00:01:59
Why do people in the arts do what they do? Why do artists do what they do? So there's really this passion of the reason that we give to our existence. So I've created a business around this. This business is called GINPI, the Global Inspiration and Noble Purpose Institute, where we really work with this notion of inspiration. What is it that inspires us so that we can put into action what I call this noble purpose and the noble purpose is noble because of the outward-orientedness of what we do. That is one part. The other part is the philanthropy that I am involved in, which is mainly concentrated around human development and human rights. I'm passionate of how we can help people get into the best of their potential and how we can help people to live the lives that they think they deserve or that we think that people deserve.
00:02:58
This is the short version of what I stand for. Cedric and Marie. Thank you very much for your introduction. And I have a first question and it's about because you are a man of action. I heard so many things about you from Cedric. And my first question would be, what do you consider as the biggest achievement that you have done so far? Because there is a lot of things that we can highlight here, but when you look at your life, what was the biggest achievement or what do you consider as the biggest achievement so far based on your introduction or who you said that you actually are? Can I give the answer with three parts? Sure. I think writing the book and having a book published, was my first book, well, technically it was my second book.
00:03:50
But it was like the first book that was distributed on an international scale. The Book of Noble Purpose. That was something that really I consider an important achievement. It took a lot of time to put my ideas together and well, not so much to put my ideas together, but to have the book written. And then the whole marketing that happened around the book through the publisher. I find that quite something. On a pure business level, I think it is the creation of GINPI, which has been something that I did in 2010 after a sabbatical. A sabbatical that originally was going to take six months and it took almost a year and a half. And when I started GINPI, we're talking 2010. Nobody was really involved in or interested about or active around Noble Purpose.
00:04:53
Some people thought it was an interesting idea. Some people thought I was crazy. Some people thought I should just focus on doing business. And the fact that we have influenced quite a bit on an international level, the thinking around Noble Purpose and bringing Noble Purpose into enterprises, into business. And now also more and more thinking about how to bring it in other domains than business. And thinking about the arts and thinking about politics is something which I am quite proud of. And then on a more personal level, it is this quest, this journey to be as authentic as I can be to what I think is important for the human being that I believe that I am.
00:05:39
And trying to calibrate the outside pressure of traction and what I feel as my inner calling and try to bring that together to the core of the human being that I am. Long answer, a very simple question. That's really inspirational. I just have maybe a question from the perspective of the audience who are currently watching us and somebody who might maybe be amateur in Noble Purpose or never really heard about this term before. Can you maybe tell us more in really like simple words what actually Noble Purpose is and what is it? Yeah, fair and a good question, Marie. So Noble Purpose is really the reason why you get out of bed. And then as I always say, and I hope it's not because your clock is ringing or your alarm is ringing.
00:06:35
It is really the driver that you give to your life that is giving you this profound motivation. It is what makes you engaged in the work that you do, whatever the work is. So that can be working as a chef, that can be working as an artist, that can be working as a priest, that can be working as a high-tech engineer, working as a nurse, working as a CEO, working as a doctor, what have you. But it is this feeling that you have developed that what you're doing is really fulfilling you as a human being. And the fulfilment comes that it is connected with what you believe is your inner calling. And the inner calling is something that is always outward-oriented.
00:07:20
So a nurse is a man or a woman who will do something for others. A doctor is someone who will do something for the others. A cook is not cooking for himself or herself. I mean, it's cooking for the others. A CEO is putting teams together to achieve amazing ambitions, which I would hope would be to help progress society. A cleaning lady, a postman or a postwoman, they're doing things which they believe is what they are made to do, but they do it because it has a contribution. It brings added value to others' lives on a very small level, which is like a very local level. And it can be on a massive international level, the scope that people choose or that people believe is their ambition.
00:08:06
So it is actually this inner calling of something that we want to do with our life by having thoughts, by having taken the time to clarify, to make concrete that what we believe is important. And so if I push it a little further, it is not working for a material objective. So it is not working to have an income. It is not working to have a title or a role or power. The title and the role, and eventually the power that comes with the role and the money that comes with the title or the role or the work that we do is the result, but it is not the objective. You know, this is really interesting because this is something,
00:08:49
before I joined Young Leaders and Inspiring Mentors, for sure something that I've struggled with, or I mean, I still continue to struggle or challenge myself in this regard, with respect to my inner calling and the reason why I actually want to wake up and do things or start doing things in the morning, feels or I felt sometimes that from my surroundings, there were certain social expectations that made me do certain actions that I would think would appropriate or that would define who I actually am supposed to be, but that sometimes clashed with how I actually felt inside, but I found it very difficult to bring that person who I'm inside externally, and I still struggle with that, but what actually, I mean, what made me triggered, or especially when I was reading the part in the chapter of like from doing to being, it's like what you do doesn't define who you are, but who you are will define what you would do.
