Some will rightly argue that the conduct of political affairs does not follow the same practices as business life, especially when it comes to the core functions of the State. But while moral philosophy and political philosophy are often distinguished, there is nonetheless a continuum between the two worlds: the way we look at others, which is lived every day in the professional world.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, I have been trying to understand why so many people support Vladimir Putin’s decisions – or at least find “reasons” for them, more often in veiled terms than openly – and the atrocities that have followed from day one.
There are, of course, political reasons. In continuity with the confrontations of the 20th century, some support the master of the Kremlin because of their historical “anti-Americanism”, whether lived or intellectualised. For a conflict that is ravaging European lands without – to date – any direct intervention by the United States, this remains a mystery… But there is, of course, the Atlantic Alliance, to which most of these countries belong, as does the United States. So that is their “logic”.
They have probably forgotten that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined voluntarily, mostly at the same time as they joined the European Union, when the collapse of the Soviet Union opened a door to freedom for those who had known the tanks and prisons of the Red Army…
Operating as a coalition
But what brings them close to Putin is that they fundamentally ignore how coalitions work – or dismiss them, more often out of incompetence than by choice. Because for them, acting collectively is much harder than deciding alone. Winning support is harder, since – to their regret – they do not have, in our companies and democratic societies, all the levers of submission.
They see our liberal democracies through the lens of the “inefficiency” of parliamentary systems and of the balance of powers on which these still rest.
In companies, they reject informal dynamics, matrix organisations or, more subtle still, the synergies of autonomous entities – what sociodynamics calls “holomorphic organisations”.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an autocracy. Everything depends on Moscow, on him, on the bureaucracy of power. It is, incidentally, an organisational model similar to that of China, where everything traditionally comes back to the centre of the Empire – an Empire inherited by the single Party. A way of operating completely different from other models sometimes called “imperial” (in fact, coalitions), in which the supposed central authority actually has to deal with many local counter-powers.
For corporate Putinists, all that matters is the authority of the “boss”, pyramid organisations and procedures designed to rationalise and standardise ways of working. This is “power” as Max Weber saw it, more than a century ago… The world of the industrial revolution of that time, a mechanical, linear world. An outdated world, radically different from today’s polycentrism, from networked logistics and information flows, and from the autonomy given to the actor furthest from the centre – the famous “strategic corporal”, with his good and bad sides.
Bringing the agility of synergistic actors to life
There are also those who can only conceive of action carried out by public structures – the State or local authorities – and their offshoots. Organisations that naturally try, like any bureaucracy, to extend their grip. Whether directly, through their own resources, or indirectly, through their financial stakes. And which sometimes make up for their inefficiency with the monopoly of force, legal or claimed to be so.
It is sometimes said – perhaps to lessen his responsibility – that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an oligarchy, since the natural resources that sustain the regime are exploited by companies entrusted to people “close” to him. But reality shows that, rather than people “close” to him, they are auxiliaries whose wealth, even their lives, depend directly on the autocrat’s goodwill and on their own docility. And that the “clean-up” he supposedly carried out of an older oligarchy was merely the installation of those beholden to him.
The agents of these centralised, and therefore bureaucratic, systems are naturally not inclined to take initiative. And that suits them – otherwise they would be entrepreneurs, facing risk and uncertainty. They are trained to “produce”, not to “interact”. To work in silos rather than in networks. To obey and be obeyed, rather than to lead.
They follow the “boss’s” instructions and are, as a result, subject to slow decision-making and, if lines of communication are cut, left to their own devices. Waiting until perhaps the “boss” comes to them, at the front line of operations – facing the associated risks (loss of perspective, lack of coordination, fatigue and therefore blindness, even direct threats), as well as their intrinsic passivity.
Facing them, depending on the context, they may find adversaries or competitors that are agile, organised in small, mobile, creative units. Driven not only by a single leader, but by a shared objective, infinitely more mobilising.
Outside the core functions of the State, those who work in local and regional development too often see the “hierarchical” posture of public officials who can only work by injunction, including with private actors over whom they have neither power nor legitimacy – even though many missions could be carried out in complementarity.
And it is regrettable that, in the strategic field – including research and reflection – the most brilliant decision-makers often turn first to public institutions, national or otherwise. Whereas many private actors, independent and driven by the same collective stakes, could enrich joint work. In this case, there is no hostility on their part. Just habits.
