a shared vision of our ambition for transforming organizations and practicing collective intelligence. By making these results available to a wide
public, we hope to connect the people involved andaccelerate the desire to make our organizations morehuman and more alive. n

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e x ec u tive di g est 1 1 . 1 – 2Part One: Report on the Action Research
SoL France’s Action Research Program
Irène Dupoux-Couturier, Béatrice Quasnik, 		Catherine Redelsperger, and Alain de Vulpian
In celebration of SoL France’s 10th anniversary, its boardof directors launched an action research project to learn
how member companies adapted to a changing environment during that decade. The researchers found anincreasing number of change agents working quietly
together to find a way out of the economic crisis by
supporting the development of human qualities andcapacities. These formal and informal leaders perceive
emergent opportunities and imagine other forms oforganization, management, motivation, markets, andproduction methods – a critical skill for ensuring a company’s vitality and prosperity in the years ahead. By supporting these change agents, the SoL France network
has contributed to the evolution of some companies
from a mechanistic logic toward an organic one.

Part Two: Getting It into Perspective
Learning in Light of Evolving 		
Social Practices in France
Catherine Redelsperger and Béatrice Quasnik
Changing societal norms and practices have influenced
learning practices in organizations. This article highlights
six interconnected dynamics that have had an effecton collective learning: the disappearance of barriers
between professional and personal life; the acceptanceof expressions of personality; a reevaluation of theconcept of “collective”; the internet as a creator ofinteractions; people’s aspiration for more democracy;
and sustainable development. These trends havecaused profound shifts that stretch well beyond theworld of work.

Toward a New Type of Systemic Leadership:
An Awakening Awareness
Irène Dupoux-Couturier
SoL France’s action research project found strong
evidence that a new type of leadership is emerging,able to adapt to the growing complexity of our systems and face the current economic crisis by relying
on people, the essential resource of any organization.
These emerging leaders are not dreamy idealists but“pragmatic humanists” from throughout the ranks. In
this article, Irène Dupoux-Couturier makes the casethat we have reached a tipping point in the development of a form of leadership capable of causing sustainable and efficient changes in the world. To beeffective, modern leaders must transform not only
their businesses but themselves as well.

Empathy, Socioperception, 		
and Anticipation
Alain de Vulpian
Today, more and more people have highly developed“socioperception” skills that play an integral role in theirprofessional lives; that is, they possess a deep systemic
intuition of the condition and functioning of the social
systems within which they operate. These individuals
sense the most significant potential future directions
and intuit opportunities for positive intervention. 		
In this article, Alain de Vulpian looks at humankind’s
intellectual and emotional evolution over the past
several centuries and the factors that have led to a 		rise in a “new society of people” based on empathy 		and socioperceptive abilities. n

P art O ne

Report on the
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introd u ction 1 1 . 1 – 2

SoL France’s Action Research ProgramI r è ne D u po u x - Co u t u rier , B éatrice Q uasnik ,C at h erine R edelsper g er , and A lain de V u lpianS

Overview

Irène DupouxCouturier

Béatrice Quasnik

Catherine
RedelspergeroL appeared in France in 1999, one year after its birth in Boston andLondon. Looking back on our 10th anniversary and trying to imagine
the future, the board of directors of SoL France decided to launch anaction research program focused on a decade of organizational learning. Program design and implementation were put in the hands of a team of
SoL France members: Irène Dupoux-Couturier, Béatrice Quasnik, Catherine
Redelsperger, and Alain de Vulpian.

As members of the project team, we examined our roles: What are we doing?
Who are the colleagues connected to our network, and what are they doing?
What are their life experiences, hopes, difficulties, and discouragements?
What are they doing in practical terms, independent of theories, and what are
the effects of their actions? What does SoL provide them, and what has it not
managed to provide? We examined what we knew about the SoL member
companies and asked, What has happened in these companies during recent
years, as part of the SoL network or regarding their own concerns?1 What are
the systemic processes that accelerate or retard the movement toward anorganization based on learning, intense and sustainable vitality, adaptation
to the environment, and wise governance?
The goal of the action research project was to conduct micro-sociologicalresearch to reveal the life experiences and evolution of social systems andprocesses in equilibrium or in movement. It also focused on actions currently
unfolding to encourage better adjustment and fine-tuning to a changing environment. Rather than produce a definitive body of knowledge, the research
was designed to lead to actions and anticipate future directions. We found that,beyond its initial objectives, an action research program encourages increased
awareness among those who take part as observers or witnesses, and in so doing,transforms them. It also encourages them to connect with each other, dialogue,
and intensify their networking activity.2

Field Research

Alain de Vulpian

In this phase of the program, we chose to carry out our investigations in companies that were involved with SoL to some degree and to interview men andwomen participating, consciously or not, in the movement. Eight companies, all
but one members of SoL, were chosen to participate in the research. We knew
in advance that each of these companies was going through transformations.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m bers 1 – 2They were all very different in both size and activity,
ranging from 500 to 150,000 employees, in industrial valves, bulk chemicals, pharmaceuticals, railways, telecommunications, foodstuffs, beauty,
sports equipment, etc.

In one way or another, all of thepeople we interviewed are looking
to change the life and habits of
their companies or of the domain
or sector for which they are
responsible.
Sampling
In each company, the field research began withan interview with SoL’s principal contact there.
Through this interview, the researcher identified
other contacts within the company to interview
about the changes currently under way. We interviewed around 40 people, some several times,
and also held two group discussions. The fiftyodd directors, managers, and employees of thecompanies we worked with make up a sample
population that is both homogenous and 		
heterogeneous.
Homogenous. In one way or another, all of thepeople we interviewed are looking to change thelife and habits of their companies or of the domain
or sec-tor for which they are responsible. They
seek to help the company make better use of its
human potential, adjust to its environment, improve its cohesion, and nourish its vitality. Someemphasized anticipating possible threats andopportunities. Analysis of the interviews shows thatthe majority of the participants can be described as
pragmatic, humanist change agents.

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Heterogeneous. The interviewees occupy varied
positions. Some are senior managers, others are
ordinary employees, and still others are tradeunion representatives. Some have specific change
agent functions in the management chart, whileothers have found themselves in situations where
they have had to im-provise. Some of the participants have change as part of their character. Someare supported by their senior managers, others aretolerated, and others ignored.

Interviews
The interviews were largely non-directional. Theinterviewers engaged in deep listening, which
stimulates the speaker’s self-projection (or mental
proprioception) and increases awareness of thesystems in which he or she is involved (for information on focused interviews, see Robert K. Merton).
The researchers explored the life experiences of
the interviewees and considered them sources of
information about their companies and partners
in the research project. Through the interviews,
many participants sharpened their awareness ofwhat they were doing and what made them “tick.”
They saw themselves more clearly as change
agents and as members of an informal networkof change agents. We guaranteed confidentiality
for both the company and the interviewee. It wasleft to each company to decide what to disclose.

Analysis
The researchers analyzed each interview fromboth psycho-sociological and socio-systemic
points of view to provide a diagnosis and “readbetween the lines.” We examined all interviewsin two dimensions, by company and by theme.

Feedback
We are in the process of compiling feedback foreach participating company. We’re organizing
it according to the company’s wishes; it can beby individual, a combination of all the interviews
from the company concerned, or a combinationof data from more than one company. nf eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2

The Words to Say “Learning”

Words, syntax, and the connotations of language are tools for understanding reality.
Language is a living phenomenon. For example, we invent words to describe objects
that at one time did not exist, such as “airplane.” We also absorb words of foreign origin;“le bled,” from the Moroccan, is now currently used in French to mean “village.” Ourlanguage is built up of words from a variety of sources, and within one and the same language, we
speak in different tongues: slang, high brow, literary, technical, etc. Language serves as a code for
dialogue, decision, domination, information, seduction, learning, and understanding.

1. The Word “Learning”
When preparing for the action research project, we started by looking at the word “learning” (in French,
apprenance), with a certain amount of difficulty, but with great attention. The truth is that this term
continually causes us problems and is sometimes downrightcumbersome. Nevertheless, SoL France uses this word to
Learning is both an action
describe its own specific nature.

performed by individuals andWe won’t try here to define what is meant by “learning orgaa collective undertaking.
nization”; rather, we shall try to shed light on the relationship our interviewees have with the associated language. It
is interesting to know that in France, the word “apprenance” appeared precisely from the period when Peter
Senge’s The Fifth Discipline was being translated. When the translators wanted to register the word, they
discovered that it had already been recorded some months earlier.
The word was in the air at the time.
But while this word has had a degree of success at SoL and among some of its members, it is notunanimously accepted. Usually when someone employs it, another person asks, “What does that mean?”and the question leads to a discussion. “Learning” and “organizational learning” are catch-all phrases
into which speakers stuff different things. However, in this context, two words crop up frequently:“learning together.”
As a result, we decided that during the research project, we would usually use the expression “to learn
together,” thus emphasizing that learning is both an action performed by individuals and a collective
undertaking.

2. The Language of Learning
We discovered from listening to our interviewees that the language of learning has widely differingcharacteristics. We observed a “language of experts” that tends to stabilize a linguistic corpus and an
emerging language that invents words to name practices that are rooted in dialogue, exchange, and5

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questioning. We have also noticed that when companies strongly focus on their business activity,
the language of that activity dominates and does
not allow the addition of the language of learning.
In this case, learning is integrated into the language of the company’s core activity.

are those who speak and understand the languageof learning, and the others. Language has thepower to integrate a group or community. As
a result, a newcomer can feel obligated to go
through the process of learning the language,
simply to feel an affinity with others.

A language of experts

Many of our interviewees referred to SoL’s seminaron “Fundamentals of Organizational Learning,”3during which they were initiated into the vocabulary, concepts, practices, state of mind, andattitude of learning.

Any language of experts, like all specializations of
this sort, comes close to being a jargon. In France,a preliminary characteristic of jargon is the adoptionof terminology from elsewhere, usually English,
for example “feedback” and “bottom up.” (Thispractice of borrowing from English is frequentin business and in French society in general).

This expert language is enriched by what wehave called “a language looking for itself.”

A language looking for itself

The language of learning 		
reveals relationships.
The second characteristic is the combinationof terms to create evocative expressions that giverise to multiple interpretations. Examples include“shared vision,” “trial and error strategy,” “learning
networks,” and so on.
The third characteristic of an expert language
is the addition of “co-” in front of words. Two examples are “co-construction” and “co-creation,” constructed on the model of “cooperation.”
The fourth characteristic is borrowing not froma natural language but from a technical language,often one linked to methodologies, for example
Kaisen methods, or from the human sciences, suchas “systemic analysis.” The resulting jargon may
have a distancing effect or create confusion. The
lack of simplicity and people’s difficulty in understanding what exists behind the words results
in a level of distrust in some companies.
Another aspect that should not be ignored isthat a language is also a means of binding a group
together and creating a feeling of belonging: There

We have identified a wide variety of learning
practices. These practices are created on the flyin concrete situations encountered in companies.
Sometimes they are reproduced in the same
company or elsewhere; they receive names. That’s
how experience gives rise to expressions andmelodic names for methods, approaches, tools,
notions, and concepts, for example, “180-degree
turns,” “learning networks,” and “apprenticeshipcontract.”
The language of learning is in motion; it’s a 		living language.

A relational language
We also saw that the language of learning wascentered in relationships. It is a language that“reveals” relationship. It makes explicit and bringsout “the unsaid” – what is happening within me,
between me and the other, and between me
and the system – in a form that does not shy awayfrom emotions, sensitivity, sympathy, empathy,
and subjectivity.
This characteristic is linked to the fact that learning approaches include dimensions of personal
development, emotional and relational intelligence, and systemic complexity, which reflect
a deep interest in interactions.

f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

Another important point is the acceptance ofphysicality. Learning is not a disembodied activity;
it includes physical elements. Noticing body language, smiling, looking the other in the eye, andbeing aware of muscular tensions and contractions are all part of a learning approach.
Other languages are also used in learning 		
approaches, including music and the visual arts.
Companies with an engineering culture havethe most difficulty tolerating relational language.
They are more at ease with reasoned, logical approaches, with reference structures for interpreting
the world as observed objects. Relational language
observes subjects who are in relationship, something that is not really part of the culture of engineering companies. As a result, learning approaches
can generate a degree of mistrust in these settings.

A language that disturbs
We shall see below that change agents havetrouble with the language of learning, because it
disturbs people. It brings to light unspoken things,
which can be unacceptable for some. It can evenbe a turn-off when there is too much jargon orappears exclusive and sectarian.
We have identified companies that do not use
the language of learning, although they act as alearning organization, for two reasons:• Companies with a strong engineering culture
have difficulty in accepting relational language.
• Companies with a dominant business language
have difficulty in accepting the expert languageof learning.

Learning is not a disembodied
activity; it includes physicalelements such as body language.
3. The Lack of Explanation
One of the key dimensions of learning approaches
is “reflexivity.” By reflexivity, we mean the ability torecognize what is being done, perceive what isbeing forgotten or unlearned, observe what isbeing created, and realize what is being learned.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m bers 1 – 2This increase in awareness concerns the individual,
team, and organization.
We will come back to this dimension in the article
on the practices of learning. Many of these practices
are a way to trigger new awareness of different
realities simultaneously experienced by different
people by putting them into words. Edgar Morinspeaks of “many-eyed” viewpoints. This awarenessenables one to leave behind illusions about oneself.
It also promotes the acquired skills that would haveremained hidden if they had not been made explicit
through words.

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For example: In an interview, a group used theexpression “collective autonomy” to describe
how team members and leaders learn to assume
autonomy through their participation in working
groups. This expression surprised the committeethat was working on putting 10 years of learning
into perspective.
To explain, we need a language. If a company,
because of its culture, refuses to use words that are
vehicles for relationships, the system, and emotions,
it becomes blind and deaf to part of what is 		
happening. n

If a company refuses to use words that are vehicles for
relationships, the system, and emotions, it becomesblind and deaf to part of what is happening.

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Triggers of Learning
We invited our partners to talk about the changes that have occurred in their companies that are in line withlearning. We did not insist on using this term, as we soon discovered that it had no clear, consistent meaning
for interviewees. We asked them to describe changes, structures, or interventions that are in line with what
they are trying to do.

The terminology varied from one person to another. Some rejected the terms “learning” and“apprenticeship,” while others liked them. One said: “I do not use the word ‘learning’; I talk about
cultural change.” Another stated: “Our goal is to ensure that each of our 85,000 employees isa cell in a living, self-adapting organism. But the concept of perpetual learning is easier tospread than the idea of a living, evolving company.”
Some recurring elements appeared that express the idea of movement and the desire to identify
where we are coming from and where we want to go. Here are a few:

Where we come from:

Where we are going:

Rational organization

Living, learning organization

Hierarchy

Participation, heterarchy, leadership

Centralization

Interaction

Direct, command

Catalyze, facilitate

Impose one’s views

Listen, bring to birthBusiness activity

Finance

Short term

Anticipation

The cases we found of the emergence of learning in companies are extremely varied, and thecircumstances that triggered it are very different.4 We will first examine the circumstances and thentry to make sense of the variety of forms of the learning path that we observed.

Triggering a Learning Journey
Our contacts suggested that a wide variety of openings, innovative behaviors, initiatives, and awakenings
trigger adjustments that lead companies to improve on current reality. Sometimes, a change process
emerges in a company or a division that until then had remained closed to change; sometimes, it’s a
key initiative that follows earlier events.

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Sophie Juin

External consultants and coaches
often play an important role indeveloping learning pathways.
Three situations commonly occur: In one, thechange trigger is lost in the mists of time; in theother two, the spark comes from bottom-up initiatives or leaders in positions of authority. External
consultants and coaches often play an importantrole in developing learning pathways.

that will improve its adjustment to a changing
reality. This attitude is clearly deep seated andself-supporting, with no easily identifiable triggers.
Managers and employees practice openness.
Socioperceptive5 employees are valued andencouraged to persevere, and organized socioperceptive structures proliferate (see Part 2,“Empathy, Socioperception, and Anticipation”).

1. Any trigger is lost in the mists of time

In the other company, the attitude of openness
and listening is just as deeply rooted and integrated into the culture, but is less comprehensive.
The company tries to anticipate the evolution ofsociety and consumers, while more traditional
attitudes dominate team leadership.

We witnessed this dynamic in two of the companies
we visited; the “opening” was part of their culture,
as if it were in their DNA.

In both cases, the type of culture is likely related tothe personality of the founders or their successors.

One of the companies keeps a close eye on thelife of its teams and human society – consumers
and citizens – and its relationship with the planet’s
ecology. It constantly seeks to anticipate changes

2. Triggers from bottom-up initiatives
In many cases, team learning is triggered by one
or more initiatives from the base, with no input
from higher levels, who can be unaware of it,f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

tolerate it, or even encourage it. Clearly thesecompanies are alive. “Things” are happening thathave nothing to do with the formal decisions of
those in established power. Among the various
cases we observed:• A middle manager reads a book, buys a management tool, or decides to take part in a training
seminar that he or she chooses from a catalog
of available offerings. Such seemingly minor(and inexpensive) commitments can trigger
real learning experiences.
• In a company with fairly standard methodsof management, executives in three different
middle management positions find that theyshare similar outlooks and collaborate totransform the way part of the company is run.
• A middle manager is given a relatively new
and unusual responsibility. He is not driven bya desire for change or openness, but he wants
to achieve his task. Through well-developed
intuition, he understands the unusual characteristics of the population that concerns him.
He invents entirely new ways to handle the situation; others quickly imitate these approaches.
• In different functional positions in the company, people with an open, humanist attitude
grow in number. They are often quite socioperceptive and are effective change agents. They
improvise new ways to “grease the wheels”;
in the field, they use their natural predisposition to achieve desired objectives and facilitate
emergence of desirable characteristics or avert
dysfunctional processes.
• In several companies where centralization,
hierarchy, and rational “bolt-tightening” serve
as official policy, we found a wide range offragmented processes for opening, calls forparticipation, catalysts of natural innovation,and signs of emergence. These initiatives do
not reflect official policy, but occur in response
to various situations taking place at different
decentralized levels. The effects of these actions
are cumulative and can reach a tipping point.