00:09:50
And I'm not there yet because I still feel that sometimes I act according to what my surroundings have expected me to do from the past or to react the way I have reacted in the past or like being a bit stupid and all these things that actually have no sense whatsoever, although inside of me, it conflicts actually with who I want to be. So in this sense, I still find it very challenging to act according to my noble purpose. How has that journey been for you? Before I'm going to answer, Cédric, how the journey has been for me, let me revert back to you. It's all okay. It's all okay as it is going, and you are a human being as we all are, and we tend to forget that, okay?
00:10:37
So some people get it clear in a couple of reflections. Some people will take a long time and that is also okay. It is very true what you're saying. That is we are predominantly striving to become what others think that we should become. Let me give you an interesting insight, which we all know. When you go to a party or when you go to a wedding, very often people that we don't know will ask us, oh, nice to meet you, Olivier, or nice to meet you, Marie. What do you do in life? It's very rare that people will ask you, who are you? So we are formatted in the way how socially we interact with each other, that it comes from our doing.
00:11:22
I do this, I am a nurse, I am an entrepreneur, I am a doctor, I am a professor, I am a high-tech person. I work in that kind of environment. But it's very uncommon that people would say, but who are you? What is it that is important for you in your life? Like, you know, what values are important or what life principles are essential for you? Because people think, first of all, a lot of people don't know it for themselves. And people think that it is maybe too private or too personal to ask that. And I have learned in these circumstances when people shake my hand, I keep the hand. And when people ask me, so what is it that you do? I ask them, keeping their hand, do you want to know what I do?
00:12:01
Or do you want to know who I am? And then people are totally puzzled. They kind of like, look at me like, what is this guy asking me? And then we have an interesting conversation around it. That is mainly because our society is like that. We have to get a degree and then we have to get a great job. And then ideally we have to get a partner, children, eventually a dog, definitely a house. If it's possible, a car, unless if you think that mobility is not necessarily having a car, et cetera. So we are really pre-formatted by things that are all very material. The way how I developed my noble purpose came obviously through the inspiration, which came in a hard way, which was my kidnapping in Bogota, Colombia.
00:12:48
So when I was kidnapped, I was so heavily injured that I had to recover for several weeks. I couldn't be flown back to Brussels from Bogota. And I was staying in the house of my friends for several weeks. And I was really thinking as I had nothing else to do because I had to learn to walk again. Having had some bullets that went through my legs and through my back, my lower back, I had nothing else to do than to reflect about what is my life going to be? And why do people do that? And what if I would have died? And how am I going to live a different life? And is my life going to be different? Because I had weeks of just recuperating and sitting, laying, sitting at that place.
00:13:35
And so that was for me an important kickoff. But then I got into a career, which was, let's say, quite successful. And I didn't ask a lot of questions. I was just doing things that I enjoyed until the guy with the hammer came. And in 2008, when I tried to take over the enterprise that I was the CEO of, and that didn't work. And then I had like no alternative because I was so focused on trying to do a management buyout of Ormet at the time. And it didn't work. And then when it didn't work out, we decided on a term that I would stay to help somebody else to become the new CEO. And then I left. And I left in the summer of 2008 without like no plan.
00:14:31
B, C, D, E, or whatever. And then I said, okay, I'm going to take a sabbatical. And it was during that sabbatical, and that is also why it took much more than six months. It was during that sabbatical that I really started taking the time by not being into the habitat of doing business, what I was used to do, by not going to, I don't know, business receptions or network events or what have you. I was literally staying at home, reading, doing a lot of what we would call spiritual developmental work to try to better understand who I really was and what I wanted and not what I think my parents or maybe my father or my grandfather wanted me to become, or had wanted me to become.