And perhaps the idea that when the State pays, it guarantees reliability. Whereas the omnipresence of State structures – or of their offshoots in the private sector – facilitates corruption. Because while foreign powers know how to provide a living for “foot soldiers” excluded from the world of work after their radical political commitments were exposed publicly, or funding for organisations shunned by the system, they above all favour compromising those who, through their address books, will help them “navigate” the closed circles of public decision-making.
Here again, the diversity and plurality of actors could be a guarantee not only of creativity, but also of resilience – on this point, see the new approaches to industrial and organisational safety.
But this requires the will to open up to others, to accept and respect the diversity of their ways of working. Because what matters is that the objective is shared.
Making the leader’s intent one’s own
Finally, at the crossroads between supporters of the “boss” and supporters of the State, there are those who claim to draw inspiration, in everyday business, from the military world. Because they see it as an organisation centralised around a “boss” – a double illustration of their ideal model.
This is notably the case, these days, of certain generals who spent their active careers in a bipolar world, bloc against bloc, that has disappeared, and who want to be sources of inspiration for the general public. Or of people who have orbited these worlds without finding the recognition they sought there.
Having been unable to have their hour of glory in theatres of operation – although having worked to keep war at bay is every bit as great a merit – they seek it, in our society of the spectacle, in television studios. And there they let slip this nostalgia for the “boss”, with a more or less concealed admiration for the man who today seems to defy the Western world. Over the past decades they had had other models to admire, further south, and some had seized on them. But those were further away, and no doubt less threatening than this one. So people played at being frightened, at little cost. This time, it is serious… And Vladimir Putin also fascinates them because, alone, he “dares”.
Of course, there are some, including in the armed forces, who believe in the “virtues” of planning at every level. My last military superior, a serving general, had joined Jean-Luc Mélenchon (the leader of the French radical left) in an association promoting planning – less than ten years ago… You can guess that we then had a few differences of opinion about developing skills and the value of initiative.
So, while “civilians” have the excuse of ignorance of the practices they often fantasise about, or in whose honour they wrap themselves by proxy, these people have forgotten – or always refused to accept – that to take a decision that can actually be implemented, a “leader” must, according to the proven method of the École de Guerre (the French staff college), rely on those around him.
While the leader is indeed alone in the final decision and must, as such, be ready to bear the weight of its consequences, he must first have made sure that each of his staff has made his “intent” their own, through a direct contribution to the operational translation of the decision to come. In order to enrich it with multiple points of view, but also to ensure that it can be carried out fully autonomously, if necessary.
This naturally raises the question, in the complex world of war, of the place of initiative, between opportunity and disobedience[1].
Of course, the television-studio strategists care little for these complex questions. Because the operational art that relies on this approach is the art of implementation, which they were never really able to practise, given the context of their time. And also, probably, because some are convinced that there is, on the one hand, intelligence and strategy… and on the other, everyone else, the “uneducated”… those who will ensure that “the logistics will follow”…
The top of the pyramid cut off from its base: this image must be familiar to some, especially in large companies in a position of quasi-monopoly, de facto if not de jure – because smaller ones would not survive long in our competitive societies with such an archaic model that strips people of responsibility.
The courage to share
Agreeing to share one’s “intent” means, first of all, being able to clarify it. Not indulging in cynicism and manipulation – one of the areas of expertise of those who grew up in the ranks of the KGB – but showing the courage to share, including in situations of uncertainty.
This courage is what characterises those who lead groups of decision-makers – executive committees, management committees and other forms of collective work – faced with strategic choices. “Lead”, because even if they are the “bosses”, they know very well that alone they can do nothing. Because they have neither the time, nor the energy, nor the skills of those they have recruited for this purpose and who surround them. Otherwise, what would those people be for?
And also because modern organisations rely on a subtle balance of powers, a tension between resources, and sometimes an acknowledged contradiction between objectives. Because it is from these tensions that a “compromise” acceptable to all – and therefore implemented by all – will emerge. The only thing capable of dealing effectively with the “fog of war”, whatever the battlefield. Not the “stroke of genius” of a “providential man”. Because between intuition and action, there is everything.
The courage of the modern decision-maker – and their talent – is therefore not to ride a bear alone. It is to decide, and to know how to lead a coalition of the willing. It is admittedly not the same imagery. But that is rather the world of modern companies. As it is the world of States.
[1] See, for example, the following article from the French Army’s Command Doctrine and Teaching Centre (CDEC) (in French): https://www.penseemiliterre.fr/l-initiative-du-chef-au-combat-exploitation-d-une-opportunite-tactique-ou-acte-de-desobeissance-_424_1013077.html
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