3. Triggers initiated by leaders
The arrival of a new boss convinced of the needfor openness can be decisive. However, more commonly, existing bosses change course in responseto an environmental change, the emergence ofa new challenge, or awareness of a situation thatis perhaps old but has long remained unnoticed.
Their initiative is reflected in the life and cultureof the company or division, in particular throughthe introduction of change agents.

In certain sectors, leaders havebecome conscious that radical
change in growth technologies
must be accompanied by 		
an equally radical change incorporate culture.
Changes of course are of various types and origins.
Some examples:• Over the past decade, senior managers becameaware that traditional R&D could no longer supply the necessary innovation. This awarenessfrequently prompted greater openness andappeals for staff to collaborate with each otherand the outside world.
• In certain sectors, leaders have become 		
conscious that radical change in growth technologies must be accompanied by an equally
radical change in corporate culture.
• The transition from a monopoly to open competition compelled leaders in one company
to initiate a fundamental redesign.
• In many of the companies we studied, transformation of the field of competition through thegeographical expansion of markets or the entryof new competitors prompted senior managers
to broaden their perspectives, enhance theirlistening, and consider the long term in theirthinking.
• Realizing that the company’s business lines
and management culture had no future, a

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Sophie Juin

The domino system of the Berlin Walldirector planned a radical reorientation andinvolved staff and the outside world in acreative reassessment.
• In another company, top managers recently
realized that the environment was the key tomajor strategic development opportunities.
This understanding triggered a process ofinteraction and collaboration inside andoutside the company to anticipate ways 		of incorporating these opportunities.

Most of the companies havefound that the traditional modeof innovation based primarily
on research and development is
no longer enough to fuel theirdevelopment.

• The economic crisis stimulated awarenessamong a number of top managers that theircompany was no longer adapted to the worldthat was developing: It was too focused on
short-term financial and technical/scientificsuccess, distant from its staff, and cut off fromyouth. As such, it wasn’t able to attract highpotential employees, and existing staff waslosing morale and resilience.
In recent years, a complicity has tended to develop
between change agents, more or less free spirits
who identify and collude with each other, and senior
managers who are becoming aware of the usefulness of these employees and encourage or evenorganize them. nf eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2Pathways to Learning
Our contacts reported being involved in or observing many cases of interventions that seem to be moving
toward openness and learning. These may be timely interventions of limited duration, step-by-step changes,
slow evolution over long periods, successive swerves, or the embedding and institutionalization of new
systems or processes.

T

he word “pathways” is appropriate because these are often groping processes, as the people
involved listen to the feedback the initiatives generate and the emergent situations to which
they give rise, looking for possible adjustments. New situations emerge that call for new 		interventions. This same pathway represents the learning process itself.

Some pathways turn out to be loops: One action leads to another, which impacts the first throughdouble-loop feedback. Others are spirals: New actions integrate feedback and bounce into new futures;
throughout the process, they incorporate lessons, challenges, and discoveries. Others are more linear:
Steps are not climbed from landing to landing but integrate advances and setbacks like any processof life and creation.
At this point in our report, we illustrate these pathways, describing the features observed in the field,
which we have numbered as examples. These elements enable us to step back and define the changes
experienced over a decade.
The interventions are intended to:• stimulate innovation in products and services;• involve staff in the planning of strategic decisions or in their implementation;• drive cultural change;• enhance perception of the field, scope, or target; or• focus on personal development and the transformation of mental models.
Finally, deliberately or not, some transformation strategies turn out to be unstable, contradictory,or paradoxical.

1. Stimulating Innovation in Products or Services
Most of the companies studied have found at one time or another, some as long as a decade ago, thatthe traditional mode of innovation based primarily on research and development is no longer enoughto fuel their development. With varying degrees of success, they have involved their staff and the outside world. They expanded their contacts with the scientific community and sometimes institutionalized
these contacts. Many put their researchers in touch with anthropologists who shed light on the changes
to be expected among those who will use the products of the future. They have increased the use ofsuggestion boxes among their staff.

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A path against the current

Over time, the efforts spawned networks, which
one company calls “innovactors.” The name has
become established, and employee innovation
has become more complex and more efficient.
Example 1. One company installed suggestion
boxes nationally. The number of ideas collected
was small. It turned out that the jury appointed
by the hierarchy was afraid to accept disturbing,sometimes revolutionary, ideas. Based on thisobservation, the company has established acom-pletely different, non-hierarchical system. The
initiator of an idea posts it in a conspicuous place
where everyone can read it, and if people agreewith it, they sign up. In this particular case, noticeboards hang by the cafeteria queue, a place where
people have to wait and tend to read the notices.
This creates a kind of bazaar, a marketplace ofideas. If you like an idea, you can propose yourself as a supporter or sponsor. Small teams of
supporters form naturally. There are no longer
juries, just partners. One year after the introductionof the process, tens of thousands of ideas havebeen submitted, and many have been developed.

2. Involving Staff in Planning and
Implementing Strategies
These actions tend to be a part of governance.
Companies may combine a variety of objectives tovarying degrees, for example, improving strategy,
strengthening staff involvement, dehierarchizing
the business culture, and making products more
effective and relevant.

Facing up to a “blocked” future
The leaders of a group, division, or subsidiary
become aware that the future is blocked and, toensure the continued existence of the unit, theymust work out radically new strategies. They
search for these strategies and implement themby practicing openness.
Example 2. The chairman of a European grouphas become aware over the last two or three years
that the company cannot continue to expand andmaintain its profitability over a 10-year horizon
without adapting its products and production
methods to meet ecological and sustainable
development challenges.

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To transform this new orientation into a strategic
action plan, senior managers, staff, and union
representatives have participated in a dialogue
for several years. The group expects to enrich
its strategies and transform its relationships.
Example 3. An English factory of one of thegroups we studied was in danger of being closed.
Local managers involved employees in a collective
effort to think up strategies that could avoid thisoutcome. The group asked senior managers fora year’s reprieve. It created networks with local
public and private organizations, the town council, and the university. New opportunities sprungup, including new partnerships, products, andprofitability.
The shared enthusiasm of the staff was exemplary.
The director spent time at corporate headquarters
to explain, get them to wait, demonstrate success,and ultimately prevent the closure of the plant,
which has turned toward new horizons. At group
HQ, the learning that occurred through the consensus of local management and staff aroused
initial resistance and subsequent astonishment.

Adjust the way strategies are implemented
Upper managers set strategies and objectives,
and the relevant employees defined the forms or
methods of application, the “operational strategies.”
Feedback eventually led management to modify
the strategy and objectives.
Example 4. In a company of engineers, the base
rejected the strategic vision of the five-year plandeveloped by top managers. For the 2012 plan,managers decided to do it differently. Senior leaders developed a first draft that they put forward
for reaction from the base. The ping-pong between
top and bottom lasted longer than expected, but
resulted in the establishment of a consensus view.
Example 5. The goal is for the company to enact
in real life all of its newly defined values. In twocases, management defined the values; the question became how to support the base in appropri-

ating these values and incorporating them into avariety of business lines. A working group witha relatively long time horizon was organized.
The group searched for a satisfactory fit between
effective action and the company’s objectives.
It appropriated the values, transforming them
to a certain degree, and sent the proposal backto management. Interestingly, both groups, at the
top and the base, feel that the initiatives came fromtheir own side.
Example 6. Shared governance take many forms.
In many companies, we see learning networks appear in product innovation, management development, and customer relationship management.
They can be formal, but the role and effectivenessof informal networks is increasingly evident. They
take different names over time: decentralized
platform, management platform, bridge groups,
action progress meetings, group feedback, etc.
One of our interviewees wrote about them: “Ina business transformation, the role of networks
is to put people in motion, helping them becomeaware of what is possible without waiting foreverything to be completely spelled out anddefined. The purpose of these learning networks
is to strengthen individual and collective capacity
to learn and adapt. The customers’ new needs areat the heart of the network. . . . The network is aplace for authorization and open dialogue, a spacein which to develop the adaptability of the company and its employees. Innovation, project management, and experimentation are all already welldeveloped within companies. Often these facilities
are implemented among a representative sampleof employees and subsequently rolled out andgeneralized among people who have not had
the opportunity of thinking things out to the trial
stage. Learning networks provide an opportunity
for simultaneously setting many actors to work on
an issue . . . they are places of learning and experimentation. Sometimes the question arises of therelationship of a learning network to line management. I think we should combine these two forms ofmanagement, particularly in large organizations.”

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Collective intelligence feeds into a decision
Example 7. A company struggled with how to
prepare its staff for a disruptive change. The chief
strategist and the director of human resources
agreed that the best way to prepare everyone
for the move was to involve them in selecting the
new site. They informed the staff of the need forthe move, so employees felt directly involved inchoosing the site. Staff and management carriedout joint research to find a location near a motorway exit that meets employees’ logistical needs(housing, schools, public transportation, etc.).
Everybody felt involved; the team found an ideal
place; the strategic decision took place by consensus; and people throughout the company
were happy.

3. Driving a Culture Change
Most of the interventions and operations analyzed
affect the culture of the companies concerned. For
example, they contribute to a move toward greater
consideration of customers, a growing numberof initiatives taken, a more collective attitude,“dehierarchization,” consensus building, etc. However, the goal of these initiatives is not to achievethese things, although some interventions explicitly
focus on managing change in the corporate culture.
Example 8. This company was fragmented into
compartmentalized units, people, and services
working in isolation. An external consultant introduced the idea of “team players.” Numerous meetings have helped to create a shared language
around this concept. The new communication/cohesion improved the company’s understandingof market realities, and enabled consistent andrapid responses. When we interviewed representatives from this company, the issue seemed to
be inventing ways to function as a team without
being together all the time.
Example 9. A large company with a strong traditional culture linked to a certain state of technology development became aware that this culture
would not allow it to successfully enter developing
markets characterized by radically different technologies. The company realized that it faced thereflections.solonline.org

major challenge of changing culture. It acquired
modern companies with the radically different
culture. Managers deliberately controlled thefusion to create a new culture to meet the competitive requirements in an area of leading-		edge technology.
Example 10. In other cases, a projected change
to the culture only gradually became clear. The
senior management of a unit of a large groupwas split across different geographical areas. The
company launched a consolidation project. The
managing director became aware that the solution required more than simply physically relocating people; it also required a profound change inthe management of the unit. He sensed that hecould use the opportunity to improve attitudes
and management styles. The dedicated and appropriate office space could enable new networks toemerge, “success stories” to spread, other typesof management and leadership to develop, andgovernance to change. The director worked withinternal consultants to respond to his questions
and anxieties, and they called in an external
consultant. An informal network created many
years earlier that focused on change and humanrelations reappeared, with one consultant inparticular playing a key role.
The director came to better understand the major
challenges facing his team. In response, he decided
to install change agents chosen from inside andoutside the organization, which was against thegrain of the company’s traditional engineering
culture. The atmosphere in the senior management team changed drastically. As the leader now
says: “We are carrying out a profound culturalchange. With amazement and probably interest
too, the rest of our large group is watching what
is happening before their own eyes.”

4. Sharpen Socioperceptive Awarenessof the Region, Field of Action, or Target
Some of our interviewees recounted stories ofsuccessful learning initiatives, in which understanding the environment in which they act andeffective ways of interacting with it are central.

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Example 11. Several of our respondents are
penetratingly socioperceptive. Given a task, they
understand where their field of action calls forradically new forms of intervention, and they innovate. A middle manager was assigned a relatively
new and unusual task. He was not driven by adesire for change or openness, but he did wantto succeed in his assignment. He sensed how the
population he had to work with differed from the
populations his company usually dealt with. He
strengthened his natural socioperceptive skill with
Rogerian training. After some fumbling, he cameto understand how and why standard methods
and procedures wouldn’t be effective in this caseand invented radically new approaches adapted
to the problem and population. In particular, hemanaged to develop a sense of belonging in a
disparate population, so that a collective processof learning began. In the company, his successattracted attention and encouraged others toemulate his approach.

origins so as to find appropriate solutions. This
practice can lead to the creation of foundations.

Example 12. Several companies are supporting
their staffs in developing a practice of systematically listening to development trends. Someinterviewees complained about their companies’
inadequacies in this area.

We noticed that all of the companies dedicate
enormous effort toward personal development,
whether openness of mind, transmission of systemic perception, enrichment of intuition, ability
to move from implicit to explicit, training of highpotential managers, or expansion of senior managers’ general knowledge. Did this effort pre-date
SoL, does it exist in parallel to SoL, or is it related
to SoL’s role in these companies?

Example 13. In a large company facing strong
international competition, customer-service staff
members sought to include the customer in theirapproach to innovation. To do so, they createdfeedback loops, such as “customer needs/suitability of products” loops. The question arises ofwhether this kind of practice can be formalized
without killing the vitality at the root of this innovation. Can what is good in one case be goodin another? How can the organization codify anddisseminate these emergent and spontaneous
innovations? The issue is not resolved and probably won’t be soon, but it has launched a learning
pathway. Can companies accept trial and error asa modern management procedure? How canthey disseminate “success stories”?
Example 14. Some companies seek to identify
forms of social suffering and to understand their

Example 15. Several of the companies we visited
are working to analyze successes and failures thatare out of the ordinary. One of them has systematized the process, developing methods andteams to examine successes and failures “postmortem” and learn lessons that may be useful forother services or circumstances. Some of themconduct debriefs afterward: what worked wellor not so well? What should we do next time?
Example 16. One of our respondents expressed
an anxiety that seems to be general: How can we
adapt our vision of the company’s development totake into account permanent changes in the environment? One response is that we must listen
and constantly readjust.

5. Personal Development and 		Transformation of Mental Models

This question is not easy to answer, and yet it is
an important part of the learning pathway. Severalof our interviewees who are internal change agents
have had training in psychology, psychoanalysis,
sociology, ethnology, etc. They have a real desire
for personal development, as shown by their participation in specialized seminars and their reading of books like The Fifth Discipline or more recently Presence by Otto Scharmer. They present
diagrams illustrating the parallel between organizational development and personal development.
They highlight work on listening (based on theapproach developed by American psychologist
Carl Rogers), constructive dialogue, and interrelationships.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m bers 1 – 2All of the companies return to the need to transform mental models. These transformations takeplace in informal or formal groups, such as researchand dialogue groups oriented toward progress.
Corporate universities also play an important role.
Most companies organize personal development
seminars. For several, the “Fundamentals of Organizational Learning” seminar has assumed a majorrole in disseminating learning across internal
networks. This program centers on personal development in conjunction with teamwork, mental
models, and the quality of dialogue. One company focuses all its management training for highpotential employees on the parallels between
the construction of a strategic vision and the personal development of everyone in the organization, integrating body, heart, and mind.

6. Strategies That Are Changing,Contradictory, or Paradoxical
The interviews provided insights into the strategies of the companies concerned and their evolution over time. Field research with a broader scopethan this project will no doubt show that all companies have strategies that are contradictory forthe dimensions open/closed, participation/hierarchy, catalyze/lead, or learn on your own/be taught.
Interviews with pragmatic, humanist change agentshighlight a few of these contradictions.

Successive periods of tension and relaxation
We make an effort. It pays off. We feel entitled torelax. The situation starts to deteriorate. We stepup the effort again. And so on. Several companies
reported this pattern, which concerns learning
networks in particular.
Example 17. Managers realized that top-downinterventions in their company were of limited
effectiveness. To involve all relevant staff andimprove their fit with current realities in the field,
the organization created learning networks. These
networks achieved better and better success. The
situation improved markedly. The question thencame up: What do we really do in such networks?
To save time, the company reduced their importance. Then they suppressed them altogether. The

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situation deteriorated again, prompting restoration of the networks (sometimes in another form
or under another name). The company again
seeks to reach cruising speed.

Succession of different strategies suited
to different times
Example 18. In recent decades, a particularlyorganic, living company streamlined its organization and “tightened the bolts.” This policy caused
stress and discomfort among the staff. Senior
managers responded by creating a communications and human resources policy that somestaff and managers viewed as manipulative.
Faced with a crisis, the company experienced
a loss of cohesion and resilience. Some of its
departments may be looking for ways to revive
bottom-up initiatives.
Example 19. One company changes its CEO
approximately every three years. This turnover
results in strategic changes. This lack of continuity
is not necessarily harmful. A detailed analysis may
show that the change or adjustment of strategy
depends both on the personality of the CEO andon changes in the status of the company in its
environment.