00:15:19
And that was obviously a big confrontational moment because it was a moment where I had to kind of like fight my inner fears and my own patterns to clarify what was really essentially important for me. And it doesn't have always to be so difficult or so dramatic in a certain way. You don't need to be kidnapped if you want to find out. Exactly, and I can, by the way, recommend not to be kidnapped. So you don't have to be kidnapped to start thinking of your noble purpose. For some people, it will be more difficult to reflect about themselves because they have no idea of who they are. And some people will make it, for them it will just be easier because they have a clarity of what is important for them.
00:16:06
And so there is no judgment on the time that you need and there is no judgment on the process that you take. But what I do know is that if you want to have a clear noble purpose, you will have to take some time to really be with yourself. I find that super difficult sometimes to be with myself, to just hear the thoughts that I have because there's sometimes just also so conflicting. I have to say, I mean, we started Young Leaders already several months ago and like we've been defining, let's say, noble purpose in some of our workshops. But I kind of also really had to take the moment to really, let's say, read your book after an event that I was in. That for me also happened in Columbia, Bogota.
00:16:53
Because for me, and this is what I struggle with, like I usually only start reflecting when like the man with the hammer comes and visits my door. The only problem that I have there is it's not the first time that it's happened. So what can I do differently so that I start putting some time more for me and avoid that guy with the hammer on the door comes knocking again. That's a bit of the fear that I have, that I'm in this cycle where the man with the hammer comes, I'm gonna start thinking, but then at some point it's gonna fade away again. And then it becomes like several weeks, months, maybe even years. But then I hit the wall again and then I'm gonna start reflecting again.
00:17:32
But it's not that I've never tried to learn those lessons. But yeah. In a certain way, that is how we as human beings, we progress. So there is nothing wrong with that. But then if you want to clarify for yourself the reason why you wanna get up in the morning, like this real drive, you will have to take the time for yourself. That is for sure. So anybody who wants to define a noble purpose will have to take time. And again, for some people, it really goes very fast. And for some, it is a very complex process because we are all very different. So defining a noble purpose, and I don't hope or I don't want to appear that this is a very complex thing because it's actually the most pure and noble thing that we can do to ourselves, right?
00:18:28
To take the time for ourselves, to reflect about it is by thinking about what is it that gives us energy? What is it that takes our energy away? What is it that fulfills us? And if I would ask you that, you can immediately respond. You know what are the things that are energy givers and energy drainers. You know what are the things that fulfill you and you know what are the things that do not fulfill you. And then when you start looking at these things or when you start sensing these things, you can start making sense of it in concrete parts of your life. It's the way how you live your relation. It's the way how you deal with your professional responsibilities. It is the way how you deal with your friends and you will start discovering what works and what does not work. So, but it does require a certain level of deeper consciousness and of taking time for yourself. You cannot do it while you are running. It doesn't work because while you're running, I mean, you're so focused on not falling and you're so focused on going into the right direction that you don't have the time to kind of like disconnect from everything and create that space.
00:19:50
You're a mute person. Such a basic mistake. I have a bit practical question from our audience, and it's what is one method or methodology that you use to actually discover your noble purpose, or what our audience can do at home after this live stream, what they can do that will enhance more what they have inside, or how they can work with themselves. Is there some method or methodology that you are using that you would like to share with our audience? Yeah. So the first basic thing is, why would you want to give a meaning to your life? If you think that your life is about, I don't know, making lots of money and buying lots of material things, that's fine.
00:20:48
But a lot of people have a lot of material things, whether that is a car and a house and a nice family, but they're not fulfilled. You know the story, Cedric, of that South African woman living in London who was very successful, you know, chairing that big enterprise, or at least that holding, and she was waking up every morning and she didn't feel fulfilled, and she was earning a lot of money, and she was having a very successful husband who was a surgeon, and they had five children who were all great, and what have you. And when I asked her what is missing, she said, I don't know. She said, I have everything, but something is missing. And I said, well, think about that one thing that is going to make your life different from a fulfillment perspective, right?
00:21:36
And she came up with earning a living. So earning a living, it's like making money, but when you are making a lot of money and you think that the reason why you have to wake up is earning a living, that is not going to fulfill you. So she was the living example, I would say, bad example of what noble purpose is not about. So it is to start with, what is it that you want to change in your life, if anything at all? Do you really want to increase your energy? Do you want to increase the feeling that you have about the drive, the energy? That is the first really starting block to do. It's like, stop and think, am I really fulfilled? Am I liking the job that I do?