Different strategies carried out bydifferent levels and sectors of a company
Example 20. In many companies, two contradictory processes coexist that remain permanently inbalance. One is an official centralizing, hierarchical“bolt-tightening” process, mandated and led bythose in high places. The other is a set of fragmentary processes of openness and innovation thatcan be felt at different decentralized levels. Pragmatic, humanist change agents, more or less ontheir own initiative, represent different strategies
from those championed by the company’s directors.
In several cases, senior managers became awareof this phenomenon and encouraged it.
Example 21. Many companies have a policy ofrationalization and centralization on the international level, while national leadership implementsa policy of openness and innovation. About 10

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years ago in one such organization, contradictions
emerged between the executive committee andvarious national directorates. The system eventually moved toward openness and vitality.
The executive committee now uses the words“learning organization.”
Example 22. Communication is sometimes used
as a lubricant or a way to pass down the “gospel”
according to senior management, and sometimes
as an incentive and a way to develop awareness.
In many companies, clashes arise between thesedifferent perspectives. For example, in one company, the communications department struggled
to understand and incorporate initiatives fromother departments. Turf wars began among thecommunications department, human resources,
and strategy management. Some of our respondents posed the question: “How do you send amanagement wake-up call in the 21st century?”
Paradoxical strategies. Some companies deliberately run concurrent strategies that have different
objectives and can appear contradictory.
Example 23. One company went through aphase of extreme decentralization and openness
that initiated a paradigm shift in the culture,
but also resulted in disturbances and loss of strategic coherence. The new president had to decide
whether to go with centralization or openness.
He chose a strategy of and not or: The organiza-tion must centralize and tighten to restore 		consistency and multiply and strengthen its
learning networks.
Example 24. Many companies react to crisis byseeking to reduce costs by involving staff in identifying potential savings and in researching thedirection of post-crisis development. This is how
they try to come out of the crisis alive, whilestrengthening their cohesion and resilience.
In one such company, contrary to the practiceof the parent corporation, the director of an international division attempted to turn employees
into “entrepreneurs.” The operation appears tohave been successful.
On the orders of its parent entity, another particularly lively and socioperceptive company that
devotes energy and time to its social and human
functioning began a cost-cutting operation.
Personnel numbers dropped, and workloads increased. The staff had less time to spend on socialand human affairs or on planning for the future.
However, facilitators organized interactive sessions
focused on giving new life to the organization.
They are groping...
All of the examples in this article show the extreme
variety of possible pathways. This variety represents
the essence of learning in practice. n

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Practicing Learning in All Its Forms
We are interested in the learning practices used by SoL member companies over the last 10 years for several
reasons. First, they make visible the companies’ intentions, principles, and theories. Also, practices can be
described, with their progress, results, and effects. We asked the following questions:• What are the practices?
• What are their characteristics?
• What are they fed by?
• What is innovative about these practices compared to other participatory approaches?

1. Characteristics of the Practices
As we listened to our interviewees, they described a set of learning practices.

The collective dimension
The focal point of learning practices is that they must be collective. The group is not merely a juxtaposition of people. The interactions among people create a place of learning. Learning together is not
an end in itself. The act of learning can serve causes, such as developing a customer culture, opening
up local fiefdoms, and developing a shared strategic vision. Groups concerned with learning vary widely.
We distinguish existing de facto collectives in the organization from those created specially for an
action as part of an organizational learning initiative.

Existing teams
The hierarchical organization of companies creates spaces where teams can come into being and grow.
For example, using a learning approach, the managing director and executive committee can build ashared strategic vision and path to achieve it.
On its own initiative, the executive committee could also engage in an approach based on grouplearning (e.g., by asking managers, “What do we collectively need to learn to achieve our strategic
goals?”) or on individual apprenticeships. The group could also step back and look at the relationshipbetween the managing director and his or her team by starting a direct dialogue (without using astandard 360-degree questionnaire).

Working groups
To facilitate openness between business activities, increase efficiency, and solve problems by bringing
together the right skills at the right level (usually in the field), management can create working groups.
The Kaisen method based on quality is one process that can support this kind of learning, as it develops
collective learning as part of the drive for continuous improvement.

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Learning networks
Learning networks bring together people working in the same area or carrying out the same
operational or functional activity (with all ranks
together). Volunteers participating in these networks decide collectively what concrete issues
or priorities they will work on together. After trial
runs, they make proposals to sponsors who haveline authority to decide whether to implement
them on a larger scale. In these learning networks,
employees take the initiative and make decisions
that would have been impossible in the ordinary
company structure.

Communities of practice
Another collective learning practice is the exchange of best practices among peers in the samebusiness activity though communities of practiceor dialogue workshops. These are not clubs that
invite guests to attend a panel discussion followedby dinner. A community of practice focuses on
describing practices within a peer group. This
process requires accepting that you don’t know
everything, revealing your weaknesses to andaccepting help from others.

In learning networks, employees
take the initiative and makedecisions that would have been
impossible in the ordinary
company structure.

Customer days
To develop a customer culture, some people
set up meetings that include clients. In somecases, the customer is internal to the company,in others, external. These customer days are designed for participants to discover, be surprised,and learn about each other and themselves.
They are intended to trigger new awareness,changed attitudes, and action plans.

The individual dimension
Most of the time, individual learning occurs
through the group process.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2A craft. We refer to learning practices as “artisanal”
for several reasons. First, they involve “tinkering”
in the best sense of the term. People engage inclever ways to adapt the means at hand to create
an effective approach to the current context. This
does not involve reinventing the wheel every time
but it does avoid industrializing the method, which
bothers some large companies that seek to improve returns by multiplying certain approaches
on a large scale. Learning is also a craft because
the apprenticeship for acquiring the skills takes
time and requires a lot of humility. By “skills,” wemean intuitions stemming from experience, suchas knowing when to seize the moment to advanceby trial and error (letting go), when to be directional (steering), when to introduce disorder, how
to launch a call for volunteers, etc.

Some companies have invested
in developing meeting spaces thatcreate a suitable environment for
accelerating openness to otherdepartments or companies,
to the outside world, to art.
Exceptional or recurring practices. Sometimes,
the spirit of learning percolates through the entire
function, department, steering committee, or company as a whole. In such cases, the practice oflearning becomes a daily exercise. However, mostof the practices described correspond to exceptional events, for two main reasons:• The group forms for the occasion or an existinggroup (for example, a steering committee)
decides to focus on an unusual subject.
• The need for action exists over a limited periodof time: six months, a year, two to four years.
For periods of more than a year, the approach
often persists, but the players change (e.g.,in learning networks).
An ad hoc space. Learning practices usuallytake place in ad hoc locations. In practical terms,
people are not clustered around computers, Power-reflections.solonline.org

Point presentations, or even tables. They often
sit on chairs, maybe in a circle. When participants
produce written material, they use paper or poster
board. (A recent development is the practice ofgraphic recording; the graphic recorder draws
or expresses graphically what is being said orexperienced, without ironic cartooning, on large
whiteboards that everyone can see.) Some companies have invested in developing meeting
spaces that create a suitable environment for
accelerating openness to other departments
or companies, to the outside world, to art.
A state of mind. Our interviewees emphasized
the importance of state of mind in learning practices. For them, this is what gives life to the useof practices, tools, and approaches.
Participants describe this mood as including:• Curiosity and questioning• Openness to others and to novelty• The desire to learn• Recognition of one’s own fragility• Advantage for the group
Free circulation. Tools, methods, approaches,
and theoretical references are in free circulation,
and also free in the sense that no one is selling amethod or franchise. This model is similar to theLinux experiment of open-source software. Participants in the circulation of resources include
universities (American, Finnish, French), the companies themselves (such as the inter-company
group of SoL members), books, magazines 		(Reflections edited by SoL United States, and theCahiers de SoL France), associations (the GARF –human resources professionals; the CJD – young
business leaders), civil society (participatory
democracy), learning journeys (Team Academy
Finland), and consultants.

2. Uses
Learning often serves change management.
Its practice can contribute to managerial transformation through the development of cooperation, delegation, accountability, and leadership.
Learning practices focus on three issues: thef eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

process and conditions for success, interactions,and diversity.

Processes and conditions for success
Learning practices focus first and foremost on theprocesses and conditions for success: the “how.”
The “what” is input by the participants. In startinga learning approach, one of the first questions is:“How can we establish the conditions for successfully learning together?” Some of the many conditions include openness, dialogue, creativity,
and a proactive orientation.

Interactions
Learning practices center primarily on interactions.
This means taking account of the system, its complexity, and its dynamics, and noticing the interactions among these components. It means
arranging meetings between people (the World
Café is a landmark approach). Learning in thiscontext consists of dialogue rather than top-down
communication or propaganda.
Through the processes of observation, research,
and action, the observer also becomes an actor
and researcher.

Learning practices rely on thediversity of the people present
and their different perceptions
and points of view.
Diversity
Practices of learning may involve different kindsof resources:• The imaginary and the analogical 		(the Research Café)• Cartesian analysis, rational thought 		(associated with quality programs)• Systemic analysis (scenarios)• “Storytelling” at learning tables
This last practice has nothing to do with the spintechniques used by politicians and their marketers
to rewrite history in their favor. In the storytelling
used with learning tables, participants relate both
failures and successes in order to transmit experiences in all their aspects and make progress
through the support of the group.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2Learning practices rely on the diversity of thepeople present and their different perceptions
and points of view:• Different line management levels, as in 		
learning networks• Different businesses, particularly for 		
participatory innovation• Different backgrounds and cultures, for 		
example, a “learning journey” in China 		organized for French participants

Learning practices may seem
subversive to many players in
the company because they pose
in-depth questions about power,change, and life.
3. What Is New About These Practices
Compared to Participatory Approaches?
The innovation here lies in the combinationof three practices: parity, a systemic process,and reflexivity.

ParityParity is:• the use of peer groups (groups in the sameprofession or function), and• the establishment of groups from different
professions or different levels for the durationof the action, enabling them to experience
new forms of cooperation.

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Reflexivity
Reflexivity consists of a process of action research:observing oneself acting in the system with others,
and developing skills in group observation andaction in and with the group. Participants often
make these observations explicit and share themin conversations on the subject (feedback) but
also throughout the process.
To conclude, learning practices serve to:• transform links where they are damaged
or distorted;• create links where there are few or none;• displace power, allow countervailing powers
to develop, and share power differently;• achieve objectives more effectively;• catalyze emergent factors.
These are not necessarily revolutionary practices,in the sense that they fit well and truly into thecompany and do not seek to destroy it or expel
shareholders. As far as we have observed, learning
practices include acceptance of the capitalist system. Nevertheless, they may seem subversive to
many players in the company because they pose
in-depth questions about power, change, and life.
They are in fact based on a number of tenets:• Collective intelligence is central.
• Learning means changing.
• Life is about learning.
• The world is changing.
•	Human beings are valuable in themselves.
Last point: Did our interviewees seem satisfied
with the results of their learning experiences?

Systemic process
In participatory approaches, a systemic process
consists of establishing an anchor in the organization through analysis of interactions, organizations,dynamics, reservoirs, regulators, feedback loops,
and the use of process-related, rather than content-related, interventions.

We can tentatively conclude that the results are
sometimes spectacular, but they are fragile anddifficult to maintain over time, especially when thistype of approach is not part of the company’s DNA.
The section on change agents will give further
insight into the issues and struggles represented
by these kinds of learning approaches. n

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A Particular Type of Change Agent
During our investigation into learning in companies, we identified people who play a key role. They are
vehicles for the momentum of change and stimulate organizational transformation, hence the term “change
agents.” We could try to compile a portrait of a typical change agent, but these are not standard types.
Each person has an individual profile, describing his or her personal and professional career, company,
and business culture. To respect the wide variety in their profiles while highlighting what characterizes anddistinguishes them, we will use six different spotlights to present change agents from six different angles:• The means through which they emerge and multiply• Their ability to act as “pragmatic humanists”• Their internal make-up and the type of leadership they embody• The particular characteristics of their personal journeys• The limitations of navigating by sight• An outline of their evolution
The portraits will overlap, hopefully providing enough nuances and differences in emphasis to avoid
simplistic clichés.

E

Spotlight Number One: The Emergence of Change Agents in the Company
arly in our research, we had discussions with people close to SoL who we knew would bemajor sources of information about learning as it occurred in their own companies. What we
did not know is that change agents are part of a growing current. Indeed, these people referred
to others who had played a role in developing their awareness of being change agents. They
encouraged us to contact people with the sameprofile, who in turn mentioned others. Sometimes
Sometimes the very fact thatthe very fact that we listened to people made themaware that they too were change agents, that they
we listened to people madewere more typical than they thought, and that oththem aware that they too wereers were part of the same dynamic.

change agents.

We came to consider the emergence of change
agents as a major feature of the past 10 years. Almost
all of our interviewees seek something other than professional success. In their companies, as they
carry out projects, they strive to exceed the operational objectives assigned to them. They want to provide something extra that will benefit individuals, teams, and possibly the company and even the planet.
They propel change in the direction of improvement, openness, self-fulfillment, and well-being. They are
guided by the intention of giving meaning to work, and they develop a storyline that makes senseto them and to those with whom they work.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2Their numbers have grown over the years. They
create links and connections through discrete,
informal networks that continually branch out. In
some cases, these change agents are limited tothe scope of their companies; in others, they stepbeyond the boundaries of the organization, country, or field of activity. Some act as links between
people in different levels of management or withvarying degrees of seniority but who share acommitment. Others identify themselves as professional change agents commissioned by thecompany to drive and lead change.

One question to ask is whether 		
a sleeping change agent exists ineach of us.
This multiplication of change agents in companies
that differ widely in size, business, culture, andnationality is unmistakable. It reflects people’s
need to do good and to create conditions toachieve this goal, whether senior managers intheir companies are aware of it or not.
We can distinguish three types of change agent:• Those who are “active propagators” by 		
conviction• Those who are “propagators active” because
it is their job• Those who are “passive propagators”
These last individuals sometimes drift along fora considerable period before becoming aware of
the need to do good around them. One question
to ask is whether a sleeping change agent exists ineach of us. The world is increasingly unpredictable– for companies and for the planet – and a joltingthat makes us lose our balance could very wellawaken that dormant impulse. From passive transmitters, these propagators could become increasingly active, and their attitude could gradually
become the majority view. Some companies
might also be tempted to adopt the appearanceof supporting change agents just to blend inwith the times.

reflections.solonline.org

The proliferation of change agents and theirimpact over recent years seems in any casea significant sociological phenomenon.

Spotlight Number Two: The Integrationof Humanism and Pragmatism
To humanists, what is important is developing
humanity’s qualities; to pragmatists, what is
important is what works. The two views are often
contrasted. Change agents characteristically integrate the two. They seek to create, here and now,
realistic conditions that contribute to an efficientcompany and also serve to develop the people
working there. They seek to develop the company
and its people, leading us to describe them as“pragmatic humanists.” They are constantly looking for business solutions that respect the dignityof human beings. These change agents face anumber of all-pervasive concerns:•	How can we give meaning to people’s jobs?
•	How can we release the vitality of the people
working in the company?
•	How can we be bold and move forward 		
without losing people’s confidence?
Here are some specific issues we have identified
and the answers our contacts provided.

1. How can we associate people’s development with the development of the company?
One of our interviewees set himself the task ofchanging the mindset of his company’s executive
committee, marked by a “left-brain” engineering
culture that emphasized predictability and security
through a static representation of the businesssystem. He set up a seminar on “right-brain”
thinking, with particular emphasis on systemic
approaches, awareness of movement, and 		dynamic interactions, to expand people’s frameof reference and encourage innovation. By starting with senior managers, he expects this cultural
evolution to trickle down to the other levels of
the company. Another participant emphasizedthat his aim was to give a group of 300 people
the idea that they can choose their destiny andachieve it. He had become director of a production
site that was in decline and renovated the plantf eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

while offering staff an interesting future. “It’s partof my dream to help people build their future,”
he said.

2. How can we open new spaces of
responsibility for employees?
In one company, the executive committee andthe union representatives worked jointly to create
a new forum to maintain a constructive social
dialogue. Our interviewee reported: “We manage
to get around a table regularly, once a month,
on negotiations, wage structures, working hours,
health and safety, planned management of jobs
and careers, continuing education, sustainable
development…. All of this has palpable results,
and the group has developed people-oriented
values… . Companies can still have ethical concerns
while making a profit, as long as they put people
at the heart of the matter and respect not only
safety rules but also human values.”

The practice of transformations
goes hand in hand with thetransformation of practices.
3. How can we lead groups toward releasing
their capacities for productivity, creativity,and performance?
For a significant number of our interviewees,
the answer is linked to the reorganization of theirapproach. They have gotten used to leaving, atleast temporarily, the cold classroom model wherea knowledgeable authority dictates to those who
don’t know the content. Instead, these change
agents now ensure the exchange of ideas bymixing people and points of view in a settingthat is closer to that of a village café than to aclassroom, where everyone discusses the issuesof the day and interacts as a team, freely andspontaneously.

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4. How can we encourage acceptance of
the idea that working in groups gives better
results in the end even if it can be more time
consuming than working autonomously?
To varying degrees, our interviewees have allabsorbed the principles of collaborative organization. They have learned to create events impelled
by group dynamics that bring together tens oreven hundreds of employees. Each time, they
have to convince supporters of more conventional
corporate events who are afraid of creating situations and provoking ideas that they can’t control.
In the daily life of the company, the interviewees
employ a vocabulary reflecting the learning principles that underlie their activities. The practiceof transformations goes hand in hand with thetransformation of practices. People more andmore frequently speak of “co-creation,” “co-development,” or “co-activation.” The use of these neologisms makes it easy for change agents to recognize each other.

The spaces between different
organizational levels are not
voids; they are alive, connected,
irrigated by currents that circulate
forward and backward, fromsmallest to largest and largest
to smallest.
The pragmatic humanists we met do not try to convince people by discussing ideas. They use situations
and provide experiences. Rather than seeking toprove something, they make people find out forthemselves. Lived, positive experiences link thetwin imperatives of pragmatism and humanism.
Change agents build experiences one after theother, creating gateways that lead mechanistic
logic and execution to evolve toward the logic
of living cooperation, animated by the spirit ofcollective intelligence.

reflections.solonline.org

Spotlight Number Three: 			
The C + C + C Structure and Leadership
A three-pillared structure is reflected in change
agents’ personalities, decisions, and actions:Collective, Consciousness, and Consistency.

1. The change agent and “collectives”
In the company, change agents always link theindividual with the group or groups to which they
belong. They take account of “the person-whois-in-the-team-in-the-group-in-the-departmentin-the company-in-the-environment-in-societyin-the-world-of-Planet-Earth.” The spaces between
different organizational levels are not voids; they
are alive, connected, irrigated by currents thatcirculate forward and backward, from smallest
to largest and largest to smallest. The boundaries
are porous. As complexity theory suggests, we cansee feedback loops in which the individual actson the group, which in turn affects the individual.
This is a continuous process of co-evolution.
In some of the companies, we observed that thistrend had led to the existence of groups of change
agents who create ripple effects toward shifts thatare necessary or desirable for the company. Thechange agents at the heart of such collectives see
their influence multiply, and while they shed someof their aura of solitary heroes, they gain in impact
what they lose in romantic appeal. This marked
affinity for the “collective” – the people around me,
the other in front of me, the individuals whose
existence matters to me even if I hardly know
them – is reflected in many ways. We will try to
let the individuals speak for themselves.
First, change agents show a spontaneous, naturalability to feel the dynamics of what is being lived
around them. They are often natural systemic specialists, as if they have radar that gives them a delicate grasp of how interactions are working. When
this is not the case, experience quickly leads themto acquire this skill, essential to the introduction of
non-directive organizational change. Such people
are particularly at ease working across functions.
One of the people we interviewed emphasizedthat French corporate culture is better adaptedf eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

to these changes than American business culture,
which is formalized by job descriptions with strict
boundaries.
This environmental sensitivity enables change
agents to preserve the living elements of the systems in which they work. In a group, for example,
they have a strong sense of the moods, tensions,and fluctuations in energy levels. These elements
are extremely reliable indicators, even if they can’tbe physically measured. Thus, during a work session, change agents will know whether to clear
up a misunderstanding by interrupting, scheduling a break, or raising the energy level with somewell-chosen music. They are therefore in tune withthe group in real time and not prisoners of a fixed
blueprint. The people themselves provide theinformation that guides the change agents tochoose the right action in real time.
This group sense serves the needs of organizational learning, as we will see from numerous
examples. For a learning group to come to life,
the members must feel that they belong. For instance, our interviewees reported that when they
participated in training sessions in other countries,
factors such as language, culture, history, prejudiceabout dominant and subordinate positions, andmaterial difficulties could derail the process ofmobilizing group intelligence. As one of our interviewees put it, “Without belonging, there is nolearning.”
Change agents also express this group sense in
the vitality of their networking. They know how toconnect with new people and mesh easily with
their contacts’ contacts. They have a taste for“living together” associated with an optimistic
outlook for the planet. All of them enthusiasticallymentioned a journey, learning expedition, repeatedstays in the same country, or exploration of a new
population as playing an important role in theirdevelopment. And they find new resources in meetings of international networks, which in a few
hours allow the weaving of a novel social fabric
on a global scale. Finally, the description “socio-

perceptive” seems to summarize the taste andknow-how that committed change agents 		
develop (see Part 2, “Empathy, Socioperception,
and Anticipation”).

In a company where the mottois “act like a man of thought andthink like a man of action,” change
agents add the dimension of
the heart.
2. What do we mean by “consciousness”?
Change agents have generally developed a highawareness of who they are (self-awareness), how
they operate, and what impact they have onothers. They know each other well, are capable ofself-analysis, and are clear about their reasoning,
desires, beliefs, feelings, and emotions. Knowing
themselves well, they do not stand in their own
light. They are comfortable with making contact,
getting to know people, and encouraging interactions. It is striking to see how easily change agentsconnect with each other and how rapidly they
are able to start a conversation on a deep subject.
That is how they expand their networks: They
are born connectors.
They are also able to communicate clearly. They
know how to say “I.” Faced with emotions, whether
the bitterness or anger that are usually masked
and sweetened (referred to as “frustration”), or
joy and enthusiasm, they know where they stand.
As one of them commented: “In some cases, youmust know how to exclude a guy from the teamif he has gone too far.” Not falsely objective, theyknow what motivates them on both rational andemotional levels. Being aware of who they are,they have a capacity for empathy that serves theirprojects. When they seek to recruit others, they
perceive characters accurately. Thus one of themtalks about identifying skills and temperaments:“You have to see if their character is bitter orgenerous.”

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3. “Coherence,” the choice of authenticity
Change agents feel the need to align thinking,feeling, and action, i.e., brain, heart, and body, morethan others. In a company where the motto is“act like a man of thought and think like a manof action,” they add the dimension of the heart.
This gives them a special energy. Driven by thedesire and need to be consistent, authentic, andmorally honest with themselves in their choiceof actions, they often seem to “have faith.” We seechange agents take responsibility for difficult projects for which they lack the necessary means at
first, but in which they believe, for example, creating a system of training in entrepreneurship fromscratch, or starting a completely new project thathas to be operational at short notice. They are often distinguished by their courage and generosity.
They take on tasks that others would consider
demeaning, such as spending several hours atnight sticking stamps on postcards to participantsin the last seminar. They are willing to give a lot
to feed the connection.

We see change agents as those
who guide, not by promoting
themselves, but by bringing
forward the latent intent of 		the group.
These change agents work for the long term, withpatience and constancy. Developing learning initiatives becomes a bit of a mission for them. To abandon it would be to deny themselves. One of ourinterviewees was about to refuse an attractive
offer from a headhunter until learning that theposition included responsibility for developing
large-scale learning networks.
Change agents are also able to persist at critical
moments when their passionate side makes thedifference. This is often what gives them the capacity to radiate power and enthusiasm. They canhang in there when the winds are contrary; they
don’t do anything that could hamper a betterreflections.solonline.org

future. They know how to wait while remainingtrue to the learning that is being brought into
existence, which sometimes requires them tokeep a low profile. On the downside, they canalso be carried along by their own momentum,
taking risks or appearing to be irresponsible orrebellious.

4. Change agents as leaders
To end this first part, it seems appropriate to combine the three Cs and ask what style of leadershipchange agents practice. Surely not the style mostcommonly used as a reference, which combines
power, domination, domestication, and direction.
The leadership style embodied by change agentsis shaped by their values and specific skills. We cansketch out what distinguishes the standard leadership attitude from the leadership offered by achange agent:• Openness to others and sensitivity to difference
rather than selection and judgment• Inclusion rather than division and hierarchy• Inspiration, influence, and raising awarenessrather than control• Intention to encourage growth rather thandesire to enforce execution• Attitude of catalyzing the desired emergences
We naturally need to further develop this sketch.
Nevertheless, we see change agents as those who
guide, not by promoting themselves, but by bringing
forward the latent intent of the group.

Spotlight Number Four: 		Personal Stories That MatterAs everyone knows, career paths are composedof initial training, technical skills, and professional
experience. Sometimes, with regard to management positions, the behavioral dimension completes the package. Change agents are good
professionals in every respect, including training,professional skills, and experience. But they havesomething more: They have a personal journeythat they integrate with their professional role,
contributing to its specific character and richness.
These paths are not preconfigured because they
do not correspond to any school except the “schoolf eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpianof life.” We have however identified some common
denominators:• The comprehensive study of disciplines thatare not directly related to their profession• The practice of an artistic or physical discipline• An affiliation• Active participation in civil society

1. The comprehensive study of disciplinesthat are not directly related to their profession
The humanities, life sciences, and earth interestchange agents; they devote considerable timeand energy to their study. Whatever their initialtraining, through this practice, change agentsgrow and help others to grow. Among the disciplines they feed on directly or indirectly, we
have identified:• Applied psychology, particularly the approaches and techniques from the Palo Alto
school (Rogerian listening, communication, andchange), approaches to personal development,
family therapy including systemic analysis andcomplexity theory, and all the techniques
related to “brief therapy”• Social sciences such as sociology, anthropology,
and ethnology

Change agents do not advancewith flying colors and proclamations or programs; they work tochange things only when the
moment is ripe.
• Life sciences such as biology, ecology, theneurosciences, and disciplines related to thestudy of cognition and behavior• Developments in communication sciences• Philosophy and the history of ideas and social
movements• Science education with particular interestin non-directive teaching
Change agents are characterized by intellectual
freedom and a pioneering spirit that draws them
to a range of interdisciplinary resources, such as
research on the human brain and its intersection
with ethics. They are also particularly receptive
to a direct approach to these disciplines. Whilethey do not neglect the abstract and conceptual
dimension, they also like to study in small groups
whose real-time exchanges enrich their studies.

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2. The practice of an artistic 			or physical discipline
Change agents often draw nourishment froma discipline: visual arts; music through playing
an instrument, singing, or participating in a choir;
theater; dance; writing. In their attitudes, one cansee the role played by regularly training in a martial art or a technique based on the flow of vitalenergy. For them, these activities bring intellect,senses, body, and spirit into unison.

3. Affiliation
These change agents are often bearers of a moral
heritage, either as part of a personal affiliationor through a spiritual practice that guides and inspires them. As a result, they hold a vision rooted
in the past that they can project far into the future.
Short-term obsessions or emergencies do notaffect this long-term view.

4. Active participation in civil society
We also noted that apart from their work, change
agents often actively engage in civil society associal innovators, members or leaders of asso-

reflections.solonline.org

ciations or NGOs, leaders or active members ofprofessional associations or communities, local
elected officials, coaches of sports teams, 		teachers, and so on.

Spotlight Number Five: Navigating 		by Sight So As to Seize Opportunities
Change agents navigate according to the current
climate in their companies. If a senior line manager takes an action or utters an opinion that offers an opportunity for developing the company’s
collective intelligence, change agents seize themoment. Obviously, if a senior manager who
lacks interest in the company’s human capital
parachutes into high office, or if strategy once
more gives absolute priority to short-term financial results, they have no alternative but to wait for
better times. Change agents do not advance withflying colors and proclamations or programs; theywork to change things only when the moment isripe. The opportunity is often quite accidental, tobe seized on the fly. Change agents are acrobatsof emergence.

f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

We have seen how, on meeting someone or at
an event, these individuals feel compelled to act
in the interests of their companies, especially if it isa living company. If they suddenly find themselvesconfronted with a task for which there is no institutionalized response, they make use of the opportunity presented by this management vacuum.
By exercising their ability to act quickly and mobilize dormant networks, they assume leadership.
Even without planning, such experiences become
progressively more important in their lives.
Change agents learn how to transfer solutions
and amplify them in other situations. They remainaware of passing opportunities and the need forpatience, remain steadfast in their vision, andseize the advantages offered. Then they decompartmentalize, move the boundaries, and build
bridges between the shop floor and the top of
the hierarchy. They can do so with discretion or in
public. For example, 200 people attended a seminar on collective intelligence where a public debate took place between the secretary general of
the union at a large chemical group and the CEOof a world-wide tourist company. The CEO wasalso the son of a former French president; during
the president’s term, the secretary general had
been one of the leaders of a long and highly
publicized strike.
To try to ensure that they have room to maneuver,change agents reconfigure their position, its
scope, and sometimes its title in an attempt toescape from the prison of nomenclature. We havefound the following titles used for change agents:
director of knowledge management; director ofcrisis communications and sustainable development; director of advanced technology; directorof sales, training, and development; and directorof transformation. We also noticed a number of
titles that cloud the issue; for example, adviser tothe president or internal consultant. When change
agents temporarily feel secure in their positions,they wait for a signal that allows them to go further,make their work more visible, and give it wider
scope. This process formalizes their approach andsometimes produces a wave of in-house conver-

sions, with internal communication picking up
the message and its themes. Recent converts areusually eloquent ambassadors. But what mattersto the change agents is that the practices they haveintroduced grow and spread.
We are interested to see if the storm warnings
accompanying the current economic crisis givethese leaders more opportunities to exercise
their navigational talents.

Spotlight Number Six:
Sketch of Evolution over Time
Over the years, change agents live through careerfluctuations that are difficult to foresee. Nothingis ever guaranteed at the institutional level. They
report that promoting social change and innovation does not necessarily advance their careers.
However, the opposite tendency also exists, andwhen a company identifies the dynamics of transformation as a strategic imperative, leaders callon change agents to supply their expertise. Moreand more, companies recruit people and appoint
them to key functions precisely because they arechange agents and have certain abilities. These
include the abilities to:• hear weak signals rustling through the 		
company and give them a voice;• bring people together and express things ina way that reflects the voice of the majority
and not an arrogant overview; and• lead by inspiring, not commanding.
The most explicit example we found was theappointment of a “director of transformation”
in a company that for a decade had undertaken
a major technological, economic, and culturalchange. We discreetly observed a meeting ofmajor players in the change effort. Prompted by
the most convinced change agent, the parties
discussed their respective approaches and confirmed their alliance. The gathering was called the“Pirate Meeting,” a reference to the pirate radio
stations of the early 1980s that initiated a revolution in France’s audiovisual landscape. Humorous
reference or intuitive forecast? Time will tell. n

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reflections.solonline.org

f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2Companies Stretched
Between Two PolesW
1. Two Poles

hen we looked for a meaningful way of classifying the companies where we conducted
our interviews, we found that we can map them between two opposing poles: a mechanistic, short-term pole of rationalized efficiency and maximized profits, and a pole oforganic behavior with short-term complexity and profitable growth over time. We also
identified a movement, rather than a tension, between hierarchical perception and organizational learning. We observed that the introduction of learning helps to reduce the weight of hierarchical thought,
in that top management is no longer the sole authority for spreading knowledge or constructing
projects in the company (see figure below).

2. What Makes Change Agents Run?
What impels change agents and what are they after in these companies drawn between two opposing
poles of business life? Their goal is to support the company in taking effective action. They want tomove or accompany the company in shifting toward living, organic behavior patterns and away from

Tensions
Mechanical

Short-Term

Hierarchy

Us

Us
Clients

Us
Clients
Society

ORGANICANTICIPATIONLEARNING TOGETHER

f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

mechanical, automated thinking. Change agentsare convinced that taking account of complexity,
promoting learning, and searching for social cohesion are the best ways to improve the company’s
health. In a society that has emphasized individual
development, they help to create space and timefor emergent, non-directional collective experiences.
We have also confirmed that change agents’central role is to influence the interactions amongpeople, functions, and the internal organizationof their companies.

3. Companies That Tolerate, Promote,and Enhance
We discovered by listening to change agents thatthe companies where they operate tolerate them,encourage them, and promote their value. These
three verbs are important. In some cases, without
understanding exactly what is going on, thebosses and company culture trust the change
agents and tolerate their proposed approaches
to thinking and acting. We use the word “tolerate,”
as leaders leave a parallel space for these efforts
alongside the hierarchy, outside the strategic andoperational functioning of the company. Somehuman resources and communications departments approve of this approach because it does
not disturb their ability to control what is said,
thought, and transmitted.
In other cases, senior managers, human resources
departments, and the company culture encourage
the grafting of the learning approach onto the
management process. This tactic may generatetension with some communications and humanresources departments. An owner or senior
manager may be a facilitator by nature. Strongly
customer-oriented corporate cultures also tend
to be decentralized and accept the disturbanceof patterns, value of listening, and need for change.
Other companies voluntarily create functions
such as director of transformation. In some cases,
the top leader inculcates the spirit of “learning
together” throughout the company.

We discovered only one company that was notmuch interested in listening to what organizational learning is and how it works. This company
allows rivalry to dominate over cooperation. The
pressure for short-term results and company history were factors causing this inability to listen.
Yet the company does have an open attitude tolearning from and with customers, and from andwith society. This company is fragmented.
To varying degrees, all the other companies werelooking to give free rein to peer groups, find out
what happens when people act together, andunderstand what they learn.

In some cases, the top leader
inculcates the spirit of “learning
together” throughout thecompany.
4. The Value for the Customer, Market,
and Society in General
We have been talking about how companies
act with regard to change agents and learning
approaches within their own fabric. We were also
surprised to hear change agents talk not only
about the internal life of the company, but also
about the company as seen from the outside:
customers, markets, and society in general. Why
did they raise this point with us? Because theyknow that being open to others drives efficiency,
and because “the other” is for them a serious
matter and not a tool or an instrument. Indeed,
we found many examples of learning practices
that relied on the client, that is to say a third party,
in developing a way to get organized, share a goal,
and work collectively and individually, but differently. Other examples involved participatory innovation, involving people from various positions
with the exception of research and development.

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2All of the companies encourage this dimensionof the “other” and the “client,” beginning relatively
recently, depending on when they became open
to competition, their types of customer (consumers or professionals), and whether they have apaternalistic culture. For some companies, organizational learning applies not only to employees,
customers, and the market but also to society as
a whole, in a relationship of mutual influence
concerning topics such as health, nutrition,
welfare, and ecology.

Companies in the process ofdeveloping an organic vision ofthemselves come to see that thehierarchical “pyramid-shaped
logic” is no longer all there is.

reflections.solonline.org

5. Looking Ahead
We found the following phenomenon: When acompany is seriously and explicitly interested in
the interactions among employees, functions,and departments and has strong interactions withcustomers, markets, and society in general, thendespite short-term pressures, it can often maintainthis interest and continue its long-term deployment.
The company looks ahead. It invests, innovates,
remains focused on its values and mission, takes
risks, tries things, and attracts young people.