00:22:20
Am I liking the work that I am involved in? Do I like the relation that I have? And then there is a yes or there is a no. Then comes the second part, which is the reflection about what gives and what drains our energy. And I would simply suggest that people who take a paper, a sheet of paper, and on one side you will write down all the things that give you energy in the way how you live your life, and all the things that take your energy. Give energy, for example, is interacting with people. Give energy is supporting others. Taking energy is being alone in a corner, doing some technical specialist work. Draining energy is operational stuff, whatever.
00:23:07
And then you start calibrating what you have written down and the way how you live or the way how you run your life. A step further, which is a bit more difficult, is thinking about two important things. That is our guiding principles. What is it that guides our life? And for a lot of people, it's like, oh my God, what is this guy asking? Like, you know, guiding principles, guiding principles. But it's really what are the principles that guide your life? And that is where you have to think about yourself. If we don't go there, I mean, we're not really gonna learn about ourselves. So what is it that are the principles that guide your life?
00:23:44
Like live a life of opportunism or live a life of coherence or integrity, live a life of duality or live a life of simplicity or complexity, I mean, whatever, you know? And the values, the values that are important for you. And so if you have a set of values, let's take, for example, social interaction, right? And you are in a professional environment where the level or the quality of the social interaction is really bad or is really not at a good quality. Or maybe there is very little social interaction. Then you could ask questioning, why is it that I am working in an enterprise or in an environment or in a nursing home or in a hospital, whatever, where there is so little social interaction, although that is something really very important for me.
00:24:37
Or other values. So the values will help you. Values, by the way, help us to drive our behavior. When we have four, five, six values, that helps us most of the time as human beings, we have more values, but our values are the ones that are like predominantly driving our behavior. And especially when you have to make important decisions. So when you have to make decisions, when you have to solve a conflict, like for example, shall I, in family context, for example, shall I go to that family gathering, although I really don't like that family part or that part of the family, or I don't like that relation with that brother-in-law or that cousin or what have you, and yet we have to go there.
00:25:23
So are you gonna go or are you not gonna go? Why would you go? You go because you want to keep the peace, but then you're not really happy being there. The same works in a professional environment. Often we say, well, I don't really like my work, but at the same time it pays well, or it gives me security, or it gives me a nice title, or I have a car, or I have whatever fringe benefits. So guiding principles, values, after we have checked in with our energy. And then the last thing, and that is the most difficult thing but very important and revealing is to think about our needs and our fears. What is it that we need?
00:25:59
Need to be included, need to be respected, need to be seen, need to not to be seen, need to be challenged by others. We all have a whole set of needs. And then we will look at the way how we live our life. Am I being seen? Am I being included? Do I feel that I have something to contribute in the work I do or in the environment where I am? And then you have all the time different parameters, your fears, your needs, your values, your guiding principles, your energy levels that are going to tell you where you are. And then comes the last and important thing is, are you willing to pay what I call the price for the choice that you make?
00:26:44
Whatever the price is, the price can be a price of security or stability. It can be a price of reputation. Maybe I don't wanna have all that reputation that comes with the role. If I can live a life that is more coherent with who I believe I am, do I still want to be this entrepreneur? And do I want to publish other books? And do I want to take on all these responsibilities? And what is the price that I'm paying for that? Is the price that I'm paying less important than the benefits that I think I'm bringing and that I getting, that I am getting, then probably I will keep doing it. But if I feel that the price that I'm paying is so high and it's much higher than what brings me being an entrepreneur, what brings me writing an additional book, in this case, two books that are on my table that are running several projects.
00:27:40
If I think the price would be too high for that, then I would probably decide, unless if I'm stupid, that it's better to stop or at least stop with certain parts. So that is kind of like the trajectory to go to. And one last thing, it might sound very simple and silly. I don't actually know why I say silly, but okay, let's go with it. Is go into nature. I really recommend all the time. And by the way, when we do this work with top executive teams, we are always in nature. So we're not going to a classical hotel. We will go into a very inspirational place somewhere in nature that we can use the power of nature, the insights of nature to tranquillity, the calm, the space to reflect and to think.