6. Pyramid-Shaped Structures		
Are No Longer All There Is
We also found that companies in the process ofdeveloping an organic vision of themselves cometo see that the hierarchical “pyramid-shaped logic”
is no longer all there is. Employees become more
adept at living in several structures at once, including the hierarchy of line management, peergroups, and inter-specialty networks. n

f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2ConclusionOver the past 10 years, the pulsating network that has come into being around SoL 		
France has contributed to the evolution of companies from a mechanistic logic toward
an organic one.

1. Companies in Evolution
The eight companies that we investigated appear extremely different, but they are all moving andlearning a better way to live. They are evolving. Senior managers are explicitly pushing along some ofthe shifts while others occur without a decision from anyone in authority. Opposing camps develop;
some pulling one way and some another. The people we interviewed, actors who are more or lessaligned with SoL, share a certain idea of their companies. They can’t define it in a word, although they
perceive the organization as a coherent whole that would be in opposition to any older conceptionof the company. These two concepts are the poles of a tension that likely exists today in a great many
companies and that seems to be one of the energy sources driving the transformations under way.
The trend is for change from a mechanistic logic to an organic logic.
Our action research throws some light on this tension, but to a limited extent. It sees through the eyesof certain categories of supporters of change: those who are after peaceful evolution. It leaves out
other players in the strategic game, in particular:• Partisans of change by forcible means, such
The company concept rejected
The company concept sharedas networks for dispute and/or blockage thatby our interviewees: stability
by our interviewees: change
exist in many large companies, trying to hinder
Rationalized organization
Living and learning organization
their normal operation and create obstacles
to reforms decided at the top or to instigate
Mechanistic
Organic
a “minimum service” complicity
Linear, logical thinking
Systemic thinking• Proponents of stability, rational organization,
Pyramid (hierarchy)
Participation, heterarchy, leadershiphierarchy, centralization, and maximized
short-term profit
Direct, order
Catalyze, facilitate
Additional research is indispensable; unfortunately
this project remains out of reach for SoL.
But however limited our action research may be,
it shows that the categories of participants are
not fixed. In light of the hopes, doubts, and discouragements that the interviews uncovered,
we were able to imagine circumstances where
agents acting for peaceful change might tilt toward blockages, disputes, or other circumstances

Imposed views

Listening, giving birth, influencing

Control

Networking

Conformity

Discovery

Centralization

Interaction

Repetition

Emergence

FinanceBusiness activity, market

Short term

Vision, anticipation

ProfitVitality, sustainable fulfillment

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favoring the opposite movement. In the field,
we observed numerous cases where proponentsof stability became open to change, but no casesof movement in the opposite direction.
A manager’s or employee’s openness to change
can spring from a variety of sources that may work
together – a conversion, a book, or a seminar. The
individual becomes suddenly aware that the company, branch, or division has no future if it continues down the road it has taken. He or she noticesa growing split between the state of the company
and the evolution of people and society. At thesame time, the person discovers other ways of
doing things, born of hesitantly groping action.
The current economic crisis seems to be an
accelerator of this shift.
The proponents of peaceful change we interviewed have a depreciatory image of the supporters of stability: They are mistaken; they don’t understand; their mental models date from anotherage; they are hanging on to their scant power;
they are obsessed by competition, finance, profitability, and so on.

We observed numerous cases
where proponents of stability
became open to change, but nocases of movement in the
opposite direction.
Over the past 10 years, change agents, including
managers, employees appointed to encouragechange, and self-appointed mavericks, have become more numerous. And our action researchshows just as clearly that the momentum has
increased in recent years. Similarly, a tendency
toward cooperation between managers and employees is developing. These observations confirm
that the system has at the moment a definite
orientation.

reflections.solonline.org

2. Change Agents Seem to Havea Particular Type of Personality
The change agents we interviewed are very different from each other, but all believe personally inthe change they are introducing and feel themselves charged with a mission to transform thecompany. They share three personality traits: they
are humanistic, pragmatic, and socioperceptive(a profile sometimes referred to as “HPS”).
They are humanists in that they focus on the living
human beings who are at the center of their actions. Their goal is the fulfillment of individuals
and human societies. They are catalysts for building awareness of life, revitalizing emergence, andcreating efficiency through fulfillment.
They are pragmatic, oriented toward taking action
on current reality, seeking out what works effectively and what produces beneficial results forthe company.
They are socioperceptive in that they have highly
developed empathy and sensitivity toward individuals and interpersonal and social interactions.
Faced with complex choices of actions, they are
adept at keeping the balance between emotion
and logic, intuition and rationality. As a result,they sense the dynamics of the systems within
which they operate and the most advisable
course to follow.

3. The Crisis As an Evolutionary Accelerator
The current economic crisis has swept aside allof the understanding that had become generally
accepted in the economic and political establishment and among managers. The sacred positionof financial and economic laissez faire has takena heavy knock. Managers whose attention was
firmly fixed on maximizing profitability are beginning to think about survival, preservation of
essential strengths, avoidance or limitation oflayoffs, sustainable development, radical 		re- engineering of activities, etc.

f eat u re | D u po u x - C o u t u rier , Q u asnik , R edelsper g er , and de V u lpian

Opportunities for action are opening up in companies for those with HPS profiles. In this criticalcontext, they may feel that their company needs
them; the sudden vulnerability of old mental
attitudes is opening the door to innovation andstimulating their imaginations. Because of their
specific sensitivities, they are well placed to perceive emergent opportunities and imagine otherforms of organization, management, motivation,markets, or production methods.
Several of the companies we studied are undertaking strategic research focused on “visions of the
future, circumstances of now.” They are inventing
action plans that aim both to make good the damage and strengthen the cohesion and resilience of
their teams and to commit themselves to sustainable development as the basis for the company’svitality and prosperity in the years ahead. Contrary
to its dominant business culture, one company iscalling for employees to initiate and participate in

In these companies, the idea
is coming to fruition that theymust combine economical andcontrolled steering with the drive
to provide answers to the ills ofstaff, society, and the planet.

finding defenses against seriously downgradedmarket conditions. In another, management isworking with staff and unions to organize thesearch for practical paths for evolving toward
a decarbonized economy.
It appears to us that, in these companies, the idea iscoming to fruition that they must combine economical and controlled steering with the drive to provide
answers to the ills of staff, society, and the planet. n

endnotes
1 Among the SoL France company members participating in the action research were Bonduelle, Danone,
Danfoss-Socla, France-Télécom-Orange, L’Oréal, SNCF, and Solvay.
2 Action research is a scientific research methodology founded by Kurt Lewin (Field Theory in Social Science, Harperand Row, 1951). It provides research techniques that allow real experiences to take place in natural social groups.
These techniques are based on the idea that, in the context of sociological experimentation, research and action
can be brought together within one and the same approach. Action research is founded on the idea that bothhuman and social systems, as subjects for study, show specific characteristics that require the use of a different
methodology from that employed in the so-called hard sciences: interiority, non-determinism, and singularity.
It involves not only the actors taking part in the experiment but also the researcher who is conducting the research.
This approach has encouraged the development of interview and observation techniques that nourish theresearcher’s capacity for empathy.
3 June 9–11, 2009 in Fontainebleau, France
4 Our partners sometimes refer to other changes occurring in their companies that are directly opposite to what
they themselves are after: centralization, rationalization of the organization, return to top-down attitudes, etc.
This could be the subject of another study with a different research plan.
5 “Socioperception” is a term that Alain de Vulpian uses to sum up just about everything that’s different about
the way we approach the world now, compared to how people did 60 years ago. It is a combination of reason,
sensation, and emotion that is based in relationship and interrelationship. It goes beyond empathy to suggest
a sense of “being among” that is profoundly anti-hierarchical, relatively compassionate, well attuned, intimate,innovative, and anticipative. Socioperception concerns our relationships with others, with society as a whole,with the physical environment, and with ourselves.

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abo u t t h e a u t h ors
After a career as director of the Centre de formation aux réalités internationales (CEFRI), an executive
training center on international realities, Irène Dupoux-Couturier is now vice president and managing
director of SoL France. By participating in this action research project, she hoped to understand to what
extent phenomena that she had observed over the past 30 years in companies facing a changing world
were now becoming the focus of their approach: a new type of management centered on people.
Catherine Redelsperger works in companies and associations to develop collaboration for handling complexity. Her participation in action research is fueled by her curiosity and the questions: “What are we talking
about when we say ‘learning’?” and “What are the realities of companies faced with complexity and how
can we look at the paths they follow?”
Béatrice Quasnik’s association with this action research project is an extension of her commitment to thetransformations sweeping through our companies. A change support consultant and coach, she has beenworking with companies for the past 15 years to encourage the empowerment of people and groups
working toward transformation.
Alain de Vulpian is a socio-anthropologist and the founder of Cofremca, RISC, and Sociovision. He has
dedicated his professional life to conducting action research, observing the evolution of western societies,
and designing humane interventions. His book Towards the Third Modernity: How Ordinary People Are
Transforming the World, Triarchy Press, 2008, evokes this work. Since his retirement, Alain has continued
to research topics of general interest. He is vice president of SoL France.

P art T W O

Getting It
into Perspective

f eat u re | redelsper g er and q u asnik

f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2Learning in Light of Evolving
Social Practices in France
C at h erine R edelsper g er and B éatrice Q uasnik

Learning practices, like all social practices, can be linked to societal evolution.
These practices have not been imposed from the outside and would never havebeen able to develop ex nihilo. They are transmitted by an underlying current
that we will try to sketch out here by looking at six interconnected dynamics:• Disappearance of barriers between professional and personal life
• Expression of the personality• Reevaluation of the concept of “collective”
Catherine
Redelsperger• The internet as creator of interactions• Aspiration for more democracy• Sustainable development
Thus learning, as described in this issue, can resonate with other fields morefamiliar to the reader, whose effects stretch well beyond the world of work.

Béatrice Quasnik

S

1. Disappearance of Barriers Between Professional and Private Life
ince the 1970s, we have seen “a degree of decompartmentalization between life at work andlife outside work,” to quote Curie and Dupuy, researchers at the University of Toulouse.1 They
demonstrate that to understand the actors in an organization, you must take into account thatthey have several lives: family life, company life, and social life. In 1994, Curie and Dupuy showeda snapshot of this evolution over the past 40 years; they described the significant markers of this trend
as follows:•	Growth in female employment, with the result that men and women are in each other’s company
at work as well as in private life
•	Flexibility in organizing everyday life: flexible working hours, choice of part-time work at certain
stages of life, and so on• Reduction of time spent at work
•	Frequent switching between production and training because of the accelerated obsolescenceof knowledge• Less definition of social identity in terms of professional activity

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reflections.solonline.org• Demand for a smaller gap between the outside
and the inside of the company regarding thestandards of behavior seen as acceptable andthe means of acquiring power seen as legitimate– employees are becoming “citizens” in theircompanies• Increased use of technology in social anddomestic life, so that archaic equipment in
the company is unacceptable• Development of distance working

The forecast was confirmed: Psychologies had aprint run of 320,000 in 2005, which puts it on thesame level as other general interest publications.
Other magazines also jumped on the bandwagon,
in particular those aimed at managers and theirprofessional problems. Today, they all have columns
that address the person behind the professional,
the feeling dimension, offering advice on how tohandle the different situations that people in theworkplace encounter.

It seems to us that learning practices have obvious
links to these changes. They take account of theindividual as a whole, creating conditions thatfavor individual and group initiatives and in particular those leading to greater sharing and influence. Employees are no longer circumscribedby their job descriptions and titles; they havebecome whole people.

Over the same period, the cell phone crashedthrough the professional/private barrier. When
you call people on their cell phones, you neverknow where they are when they answer. Whether
someone is at home with the kids, on holiday
by the sea, on a train platform, or in an airport
lounge, the background noises have become partof the professional dialogue. This situation is often
underscored by a comment that personalizes theconversation. To measure the change that has
happened, remember that before the age of thecell phone, companies barely tolerated personalcalls. Another point: Today, public space is occupied by private conversations. We have become
accustomed to hearing “big kiss” and “ciao” at theend of personal conversations. Private space has
invaded public space, and the reverse, weaving
together a rich and complex social fabric.

“Collective” now has the
positive connotation of a sharedintelligence that can develop
better solutions than can beachieved by any one person,
no matter what his or her
qualities.
2. Expression of the Personality
The dichotomy between public, professional lifeand personal, private life is no longer clear cut.
People can now show their personality, sensitivities,
character, and moods without losing authority.
The rise in popularity of Psychologies magazine isa good illustration. Launched in France in 1970, it
had relatively limited distribution until the middleof the 1990s. Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber bought
it in 1997, sure that self-knowledge would rapidly
become a subject of major interest. Until then,
only women’s magazines gave space to personality tests and other examinations of personal life.

Managers are now nomadic: You never know
where they are when you reach them, since theirremote work tools travel with him. Work is now
everywhere and at any time. French legislation fora 35-hour work week and compensatory days off
has accentuated the blending of work and life, aphenomenon underscored by the fact that there
are fewer and fewer assistants to take or filter calls.
Finally, companies have made personal development courses an article of faith. Catalogues oftraining courses provided for employees include
many such programs. Similarly, personal coachinghas become an accepted practice. In France during
the 1980s, only American IT companies recognizedtraining and coaching as useful for the develop-

f eat u re | redelsper g er and q u asnik

ment of managers and teams. Until halfway
through the 1990s, people signed up for personal
development seminars as private individuals. They
brought their professional problems with them,but the company didn’t recognize the valueof these services.

3. Reevaluation of the Concept
of “Collective”
In 1989 – that is to say, more than 20 years ago –Philippe d’Iribarne published his work “La logiquede l’honneur,” comparing the cultural traditions of
three countries: France, the U.S., and the Netherlands. In it, he shows that France has kept a stronglink to the Ancien Régime, or “Old Regime”: a senseof duty and privilege impregnates our social relations at work and our collective activities. He
continued his analysis with a description of theabuses of this tradition:• Authoritarianism leading to misuse of powerby the prince or president• Laxity leading to loss of feelings of responsibility
and respect for one’s duty
• A mania for being objective, expressed throughan exaggerated attachment to procedure• Sectarianism giving rise to clans or fiefdoms
Thus French tradition has been strongly marked by
the fact that the head of anything was expected todecide for himself how his underlings were to beorganized; he would determine how “his” groupor department would be run. He might consult
personnel and consider the opinions of other
employees, but the prerogative of the final decision was his. A collegial management style would
appear to show weakness and the inability toassume power.
This was d’Iribarne’s analysis of the many setbacks
encountered by French companies trying to makeuse of American management models. The cultural
divide between absolute individual power andmore collective, negotiated practices was difficult
to overcome, but today we are no longer in thesame position. Globalization has swept over us,
and the “win-win” concept, also an American intro-

duction, has made great advances. “Collective”
now has the positive connotation of a shared intelligence that can develop better solutions thancan be achieved by any one person, no matter
what his or her qualities. Nevertheless, we see thatin certain companies with a dominant French culture, learning attitudes emphasizing teamwork, discussion, and co-creation even today run up against
the French tradition of power and prestige.

The crowd, the mass, has become
the group, the collective
embodiment of unity in diversity.
Elsewhere, we see that French society has evolved
toward an appreciation of group actions, stimulated by sport and music. The victory of the French
team at Wimbledon in 1996 made a deep impression. We celebrated not just a victory, but also theteam. The coach, Yannick Noah, expressed thestrength of togetherness as the basis for victory.
Two years later, all of France was seized with enthusiasm as it saw its soccer team win the World
Cup. For several weeks, analysts enthused about
the strength generated by the group, its diversity,and its modest captain, Aimé Jacquet, whose advice was subsequently valued in matters of teammanagement and leadership. Team sports havebecome models for companies, while live rebroadcasts have amplified such events to an extraordinary extent, so that everyone who watches shares
the same emotions at the same moment, becoming members of a strongly united group who
share an experience.
Music creates a similar phenomenon. In concertsthat regularly bring together tens of thousands ofpeople in person and several million more throughTV coverage, the group is brought to its peak.
The time has long passed when one could say
with a touch of condescension, “I hate crowds.”
The crowd, the mass, has become the group, thecollective embodiment of unity in diversity.

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4. Internet As Creator of Interactions

5. Aspiration for More Democracy

We shall not go into a subject here that fills thepages of the daily papers. We shall simply indicate
new usages linked to the internet that resonate
with the dimensions of collectivity and learning:• New ways of getting to know people or reconnecting with them (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)• New ways of learning: Wikipedia, FAQs, eBay,
e-learning, e-communities• New ways of perceiving oneself as a memberof a network: freed of material constraints, one
is part of a great whole on a planetary scale,
which offers exciting possibilities• New ways to express affect and emotion onsocial networks, such as emoticons in e-mails• Peer-to-peer exchanges• Radio and TV programs that have contact sites
where any listener or viewer can comment,enrich, criticize, and co-construct the program,which puts them on an equal level with scriptwriters and experts• Blogs as personal exhibition spaces and 		
invitations to dialogue•	Use of the web as a source of informationfrom people directly involved with an event –a practice becoming more widespread as distrust of centralized news sources increases

In September 2009, the following definition ofparticipatory democracy appeared on Wikipedia:“Participatory democracy is a form of sharing andexercise of power based on the strengthening of
citizen participation in making political decisions.”
While almost all the works quoted by Wikipedia on
this subject were written after 2000, aspirations topower sharing have been around for much longer.
For example, published in 1993, “Vers l’entreprisedémocratique, le récit d’une expérience pionnière”(“Toward the democratic enterprise, the story of apioneer”) recounts a participatory approach thatstarted in reflection groups in 1986 in the Société
des Transports Poitevins (the Transportation Company in Poitou-France). The authors, psychologists,emphasize that they were different from previous
groups introduced under the Auroux labor lawsof 1982 and 1986. They considered this approach
to be a third way and not a tool of senior management or of the unions. We give this example because it reflects the questions raised by learning
practices when they follow the pattern of participatory democracy, in particular when they referto reflection and consultation. We can identify
how such practices:• disturb senior managers and the management
hierarchy (unless they themselves initiated thisapproach);• disturb the unions, which are often locked
into a logic of “whatever it is, we’re against it”;
• can serve as an excuse or be hijacked, just as
the tools of participatory democracy are
when pressed into the service of marketingor political communications;• can take root throughout the entire 		organization.

Change agents commit 		themselves for the long term,
opening the road to sustainable
development not only for theplanet, but also for the men
and women of today.

f eat u re | redelsper g er and q u asnik

6. Sustainable Development
A few landmarks from the past decade:• 2009: Yann Arthus-Bertrand organized aplanet-wide event around the launch of 		his film Home.
• April 2007: Nicolas Hulot gets the principal
candidates for the French presidential elections
to sign an “ecology pact,” highlighting the environment as a major theme for society as awhole.
• 2004: A QueSais-je (serial pocket encyclopedia)
was published on sustainable development.
• 2002: Roselyne Bachelot was the first French
minister appointed to handle sustainable
development.

Change agents, as we show in the corresponding
article in this volume, are part of the current ofthought concerned with sustainable development:• They introduce creative and innovative 		
approaches.
• They commit themselves for the long term,
opening the road to sustainable development
not only for the planet, but also for the men
and women of today. n

endnote1. J. Curie and R. Dupuy, « Acteurs en organisations ou l’interconstruction des milieuxde vie. » In: C. Louche, Editor, Individus et Organisations, No English translation.

abo u t t h e a u t h ors
Catherine Redelsperger works in companies and associations to develop collaboration for handlingcomplexity. Her participation in action research is fueled by her curiosity and the questions: “What are
we talking about when we say ‘learning’?” and “What are the realities of companies faced with 		complexity and how can we look at the paths they follow?”
Béatrice Quasnik’s association with this action research project is an extension of her commitment to
the transformations sweeping through our companies. A change support consultant and coach, she
has been working with companies for the past 15 years to encourage the empowerment of people 		and groups working toward transformation.

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f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2

Toward a New Type of Systemic
Leadership: An Awakening AwarenessI r è ne D u po u x - Co u t u rierResearch on “Ten Years of Learning in Companies” provided strong evidence thata new type of leadership is emerging, able to adapt to the growing complexity of
our systems and face the current economic crisis by relying on people, the essential
resources of any organization. The term “leadership” has always been ambiguous.
Very different, even opposite meanings can be attributed to it, which heavy simplification allows us to link to cultural differences – Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Asian, etc.
This ambiguity has become more pronounced in recent decades, and the word covIrène DupouxCouturier

ers many different management and personal styles. By tracing the dialectical axis
between “hierarchical authority” and “autonomous staff,” the term “leadership” canbe seen to encompass authoritarian leadership, persuasive leadership, participatory

and empathetic leadership, delegating leadership, all the way to empowerment. Over time, these definitions
are merging, shading into each other. The traditional authoritarian leadership of the 1950s no longer appears
effective (a sociological trend paralleled by the decline in paternal authority within the family), and the samechange is occurring, somewhat later, in companies. The charismatic leaders of 1970-1980 are also changing.
They were the leader-prophets with a vision of their companies, often developing the vision alone, likean inventor, before getting others to accept it. Some of them were more like leader-poets, realizing theirvision either in the light of intuition, or through sheer courage and belief in their transcendent destiny.

Today we see something completely different – a slow movement toward a collective construction of a company’s vision. Certain examples noted in our study are quite striking. Leaders thinkthat they ought to have a vision of the company; that’s why they were appointed, but they havetheir own doubts. The environment is changing so much that they know the vision will haveto be in a permanent state of change: Can I really have long-term vision? They conceive, propose, train,
and lead their team and discover with astonishment that their vision is not easy to share. The base reacts,
makes counter-proposals, and the vision is debated. “We are moving from the decisive, heroic act toa shared, social process,” says Arie de Geus, a co-founder of SoL. Alain de Vulpian adds: “The company
today should no longer see itself as planning its development in a mechanically logical environment, but
as tinkering within a transformational ecosystem that follows an organic logic.” It is this profound changethat the study throws into relief. To be effective, modern leaders must transform themselves as well:• They must not only be capable of motivating and sweeping others along, but also be attentive andlisten to their teams. They may be charismatic but above all they must be empathetic and therapeutic.
– They are sensitive to environments, paying attention to society and its changes.
– They are socioperceptive, open to new and disturbing or even revolutionary ideas.
• They anticipate.

f eat u re | D u po u x - co u t u rier

• They understand and accept that in an increasingly complex world, companies must deliberately design experimental strategies; theyrecognize the role of the base in the development of strategic thought.
• They put people at the heart of the organization,
and accept or recognize the central, contagious
role of change agents. They rely on these individuals to assist in the emergence of innovation,
creation, and the ability to anticipate.
After the “open” period of the 1970s, when numerous charismatic leaders were the guiding lights
of companies and administrations (to name a few,
Per Gyllenhammar, Volvo; Antoine Riboud, Danone; François Dalle, l’Oréal; Paul Delouvrier, Electricity of France, EDF), the 1990s were the years ofever-increasing individualism, materialism, shortterm financial engineering, rapid return on investment, reengineering, management by objectives,a focus on the quantitative (“greed is good”), andeverywhere, managerial pressure and stress.
Today, many traditional structures are trying tosave themselves; resistance to change is still widespread; pressure is heavy; and distress among company employees is a daily reality. But the new leaders
who are appearing are very much aware of these
dynamics. So, have we reached a tipping point?
The personal evolution of the people we met, thewider role of internal consultants, and the formallyor informally created free spaces within companies
allow one to think so. The emerging leaders are
not dreamy idealists but listeners who attend to
the needs of people and their organizations. They
are “pragmatic humanists.” Such leaders are sometimes at the head of their companies; sometimes
they are in key positions; and sometimes they aresimply change agents carrying their networks
along with them.

Starting from these observations, how can we
describe the leader of the 21st century? English
speakers employ the term “sustainable leadership”
to mean a leadership capable of causing sustainable and efficient changes. Others employ theterms “global leadership” or “integral leadership.”This is a big step forward, an awareness of aleadership that:• is systemic and global, aware of interactions
and responsible to and for the whole system;• is comprised of individuals aware of the social
realities in which they live and conscious of
the ceaseless activity of living social structures;• is oriented toward creativity;• wishes to change, is able to shift the internal
and interpersonal perspectives within which
it operates, and has empathy;• is aware on a global scale of current practices
preventing sustainable and effective change;• develops individual responsibility and enables
changes in the attitudes and behavior ofthemselves and others;• works as part of a team to change cultures,
habits, standards, structures, and the system.
This 21st-century leadership will develop
through interaction with the societal changes
now taking place, in new formal and informal
networks, both professional and social.
The idea of competition could give way to that ofcooperation. All over the world, small and mediumsized businesses and organizations within civilsociety are beginning to show the way. As influential centers of business and social creativity, they
are led by entrepreneurs whose business is asocial activity. Are socioperceptive leaders goingto usher in a new paradigm? n

abo u t t h e a u t h or
After a career as director of the Centre de formation aux réalités internationales (CEFRI), an executive
training center on international realities, Irène Dupoux-Couturier is now vice president and managing
director of SoL France. By participating in this action research project, she hoped to understand to what
extent phenomena that she had observed over the past 30 years in companies facing a changing world
were now becoming the focus of their approach: a new type of management centered on people.

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f eat u re 1 1 . 1 – 2

Empathy, Socioperception, 			
and Anticipation
A lain de V u lpian

This article is based on two sets of field research. SoL France recently conducted
in-depth interviews with some 50 change agents operating in a dozen European
companies with the goal of clarifying how empathy and socioperception affectbusinesses. The study showed that these men and women have highly developed
socioperception skills that play an integral role in their professional lives, that is,they each possess a deep systemic intuition of the condition and functioning of
the social systems within which they operate. Without going into an analysis of the
Alain de Vulpian

complexity of their particular situations, they sense the most significant potential
future directions and intuit opportunities for positive intervention. They pick up

and interpret the weak signals that foretell of changes to come, perceive dangerous or beneficial latencies,
sense various possible future scenarios, and act in a correspondingly informed manner. For these reasons,they are efficient and effective agents of change.

S

ince the 1950s, Cofremca1 and its European and American partners within the RISC (ResearchInstitute on Social Change) and then in Sociovision have observed and analyzed the resurgenceof empathy and socioperception in western society. Cofremca originally used the term “intraception,” a concept approximately equivalent to “socioperception.”

The Emergence of Socioperception
The way we used to be
The great German sociologist Norbert Elias analyzed the social evolution that brought the countries ofEurope from a feudal society to the society of the early 20th century.2 Over several centuries, changes in
the interlinked chains of relationships and behaviors among different social sectors, including knights
and nobles, merchants, bourgeoisie, and peasants, reflected the “process of civilization.”
Medieval man, represented by the knight, was driven by his impulses and emotions. He was combative
and aware of his body, his freedom restrained only by the violence of those stronger than he. Society
was violent, and any centralizing power was uncertain.
According to Elias, the process of civilization began at the end of the Middle Ages, took shape during the
16th and 17th centuries, and blossomed in the 19th century. The increasing power of certain lords who
dominated their peers to become kings, and the taming and domestication of nobles drawn to the court,
initiated the process that subsequently enabled the State to become the sole legitimate purveyor of
violence. Self-control – of violence, of sexual impulses, of the emotions – became a social necessity,

f eat u re | de v u lpian

first for the nobles, then for the rising middle
classes, and finally for the population as a whole.
People had to restrain their behavior, deliberately
shaping their emotions by observing themselves
and their entourages.
Elias emphasized the growth of guilt: embarrassment, disgust, and feelings of shame attached tothe evocation of bodily functions, the body itself,
the interaction of bodies, and anything that could
be likened to animal behavior. Cool regard, intellect, and distance became acceptable and prized.
Fine language, witty remarks, and courtesy distanced people from the immediacy of raw emotions.
The intellect stood back from raw, pulsing life. The
other became an object to be weighed, evaluated,judged from the outside, and categorized rather
than experienced as a person. The spread of literacy
among the populations of 19th-century Europe
reflected the final stage in this evolution.

The resurgence of sensations, emotions,and impulses
The end of the 19th century and the first decadesof the 20th saw a bifurcation in this process ofcivilization. Painting (impressionist, surrealist,
abstract, etc.) prefigured a return to the warmthand disorderliness of impulses, sensations, andemotions, and a decline in admiration for intellectand clear ideas. Freud incarnated and reinforced
this movement. From the beginning of the 1950s,
socio-anthropological field research began todescribe the ways in which ordinary people experienced this U-turn.3 In-depth interviews with
Swedish and French subjects showed that younger
and more modern respondents were more intimate
with their sensations, emotions, and impulses thantheir older peers. Sensations of all sorts – visual,tactile, olfactory, and kinesthetic – moved into
the foreground of consciousness. It became permissible to feel them, explore them, and savor
them. It was acceptable to express these formsof perception and translate them into behavior.
People opened themselves to their sexuality,
which became less a matter of moral principles
and intellectual representations and more an affair
of mutually enriching sensations and emotions.

Alexis deTocqueville,
fromempathy toanticipation

Cofremca baptized this sociocultural current,
which was to become deeper and more extensive throughout the following decades, 		“polysensualism.”

Mental self-awarenessRestraint and self-censorship continued to loosen
their hold. More and more people expressed theiremotions and impulses through their words andactions, and in doing so discovered and became
more conscious of them. They developed an
intimate connection with their interior life. They
become increasingly self-aware, not only physically but also mentally.
During the 1980s, growing numbers of people
stood back from and evaluated their lives. This
process eventually led them to reorient theirstrategies, modify their objectives, and manipulate
their emotions and impulses. This skill fed into amajor underlying trend, already several centuries
old, in the evolution of western culture – the pursuit of happiness and emancipation. People progressed in this direction as they learned to identify
the constraints that held them down, the actions
that freed them, and the sources of happinessor suffering that they experienced. They soon became aware, in ever larger numbers, that the great
Happiness, the Grand Passion, the Glorious Eveningof the Revolution, and any other mythical object

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2of their dreams are illusory targets, and that itis the accumulation of small happinesses, wellbeing, and affection that brings real contentment.

Resurgence of empathy
Field observations show that a resurgence of
empathy accompanied the recovery of buried
sensations, emotions, and impulses. We started
to live not only in deeper contact with our own
selves, but also with others. We began to perceive
others as living entities with sensations, emotions,
impulses, and intentions. Beginning in the 1960s,
more and more people enjoyed “putting themselves in the other’s place” and felt they could
perceive or become aware of other’s sensations,emotions, and mental processes. Through trial
and error and a learning process, many improved
their empathetic skills.
Empathy is a natural ability of humans and someanimal species. Recent findings in the neurosciences have given us a glimpse of the mechanisms
in the nervous system through which empathy isconstructed.4 As Norbert Elias showed, the processof civilization and the standardization and intellectualization of education that dominated during
an earlier period of history had put this ability tosleep. The emerging current of social evolution
beginning during the 20th century has
reawakened it.

A broadened and deepened form of reason
We have mentioned perceiving and feeling, butreasoning is not necessarily absent from the processes we have described. Its presence became
increasingly evident from the early 1970s andespecially in the 1980s. The culture of Rational
Thought, a child of the Renaissance, the Age of
Reform, and the Enlightenment, was strengthenedby the spread of literacy and secondary education.
In the 1970s, this field expanded. It no longer centered exclusively on words, clearly defined ideas,
concepts, and arguments, but began to deal withthe analysis and understanding of the emotions
and interior life (one’s own, other people’s, and thatof society as a whole). The result was increased

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integration of reason with the emotions and agreater ability for people to stand back and critically analyze their own conduct and that of others.
This permanent form of apprenticeship for life andliving continues today.

People Who Have a Strategic 		
Approach to Daily Life: From Empathy
to Socioperception
In our research, we have seen an increasing number of people who live like strategic opportunists
and succeed quite well in steering a wise course
through life. Here is a rough profile: In a complex
and uncertain environment, these individuals orient themselves through the joint use of reason
and emotion, tempering one with the other.5 They
cultivate their capacity for empathy, thereby enriching their emotions and feeling more acutely
the happiness and suffering of others. But they
control their compassion at a reasonable level, notlosing sight of their central egoistic ambition tolive a life that they find acceptable. The cultivationof empathy enables them to perceive or imagine
the picture of themselves that forms in the mindsof others with whom they interact. On the basisof these theories, they anticipate the behaviors
and reactions of others.
People develop an understanding of social systems,
progressively perceive the motivations of others(individuals and groups), anticipate behaviors, andsense latencies and dynamic currents underlying
the everyday course of events. These people arethus able to scan the strategic areas of life thatinterest or suit them and are ready at any momentto make the most of the opportunities or parry
the threats that crop up (see figure, p. 53).
They also develop their perceptions of potential
futures. Beginning in the 1980s, we see more andmore young people who say that they have noclear or fixed objectives for their lives, but thatthey continually and happily imagine potential
futures and the ways they could take advantageof them to improve their own prospects. This
capacity for treating the future as a mixture off eat u re | de v u lpian

53

Simplified Diagram of the Process That Generates Socioperception

Quest for
Happiness andEmancipation

Resurgenceof Sensations
and Emotions

Mental
Proprioception
Theory of Mind

Relaxationof Censorshipand Normsof Behavior

Memoriesof the Future(Scenarios)

Socioperceptive
Piloting
Enlightened
Opportunists

Resurgenceof Empathy

When people are motivated by a quest for happiness and emancipation, and when censorship and social norms are relaxed, amutually enriching resurgence of sensations, emotions, and intelligent empathy occurs. This combination supports a mental form 		of proprioception, feeds into theories of the mind, and enriches the range of memories and available scenarios of the future. People
immediately improve their socioperceptive piloting skills, becoming alert to opportunities in their own lives. As they continue theirlearning, they become increasingly aware of their sensations, emotions, and empathies. The result is a rise in the level of emancipation and happiness in society as a whole and the continued deconstruction of earlier forms of censorship and social norms.

scenarios and trends along with developing hypothetical action plans has without doubt been
fundamental for the survival of our species.
Thanks to their ability to unite emotions and reason, deepening their empathy and their understanding of social systems, these strategic opportunists improve their view of possible futures.
They increase their socioperceptive abilities, thatis to say, are more apt than previous generations
to perceive the interlinking chains of relationships
and capture the weak signals that foretell blockages, fluctuations, or bifurcations, and to conceiveof the potential impact of this or that action on

their own lives, happiness, and scenarios of the
future. They thus become equipped to pilot theirlives in a well-informed manner, in a society whereindividual behaviors and relationships are becoming less programmed and freed of control by
conventions or authorities than ever before.