00:28:28
So when you have the time, Cédric, or anybody else listening here, when you have the time, take the time to go into nature and go for a long walk. Don't go with your mobile, unless if you use your mobile, not to connect with whoever and whatever, but just to take notes. Go for a long walk in the woods, go for a long walk at the seashore, go for a long walk in the mountains, if you have mountains, it's really revealing. But obviously thinking about these points and these questions that I have been raising just the last couple of minutes. I'm going to let that one sink in and like show from the book what it is about, right? Like it's the iceberg with the behaviors trickling down into beliefs, needs, and fear.
00:29:13
Exactly. I thought it was a very powerful exercise that we did, but I think I need to redo one. Maybe we can do it together, Marie, with Marie. I want to take this moment as well to, let's say, pivot from the personal part of noble purpose to let's say the more business part, like for entrepreneurs, for businesses. How do we translate it from a personal level to let's say how we act or act in the professional lives? Yeah. I have a very strong conviction that the enterprises of the future, I shouldn't say enterprises, I should say organizations. Because when I say enterprises, I limit it to companies, but it's any kind of organizational system. So it can be an NGO, it can be an opera house, it can be an artist's studio.
00:30:11
It can be anything that is an organization where people work together. Any organization of the future that wants to have people that are engaged and connected with what the organization does will benefit from defining a noble purpose. So what we have seen in the work that we have been doing now since 2010, is that any organization that came to us and asked us to help them to define or clarify their noble purpose in a, I would say, progressive iterative process has realized that when the defined noble purpose was an authentic noble purpose and not coming from a marketing perspective, is that the engagement got a boost, the sick leave percentages dropped substantially, that bore out and burnout percentages dropped substantially, that people were much more agile in solving issues, that it was much less silo thinking between departments or between divisions or between countries or between sectors.
00:31:35
There was much more alignment. There was much more customer focus. And I can keep going on for another couple of minutes. This is fact-based. This is fact-based. So this is not because I would love that to happen. This is what we see when an organization defines a very strong noble purpose and then obviously builds a culture around it to all the time align people that that is the reason why we exist. That is the reason why we are doing what we're doing. That is the reason why we are in business or that is the reason why we are serving, right? It creates that dynamic. And so you can measure it. And that is, by the way, what we do. We measure the important parameters that enterprises or organizations or projects or investments want to achieve.
00:32:20
Said, okay, so what are we going to measure? Is this where in your book you talk about the CPIs where usually we talk about KPIs being key performance indicators, where you talk about CPIs being caring for people indicators, and you use like three very distinct terminologies, which I've never, I mean, some of them, one of them I've heard before, but the other two, not really, like brothership, leadership, and the most important one, actually, loving ship. Yeah, yeah. So thanks for bringing that up, Cédric. So what we see very often in organizations, the dynamics that we observe are dynamics where there is a lot of fighting, and infighting. People fight against each other or departments fight against each other, which is totally, I mean, if you look at it with a certain distance, it is totally absurd.
00:33:07
I mean, it does not make any sense. If you want to fight, and I'm not so much into the, we have to fight to get our stuff done, but if you want to fight, then it's better that you're all aligned and that you fight against your biggest competitor. But what we see in organizations is that a lot of people fight against each other. That happens because the leaders are not at the level of evolution to understand that they would get much more done by the same people. It's not by adding people, but by the same people, by bringing in a different leadership style that is hooked around or that is focused around that noble purpose that they define. And so what I describe in the book is that a lot of leaders, unfortunately, they create a lot of blood in the organization.
00:33:53
That's why I call it bloodership. So the leadership is very much focused on infighting, on creating a lot of disconnection of people, disengagement from people. So there is a lot of drama actually happening in an organization, right? That doesn't help. I mean, that really doesn't help. We all know that from a societal perspective and from a psychodynamic perspective, drama in organizations is not what is going to help us, as culture, I would say, is not going to help us to progress. What we need is that leaders, people who lead teams, people who are responsible for people, they should work on their own, what I call, and sorry for my French, what I call childhood shit. Because if people learn to work on their childhood shit, which is what drives us in the way how we lead, and when we get into power positions, then the toxicity, the pain that comes with that leadership, you know, the things that we have experienced as children, we are very often totally unconscious about it.