Socioperception Plays a Central Role 		in the New “Society of People”
Progress in socioperception and thedevelopment of self-organizing societies
feed into each other
Simultaneous to the rise of this group of strategic
opportunists, a self-structuring society began to

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emerge that is profoundly different from the onethat dominated the first two-thirds of the 20th
century. Since the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, as people have become more
integrated and whole as individuals, they havetended to desert hierarchies and the massive compartmentalized and convention-bound society
in which they once lived. Some, like the youth
protestors of 1968, do so in a spectacular manner,
but the majority tip-toe away, seeking to findand express their personalities. As they do, theydrain energy from the organizations, institutions,conventions, and hierarchies of which they 		
were once part.
Nevertheless, they do not leave in order to isolatethemselves. They leave in search of others of theirkind or with whom they feel in tune. Throughconnections and break-ups, networks and small
groups form and reform, within which people interact and create systems of their own. Small units
eventually interact with each other, becoming interdependent and creating units of a higher order.
And so it continues, as the new society organizes
itself into a fractal architecture with complex interlocking layers. Since the middle of the 1970s,
a new social fabric with a complexity analogous
to that of a living organism has been coming into
being. Since the middle of the 1980s, the proliferation of sophisticated interpersonal communications equipment (web-linked portables,internet, cell phones, etc.) has accelerated thistransformation.
The enrichment of socioperceptive skills is doubly
linked to the development of this new social fabric.
People who use these skills act as facilitators, managing the adjustments that large-scale change
brings and becoming fertile sources of small
happinesses by helping individuals see each other.
Concurrently, finding one’s way in this complex,
living society is in itself an apprenticeship in socioperception. Those who are more perceptive thanothers benefit by becoming more influential
within society.

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The new family is a melting pot of
increasing socioperception
In this new society, the family unit is no longer thesame as in previous times; nevertheless, it remains
central. A century ago, the dominant model was
still that of the institutionalized, authoritarian family, based on a marriage of convenience and commanded by the father, who was the guardian andtransmitter of social standards. From the 1930s on,
we saw the gradual triumph of marriage for loveand the decrease in rigidity of institutional norms.
Today, the model that has become increasingly
important over the past few decades is that of theadaptable, interactive family – “biodegradable,”“erotico-affective,” flexible rather than rigidly
structured, and able to withstand change.
Such a family is open to the external world; its
members are profoundly attached to each other,but can maintain their own personal networks.
It is no longer necessarily a formalized entity: In
Scandinavia, France, and England, more than halfof all births occur outside of marriage. The family
is ideally a space for love and life, and will survive
only as long as it is able to sustain affection. The
development of contraception removed a sourceof anguish for women and helped couples cultivate their emotions and feelings of erotic love,
deepening the dialogue between them. Thanks
to birth control, parents often ardently wish forthe children who are born. The exchange of affection between parents and with their children has
become a key element of family life. Polls showthat from year to year, an increasing numberof parents try to bring up their children withcaresses rather than lectures. We now know thatlittle humans, as well as little monkeys, need to
be raised in that kind of affectionate atmosphere
if they are to develop their interpersonal skills.
At the end of the 1940s, David Riesman andhis team6 outlined the emergence of what I callsocioperception. His book made quite a lot of noise.
According to Riesman et al, in the 19th century,
American society consisted for the most part of“inner-directed” people. Children were brought up
in a small, authoritarian family, closed to the outerf eat u re | de v u lpian

world and dominated by the father. This demanding father-image gave people a compass, a conviction that there is a direction to be followed throughlife. In contrast, in the large American towns of
the mid-20th century, young middle-class children
have grown up in families that are relatively open
to the outside world and in which mothers arealso important. The children tack between parents
and in this way learn diplomacy. They also growup in groups of other children, their peer groups,
where they learn how to “fit in.” They thus acquirean “other-directed” personality, equipped with asocial radar rather than a compass.
In western and northern Europe, more than threeout of four families no longer function on a hierarchical basis. They have become heterarchicalsocial systems, connected to exterior networks,
with leadership and influence circulating, passing
from father to mother or to this or that childaccording to talents and circumstances. Withinthese families, new systems of governance are
emerging, based on interaction and the capacityof participants to adjust to one another. Fathers
whose socioperceptive understanding is weak
and who want to affirm their authority usually
fail, triggering dramas and quarrels. Other parents
succeed in a sort of empathetic governance, inwhich family members function in a relatively
harmonious manner. A complex systemic relationship likely exists between the spread and progressof empathy, the sensorial/emotional link within
couples, parent/child affection, a self-adjustingsocial fabric, and empathetic governance.7

A divided society works on itself and starts
to be self-regulating …but not sufficiently
At the beginning of the 21st century, we can saythat two societies coexist and interact: the old“society of hierarchy,” fragmented but massive, inwhich power centers seek to conserve their topdown control, and the new, heterarchic “society ofpeople.” The society of people is subtly insinuating
itself into the earlier form of society and establishing itself in the nooks and crannies of organization
charts, while small power centers in businesses
and other kinds of organizations, political parties,

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Nelson Mandela,an accomplishedsocioperceptive

and religious institutions all seek to defend
positions of authority acquired in times past.
The internal cultures of public authorities, large
businesses, and other enterprises are still influenced by the monolithic and hierarchical characterof the mechanistic society from which they descended. Old patterns of thought and mindsets,
supported by these cultures, cut off a good
many of their managers from all forms of systemic
thought or perception. They are not encouraged
to be socioperceptive or they become disconnected from their capacity for socioperception;
they don’t feel the latencies within human groups
that could be activated, the dynamic currents thatwant to be brought to light, or the deficiencies
that could be remedied. This cultural blindness
leads to perverse effects, deficiencies, turbulence,
blockages, paralysis, and failure to innovate.
As their level of socioperception rises, ordinary
people learn to protect themselves from the manipulations of centralized powers. Socially adept,they know quite well how to go about cultivating
their personal happiness and the sense of meaning they need. Even when they think society is notgoing well, they are often satisfied by their successin managing their own circumstances. They are
not trying to make the whole of society happier,but their personal search for small pleasures andmeaning, taken together, have this final effect.

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Some go further and, feeling the suffering aroundthem, take action to attenuate it, correct current
social pathologies, and contribute to the selfrealization of others. Throughout the West, themultiplication of individual initiatives, networks,
associations, and NGOs has given rise to a sort of
informal infrastructure that works to remedy the
misfortunes, dysfunctional processes, and sourcesof violence within our societies. This social immune
system, which acts as both a prevention and a cure,plays an essential role in the relatively peacefulequilibrium of western society at its current stageof development. It seems to support the construction of a mutually supportive society.

steps ahead. As a result, these new leaders areopen to ideas for innovation that have a goodchance of reinforcing latent demand. Such innovations feed into new social formats; for example,
blogs, forums, and social networks; search engines,
internet portals, web sites, Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia; pragmatic, humanist change agents incompanies; systems providing free-access bicycles,
car sharing, and new ways of working, etc. This“sociogenic” proliferation places great weight on
the society of people, to the detriment of thesociety of localized powers.

However, this self-regulation by the society ofordinary people is not always sufficient. Somepathologies remain untreated. The self-organizedapproach lacks the advanced empathetic andtherapeutic interventions that could provide ahigher level of adjustment, a sort of governancethat sees ahead and provides early warning andmanagement of harmful processes. Fortunately,
public authorities, organizations, and businesses
at all levels (local, national, and global) are learning to be empathetic, socioperceptive, and therapeutic. They will work with and through the social
immune system of the new society of people
and learn how to develop suitable forms ofintervention.

Simultaneously, this increasing self-determination among ordinary people is perturbing the processes that guide and shape public opinion. Men
and women, young and old, rich and poor are constructing greater areas of autonomy: They react toevents on their own account and in their own way.
Growing numbers are freeing themselves fromancient affiliations and outworn ideologies todecide things for themselves. Faced with an eventor situation, their reactions are guided less by
categories, organizations, preconceived notions,or preestablished camps than in the past, andspring from their own impressions and personalawareness.

Key role of socioperceptive innovators
Increasing numbers of leaders and innovators
sense the direction of current changes; they seek
to produce innovations that are in tune with theseshifts, winning favorable reception and in turn reinforcing the movement toward change. Women,
new generations of men, and socioperceptive
leaders are winning influential positions. They areaware that our current era is favorable to sociological innovations that improve people’s lives andfacilitate the functioning and self-governance ofsociety; they have a keen intuition for latencies
and societal dynamics, and can pick out weaksignals and shaping trends; they have a naturally
systemic perception of reality, seeing chains ofactions and interactions and anticipating three

Waves of collective emotional intelligenceweigh on existing power structures

This individual transformation feeds the emergenceof waves of collective emotional intelligence. The
people are not isolated cases, and they cluster together.
Their empathy makes them aware of the reactions
and sensitivities of others who perceive key trends
at the same time as they do. They feel on the same
wavelength with certain people and draw closer
to them, at least for the moment. This interactionof personal perceptions may lead to the development of short-lived or long-lasting communities,
of waves of collective sensitivity that escape thecontrol of preestablished categories. These categories may become deconstructed as a result.
Such popular feeling can ultimately influence theconduct of leaders and the course of events. Thus,
the American-led war in Iraq gave rise to one such

f eat u re | de v u lpian

wave. The populations of a number of European
countries felt that this war risked destabilizing
fragile systems and moving the global courseof events in a disastrous direction. In most cases,
these opinions ran counter to government decisions and were independent of the positions takenby the political forces in power. Once started, theprotests grew. Similar waves have formed aroundclimate change and against commercial practices
seen as inhumane and predatory. On a smallerscale, waves of collective emotional intelligence
may form in a town or company.

Contrasting Attitudes of Companies 		
to Socioperception
Companies have adopted diverse and variable
postures with regard to socioperception. Fromthe early 1970s, a number of pioneering major
companies turned out to be extremely socioperceptive. The new socio-economy that developedaround the turn of the century, between 1990–
2000, is the fruit of free-floating socioperception.
However, during the same period, old-fashioned
companies focused on short-term financial profitability and now have little or no socioperceptive
and anticipatory capacities.

Large pioneering groups or companies 		
have blazed the trail toward socioperception
From the early 1970s, senior managers at a number of pioneering companies felt that a radical
change was under way in their business environment and sought to discover ways to cope witha different future. Certain cases seemed to me
particularly striking.
Per Gyllenhammar (chairman of Volvo) noticed
that Swedish workers were becoming independent and autonomous persons who would nolonger accept the mechanistic Taylorist approach
to work. However, he did not want to bring inforeign labor and saw that this new capacity forautonomy on the part of Swedish workers could
be turned to an advantage by combining selforganization with supervisory management. Volvo
created autonomous, independent workshops inwhich a team was left totally free to organize itself

and manage its own work to achieve its production
objectives.
André Besnard (chairman of Royal Dutch Shell)
and Pierre Wack developed strategic planning
through scenarios. Pierre Wack’s scenarios, inspiredby biology rather than mechanical engineering,were profound and original. They were not theresult of a rational analysis of possible futures, butarose through understanding the different chainsof linked events that could result from the dynamics
currently at work. A worldwide network of several
dozen socioperceptives, together with two teamsof anthropologists and futurologists, helped to
identify these dynamics. Shell’s global scenarios
enabled the company to anticipate and react
more effectively to the oil crisis than its competitors. These scenarios also helped the company
perceive as early as the mid-1970s that it would
have to learn to behave like a living organism in a
new, organic social fabric about to emerge. Other
more limited scenarios focused on the possible
developments of the French political scene in theevent of the socialist and communist left coming
to power and provided the foundation for Shell’s
decision not to sell its network of service stations
in France at that time.
At the beginning of the 1970s, L’Oréal was anintensely organic company, that is to say, it was amajor actor made up of small, living entities within
which relationships developed more on a spontaneous basis than through intellectual organization. François Dalle, the chairman, understood anddrew his colleagues’ attention to the spontaneousdevelopment of “parallel hierarchies” (today wewould say “networks”) within the group, and theopportunities they offered for influencing future
developments. He also perceived how to turn his
teams into gigantic listening posts, offering willingears to women’s concerns and orienting productinnovation toward the systematic search for theseeds of the future (see figure, p. 58).
During the same period, Bernard Hanon (thendirector of automobiles at Renault) successfully
refocused new model design on an understanding

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Sociovision in Western Europe
Look Far Ahead

Tendencies
Bifurcations

Seeds of
Scenarios

in order toAct
Appropriately
Today

Visionsof the Future

Challenges Facing
the Company
1992

2005–2010of growing dissatisfaction among car users. Gone
was the emphasis on social standing and impressive bodywork; the stress was now on cars thatwere enjoyable to be in and drive.
During the 1980s, a good number of other important companies followed in these initial steps, but
the movement was rapidly thwarted.

A new socio-economy of meaning 		and self-directed adjustment emerged
Beginning in the 1980s under the impulse of anumber of socioperceptives, a socio-economy
based on meaning and self-organized adjustments began to emerge, in synergy with the development of the society of ordinary people. This
new socio-economy sought to lead the structuresof the old economy toward the future. Made up
of small, often networked units, like living organisms, it produced efficiency and vitality from thehopes and aspirations of entrepreneurs, collaborators, customers, and society itself. These included
start-ups working in the fields of information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, as
well as new services in partnership with associations, NGOs, consultants, individual entrepreneurs
and their networks, think tanks, and nonprofits.
Such organizations have proliferated widely overthe past 30 years.

During the early 2000s, a new type of hybrid organization emerged that tries to combine “nonprofit”
with “for profit.” These entities are often known as“social businesses.” They work on a socially oriented
rather than profit-seeking basis, but differ frommost charity groups in that they generate sustainable revenues and are not reliant on philanthropy.
They retain and reinvest revenues rather thandistributing them to shareholders.
The emerging socio-economy is profoundly
marked by the new society of people, its sensitivities,
and its values. It responds to this group’s expectations, offsets its insufficiencies, takes care of its
problems, supports its development, and enriches
its interactions. Field research carried out in France
and the United States during 2000 shows thatthese new, organic forms share the following
characteristics:• All participants are involved in their development.
• Added meaning is more important than 		
added value.
• Strategies arise from the collective intelligenceof the entire social group.
• Organization is transversal and heterarchical,
that is to say, the leadership circulates.
These organizations start out as little groups ofpeople who perceive possible channels of emergence and are intensely motivated by the missionof promoting a new service or idea. They often
struggle to work their way into standard institutional forms. Some find themselves ill treated oreven strangled by investment markets, but they
are warmly welcomed by the society of ordinary
people.

Old-fashioned businesses became blinded by
the champions of hyper-financial capitalism
Between 1990 and 2000, large, traditional companies were subject to a double pressure. The emphasis on short-term financial profit forced themto tighten every available screw and close theireyes to society’s shifts. Simultaneously, new social
attitudes and modern mentalities worked theirway into the companies, multiplying the numberof change agents within them and making their

f eat u re | de v u lpian

top-down management style increasingly 		
problematic.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, a hyper-financial
form of capitalism centered entirely on the shortterm made its appearance in the United States andspread rapidly. An imperfect laissez-faire policythat did not take account of moral hazard gave
extraordinary freedom to players in the financial
world, who began to take extreme risks in orderto generate extreme profits. The result was a particular form of capitalism centered on financial
speculation and the maximization of short-term
profits – a virtual casino. Financial actors inveigled
many companies into their casino. They introduced
a new type of shareholder into many boards of
directors, voracious money men little interested
in the vitality and sustainable development of thebusiness. Many companies gave overwhelming
power to the shareholders and generously rewarded
the senior managers who served them. Finance,
once the lifeblood of growing industries, thus
became a parasite on the economy and a sourceof sickness for many companies.
In this context of financial and stock-market
excess, senior managers of a good many large,
old-style companies focused on short-term financial profitability rather than on the evolutionary
development of their business activity, markets,
social context, or even the health of the company.
Managers’ attention and discussions with employees focused on business plans and quarterly
results rather than threats and opportunities ona three-year horizon. Those who were concerned
about the future of the business, the markets, work
processes, trends, or the planet were replacedby financial minds. No one encouraged the emergence of new forms of management that could
adapt to the changing character of the men andwomen working for the company. For instance,
the car industry produced “fashion-conscious”
cars rather than automobiles that would contribute to making life easier for people. Managers
talked about ecology, making politically correct
noises to get good press and keep the company
image bright, instead of seriously trying to finddevelopment strategies that would provide
answers to ecological threats while still assuring
sustainable futures for their companies.
Many firms chased profits unmercifully, reducing
costs, tightening screws, and cutting quality byautomating, in a desperate search for efficiency.
As highly paid consultants reengineered theirorganizations, a Taylorist management cultureof hierarchies, centralization, technocratic domination, internal competition, and bureaucracy
reemerged.
Parallel to these developments, modern society
was extending its influence into businesses of allsorts, its networks quietly reaching into the gaps
and interstices of management and organizational
charts. Employees, especially the younger ones,
became more autonomous and anxious to create
their own version of a decent and enjoyable life,
while customer and citizen dissatisfaction grew
and the health of the planet continued to deteriorate. Within companies, unhappiness at work increased, provoking protests and disputes. Active
socioperceptives who became aware of the negative effects of the dominant organizational model
reacted. Some became pragmatic agents forhumanistic change, while others took the pathof blockage and protest. Both groups tended toorganize into networks and exerted pressure
on their companies.
Businesses that suppressed socioperception did so
at great expense. Many companies:• failed to perceive or pursue development
opportunities that could have assured thecompany’s future and recovery from the crisis;• did not make use of the emergent individualand collective potential of their workforces;• experienced declining employee relations,accompanied by loss of meaning, stress,
disengagement, development of protest
networks, and diminished resilience;• did not develop empathetic or therapeutic
relations with society, or provide care andassistance to those in need; and

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reflections.solonline.org• experienced a diminished public image, whichis the “soft capital” of large, long-establishedcompanies.

economy, and consumers’ hidden desires and expectations have now become subjects of strategic
reflection for managers.

In this context, depending on circumstances,
any major company can find itself turned intoa scapegoat.

Many managers have become sensitive to thepresence of change agents within their companies,
as well as agents of blockage and protest. The
action research for “Ten Years of Organizational
Learning” has shown that they see the usefulnessof the former and are inclined to support them.
An idea worth considering is that if a company
becomes more open, blocking agents could become change agents; and if a company remains
closed off, the opposite could happen.

Toward a Renewal of Anticipatory
Socioperception
As outlined above, large companies today face
the need to sharpen their socioperception andanticipation capacities. The dominant winds arepushing large, traditionally managed companies
to adapt to the evolution of society. At the sametime, ordinary people continue to deepen theirsense of empathy and their socioperceptive skills.
There’s been no reversal to this trend in recent
years; quite the contrary, the new socio-economy
of meaning and self-adjustment continues togain ground.
Since the beginning of the century, the backlash
against a focus by big companies on maximizing
profits with little or no regard for their employees
has grown considerably, more so since the economic crisis. Even before then, the intensity of thisreaction led a number of observers to anticipate atipping point. The tacit contract between companies and society has been extended and refined.
Today, to be truly successful, a company must
attend to the health and well-being of society
and the ecological equilibrium of the planet.
Resisting pressure from shareholders for shortterms results, a small number of large, traditional
companies have shifted to a culture of anticipatorysocioperception. They could become models fortheir peers.
A growing number of company managers who
had remained attached to authoritarian, rationalist, and bureaucratic mental models are now questioning the relevance of this mindset in today’s
world. The loss of vitality and resilience caused by
employee unhappiness and stress, the development of promising opportunities for a decarbonized

The oil, gas, and coal lobbies have considerable
influence. They have succeeded, notably in the
United States, in throwing doubt on the validityof forecasts of climate change. However, stronger
legislation in some areas to make polluters pay
is encouraging major oil and chemical producers
to bet on sustainable development.
As I write these lines, the future of hyper-financial
capitalism is still uncertain. Depending on whether
it recovers its full strength or whether it will betamed sufficiently to serve the economy, shortterm financial pressure on companies will increaseor dwindle. But even if financial forces remainstrong, based on their recent experiences, theability of companies to resist will probably begreatly strengthened compared to the years
between 1990 and 2000.
Taken together, these changes encourage me toanticipate the rapid evolution of large, traditional
companies in response to social changes. They
will invent ways in which they can make use of
the situation. The ones that cling desperately to
outdated management styles, organization, andorientation will be negatively affected by thecourse of events, unless enough of them persist
to tip parts of our society into serious disorder.
If they want to facilitate their adaptation, theymust become socioperceptive. To that end, Klaus
Schwab, founder and executive chairman of theWorld Economic Forum, published an influential

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article in Le Monde on January 5, 2010, entitled“It is time for CEOs to change from profit-driven
logic to public-welfare logic.”

Turning the spotlights of socioperception
on the company ecosystem and its changes
The company’s objective is to feel at ease within
its ecosystem and to make the best use of it while
also maintaining it. Six sectors seem to me torequire particular attention. Many companies
neglect several of them.
1. The living company and its teams. Leaders
must be aware of their company as a collectionof human beings, a grouping with its own health,vitality, efficiency, and resilience. They also needto understand:• which systems in the company produce 		unhappiness;• what positive and negative possibilities 		
for change exist;• what sort of involvement, creativity, andpotential have been left unused and what are
the opportunities for making use of them;• what organization and power structures will
be in synergy with the society of people andbe able to take root in the firm; and• what practices develop a collegial atmosphere
Today, five paths to achievement seem to attract
particular attention:•	Free up self-organization, reduce rationalizedorganization by experts, combine self-organization with top-down organization.
• Take into account individuals and categories
of individuals, and show respect for people.
• Consider mini-communities and social systems,
to reinforce the organic functioning of thecompany.
•	Give support to and wisely position empathetic
and socioperceptive leaders.
•	Make use of crises to strengthen cohesion andteam spirit.
2. Consumers. Companies often base their strategies on superficial views of their customers. They
must become aware of their clients’ unsatisfied

fundamental needs, frustrated self-development,
or deficits left by our business activities. This awareness could lead to new products, services, or systems that are not fashion- or trend-based, and that
could enable people to develop the sort of lives
that suit them. These activities, in turn, would feed
the sustainable development of the company.
What are the social systems that lead consumers
to choose or reject this or that product, or suchand such a brand? Which ones lead doctors toprescribe or ignore a new medicine? What new
pool of potential consumption could open up
in the relatively near future in sectors or regions
from which we are absent? We need to understand which new products or services could contribute to supporting this or that underlying
movement in society’s foundations.
3. People and society. Contributing to easing
suffering and curing society’s pathologies is
becoming one of the duties of business (as it isof public authorities and associations). Companies
need to find the sources of distress or ineffective
processes that are currently or potentially connected to our activities. Understanding their
origins and devising interventions or innovations
could reduce these challenges.
4. The environment. The transition to a decarbonized economy and the development of links
with nature and natural processes could increase
the prosperity of many companies and lead to thecreation of many jobs. Leaders must sense how
their companies can contribute to restoring andmaintaining a sustainable equilibrium in the planet’s
ecosystem, and at the same time develop innovations to assure the vitality of their organizations.
5. The evolving world. Among the plausible
future scenarios of the world, on a horizon of 10
to 20 years, leaders need to identify those thatwould make a real difference for the company andunderstand how to adapt major strategies to meetand handle uncertainty. By doing so, they will gain
an understanding of which of society’s major underlying trends could interfere with the company’s

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2development and devise a course of action todeal with them.
6. The financial system. Leaders need to survey
the evolution of the financial system, understandthe ways in which their company could become
dependent on it, and anticipate the steps necessary to escape these pressures.

Box 1

Foreseeing Societal Dynamics

Foreseeing societal dynamics involves combining
foresight and reasoning to produce projections of
future trends and strategic analyses that are usefulfor the company.

Social systems that are strategic for the company, forexample, those giving rise to the health or deterioration ofteams; those leading to sustainable development or to a decline in the company’s market positions; those maintaining
the company’s well-being within its various environments.
Major trends that are likely to affect the company’s development. Locate them, and evaluate the strength and weakness of the processes that generate them. Identify possible
fluctuations and the early signs of bifurcations. Evaluate
their possible impact on the company.
Scenarios that are significant for the company’s future.
Scan the principal differences likely to have an impact on ourdevelopment, such as foreshadowing of threats and happy
surprises. Clarify the paths through history that could leadto this or that scenario. The principal outcome of collective
work on scenarios is often an increase in the acuity of theparticipants’ socioperceptive skills.
Weak signals. The perception and analysis of events andchanges that confirm, describe, or exclude a major trend or
scenario is indispensable. This process can lead to the early
perception of an emerging phenomenon or a bifurcation.
An organization that over the years has accumulated andmaintained a deep understanding and perception of themacro and micro social systems that are of strategic importance to it will naturally be sensitive to the weak signalsthat update its information about change.

reflections.solonline.org

Insights into the practice of socioperception
Socioperception is based on a natural ability of
the human brain to locate significant variables anddetermine the path to follow or the appropriate
action to take when confronted by extremely complex life situations. This skill is imprecise; it involves
trial and error and is influenced by circumstances.
It is unequally distributed among individuals.
A person can cultivate it, allow it to wilt, or evenrepress it.
This skill implies, as Antonio Damasio has shown,an intimate collaboration between emotion andreason.8 Be careful not to overuse reason; when wetry to make a detailed, rational analysis of a living
system, we often end up creating extremely complex interaction diagrams and “hot air factories,”and can lose sight of the target of our action. We
must constantly seek equilibrium between emotion and reason, empathy and rationalization.
We awaken socioperception through the circumstance of daily life, by sensing and perhaps sharing
other’s grief or joy. We feel how our interactions
with others are going, and we foresee how to intervene. We repeat the experience, tell ourselves
stories, create an ad hoc theory of the mind, andobserve another interaction. As we repeat theexperience, we are enriched, fed by a free-floating
but persistent attention to events and changes.
We make errors of anticipation and correct them.
We take a more or less distant view of these experiences. We test generalizations, noticing thatsome people react one way, some another. We
eventually arrive at theories about society, locate
evolutionary trends, and sketch out scenarios(see Box 1).
But skilled socioperceptives tend not to remain
at the generalization stage. To sharpen their skill,they focus their empathetic attention on the lived
experiences of real people in their environment, on
the micro social systems that are the bricks oflarger systems. They thus spontaneously repeat
the approach followed by Kurt Lewin when hedeveloped the field research and techniques ofin-depth interviewing, which amplify the capacity

f eat u re | de v u lpian

for empathy and socioperception on the part of
the researcher. We have met several socioperceptives who have greatly benefited from their participation in Rogerian empathy training sessions.
They also think that it is enriching and productive
to exercise socioperception within work groups toencourage the proliferation of these skills. A sortof “social biology” develops that examines society
not as a thing or a collection of objects, but as aliving entity.

Toward a culture of socioperception
In the 19th and the early 20th centuries, socioperception was suppressed by the dominant rationalist culture. Today, the dominant mental models inmany companies still hold it in check. The apparent rationality of the authorized version of truth
within a company may easily sweep aside themore intuitive truth represented by socioperception. In many management committees, causal
analyses and their accompanying facts and figurescarry more weight than strategic visions that areperhaps pertinent but have not yet been clothedin rational trappings. Numerous middle and senior
managers who exercise socioperceptive skills intheir personal and family lives do not do so in theirwork, because the business culture, work habits,
mental models, job definitions, and evaluation
systems dissuade them from doing so (see Box 2).
The action research conducted for “Ten Yearsof Organizational Learning” has shown that, in
response to this trend, ground-level reactions andmanagement decisions to correct the situation
occur. At the grassroots, change agents build networks of like-minded individuals, strengthening
their capacity for resistance and their resilience.
Some managers break with the old model byintroducing socioperception in certain sectors
or departments and then seeking to extend theexperience to other areas of the company. Others
profit from the radically changed conditions ofa crisis situation to encourage a shift. Yet others
rely on internal or external change agents to implement a complex strategy of self-transformation
over an extended period.

Box 2

Different Ways of Not Being
SocioperceptiveU

ltimately, the least socioperceptive person is someone
who is severely autistic. Otherwise, those who are notsocioperceptive are poor at decoding facial expressions, tones of voice, or the emotions of others: They havelittle empathy. In daily life, they use analytic and rational brain
circuits rather than those that process emotions, intuitions,patterns, and systems. Such people perceive the other as
belonging to a class, category, or camp, as if completely
steered by a certain logic or ideology, rather than as a uniqueperson with complex motivations. Non-socioperceptive
people always rely on rational analyses of the situation, lists ormodels they have in their heads, the conventions of theirmilieu, and the idea they have of their function. On the other
hand, someone who is socioperceptive, if he or she is at all
skilled, will sense the action best suited to the circumstances.
There are also people who, unlike those described above, arerelatively empathetic but whose interpersonal empathy has
not (or not yet) given rise to a systemic social empathy. Empathetic in their daily personal lives, they maintain attitudes regarding company life and/or social and political life that are
based on rationalist, analytical, authoritarian, or ideologicalimages. In their daily interpersonal relations, they perceive
others, find ways of adjusting to them, and sense quite accurately how to act to evolve their relationships in the direction
they want. But when they are bosses faced with employees,
they behave as they think bosses should behave, rather thanas people faced with other people. And employees do thesame. When examining the social situations they want tochange, they act according to authoritarian models (at the riskof provoking undesirable effects) or according to the dominant stereotypes in their immediate environments. Alternatively, they throw themselves into a mechanistic analysis in
the search for a causal agent on which they can act.

Some businesses have a living culture of socioperception and anticipation. Their organization
is more organic than rational. They seek to understand and where possible exploit the processes
likely to facilitate or hamper their development
and fulfillment. Senior managers’ activities focus

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re f lections | vol u m e 1 1 , N u m ber S 1 – 2

Box 3

Examples of Practices That Encourage
Socioperception in a Company
We have observed a variety of such practices. Here are a few
examples:• Pamper the socioperceptives by locating, selecting,protecting, encouraging, and positioning them.
• Get feedback from action or experience by having those
who participated meet to go over what happened anddraw lessons for the future.
• Conduct postmortems by inviting a group of socioperceptives to examine the company’s innovations, whether
successes or setbacks, and derive lessons that are likely to
be useful in other sectors or circumstances (as is donewith the analysis of airplane accidents).
• Install a socio-anthropology laboratory in the company.
• Hold interaction sessions between researchers from
R&D and socio-anthropologists.
• Launch a socioperceptive group (permanent or ad hoc)
focused on a task or problem, for example, the discoveryof the possible impact of this or that major trend on ourdevelopment, or the identification and interpretation ofindications of change recently observed by the participants.
• Construct future scenarios especially adapted to thecompany’s situation.
• Create a worldwide network of socioperceptives
focusing on the company’s areas of strategic interest.
• Install observation and watch systems (economic,
sociological, technological).
• Connect with external think tanks.
• Conduct socio-anthropological field research centeredon understanding the social systems that are strategicallyinteresting for the company. If you can sufficiently reveal
their underlying dynamics, you can perceive their evolutionary possibilities (scenarios), which can clarify opportunities for strategic action.
• Install a company analysis and evaluation center with 		a variety of connections inside and outside the organization,
accumulating and maintaining understanding of important social systems.

reflections.solonline.org

on reinforcing both the vitality of the company
and its ability to rapidly respond to the circumstances whose dynamics they are trying to control.
Socioperception and anticipation are subjects forrecurring dialogue and evaluation; groups talkabout them first, then try to make them work at
different levels within the company. All personnel are brought into the efforts to anticipate thecompany’s future. They experience a collective
pleasure in accurately analyzing and anticipating,and in sharing their understanding of errors. In
areas that the company considers to be strategic,
it establishes systems of surveillance and investigation. Socioperceptive senior and middle managers
are numerous and highly valued. The company
organizes structures for collective socioperception(permanent or ad hoc) (see Box 3).
In certain companies, many managers and personnel have a systemic vision of things. They havelearned that anticipation is always uncertain andthat accurately forecasting the future is impossible.
Instead, they grope their way forward by approximative actions, characteristic of the logic of living
things. They respect error as a source of experienceand learning. Rather than folding in on themselves, these businesses are socioperceptive
agents of change linked to a variety of external
networks. n
January 2010

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65

Sophie Juin

Alain de Vulpian in February 2009 conducts a seminar, “How to become catalysts of change.”

endnotes
1 Cofremca is a team of sociologists created by the author in 1954. It principally serves as an observatoryof socio-cultural change and a laboratory for future-oriented action for companies, administrations, andgoverning bodies.
2 Elias, N. (1939). Über den prozess der Zivilisation. Translated into English in two volumes: The Civilizing Process, Vol. I.
The History of Manners. Blackwell, 1969. The Civilizing Process, Vol. II. State Formation and Civilization. Blackwell,1982. The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Revised 1994 edition. Blackwell, 2000.
3 de Vulpian, A. (2008). Towards the Third Modernity: How Ordinary People Are Transforming the World, Triarchy Press.
This book refers to this research and analyzes the process of modernization that is currently under way.
4	For example, in the 1990s, Giacomo Rizzolatti, director of the department of neuroscience at the Universityof Palermo, identified and described the role of mirror neurons. See also note 7.
5 The neurologist Antonio Damasio has shown that humans do not maintain the ability to pilot their lives ina well-informed manner unless the rational and emotional parts of the brain work together. See his book
Descartes’ Error: Emotions, Reason and the Human Brain, A. Grosset-Putnam Books, 1994.
6 Riesman, D. (1950). The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character. Yale University Press.
7 Recent work on oxytocin supports this hypothesis. This neuromodulator improves the quality of empathy;
it reinforces links between mother and child; it increases interpersonal and social confidence; it reduces certain
forms of stress and seems to be a bonding facilitator in pairing relationships. Caresses and orgasm stimulate its
production. It seems that among children deprived of affection and human touch (brought up in orphanages),
the neuronal circuits that use oxytocin are disturbed.
8 Op. cit.

abo u t t h e a u t h or
Alain de Vulpian is a socio-anthropologist and the founder of Cofremca, RISC, and Sociovision. He
has dedicated his professional life to conducting action research, observing the evolution of western
societies, and designing humane interventions. His book Towards the Third Modernity: How Ordinary
People Are Transforming the World, Triarchy Press, 2008, evokes this work. Since his retirement,
Alain has continued to research topics of general interest. He is vice president of SoL France.

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
Volume 11, Numbers 1–2

S o l F r a n c e E d i t o r i a l Te a m

E d i t o r i a l Te a m

Irène Dupoux-Couturier
Alain de Vulpian
Béatrice Quasnik
Catherine Redelsperger
Jacqueline Le BrisManaging Editor
Janice Molloy

Originally published in Les Cahiers de SoL France,
March 2010, Special Issue 11–12. Translated andrepublished with permission. www.solfrance.org

Translator
W. Richard Maxwell
Publisher
Claire Sherry Immediato

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