00:34:59
We're totally unaware of it. But then as we are in now a power position, we're now leading a team, or we are now a head of division, or we are the CEO, or we are a shareholder or what have you. So that comes with a certain level of power. Then our system unconsciously is wanting to release that tension that we have, that pain that we have. And it creates behavior that is seen as a behavior that is trying to compensate the pain that comes from our childhood. Like for example, I have not been recognized, now I will develop a leadership style where I'm seen by everybody and I will become very authoritarian or I will become very present. So I will start going into details and it will start controlling, so develop a controlling leadership.
00:35:46
Or if I have been pushed forward all the time, then I might have a tendency, being tired of having been pushed forward. For example, I had to take care of my siblings because I was the youngest or the oldest, what have you. Then I will potentially have created a version of being all the time on the frontline. And now I want to be not longer on the frontline. And that means that from a psychodynamic perspective, again, I will not take decisions. I will let others take decisions. But when I am in the leading role, or when I am the CEO or the boss of whatever project or whatever investment, then we need somebody to take decisions, right? Or at least coordinate the decision-making process.
00:36:27
And what we see is that when somebody has been pushed all the time forward and is now tired, but doesn't know that he's tired of always having been pushed forward, is going to be very averse to taking decisions. And they will have like, oh, well, I have very competent people, they can take the decisions. But then these very competent people are looking to their boss or the chairwoman or to the chairman saying like, but hey, take the decision because we are kind of like fighting with each other. We don't know. We want you and we want to be sure that you're the one taking the decision. So bloodership, leadership, and then what we actually need by working on ourselves is to develop our lovingship.
00:37:02
Because I am convinced having been myself leading many teams and having been in charge of many people when I was actually very young, I was leading a team of close to 2000 people when I was barely 28. And I had absolutely no idea how to do it because you're not born with the wisdom of how do you lead a team of 2000 people when you're 28. It's something that you have to learn. So I made a lot of mistakes, obviously. When leaders will help the people that are in their vicinity or that are in their team or in their teams by supporting them, by showing care and love. And it is not the same love that you would have for Marie or Marie that you would have for Cedric or that you would have for your parents or your close friends.
00:37:45
It's a different kind of love, but it's still love. It's this care that people will give the best of themselves. But if you want to give people the best of themselves that is in a non-transactional way, the way to do it is by defining a noble purpose because a noble purpose is something which is very concrete. It's something very clear. It's something very simple in a certain way. And it is the same for everybody. And when everybody is focusing on the reason why we are in this business, in this project, in this investment, that is why we're doing it, right? That aligns the energy. And when then the leaders learn to support the people through these CPIs, the caring for people indicators, it's like the way how people will interact with each other.
00:38:31
It is having development cycles, having positive rewarding systems. It's having positive feedback systems and not this annual performance appraisal, which nobody likes. Not the ones who have to do the appraisals and not the ones who are suffering the appraisals, even if the appraisals at the end of the journey are good. Definitely, I know that feeling. People find it just very boring, you know? And I have, I had to do it so often. And so, and it's just dreadful. Nobody really wants to do that. But if you create in your activity, and again, whether that is two people or five people or 50,000 or 500,000 people, it is the same principle. When you create a system of constantly valuing people for what they do, helping people with doubts, making doubts something that is not hidden, but let's talk about it.
00:39:26
Hence, again, talking about our values, what is important? How do you feel, Cédric? How do you feel, Marie? What are we gonna do today? Why is it that this is going so difficult? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what is not making us progress as fast as we should, right? Are we all aligned? Are we all motivated? Oh, so what needs to happen to make us more motivated? That kind of conversation from a very mature perspective is what I call, again, this lovingship, this loving and caring leadership requires leaders that are of a more elevated level, that are of a much less transactional level, which does not mean that we cannot get things done. We, again, from experience see that in organizations and systems where that lovingship is being installed, they get many more things done in less time, in a more sustainable way.
00:40:15
So why would we not do it? There is no reason not to do it. And the way to kind of like frame it, to anchor it, to make it simple is by defining a noble purpose. I have to say that fortunately, unfortunately, I don't know which one to choose, but I actually never had really like a responsible leader in my life, in any organization I ever worked in. But I don't know if it's actually fortunately or unfortunately, because maybe like fortunately, because if I would have a responsible leader knowing what they are doing and they would give me the noble purpose of that organization, I would probably never leave that company or the organization, and I would not be where I am right now. But unfortunately, more of that, I was changing organizations quite often.
00:41:10
And for me, it's just really surprising that we cannot find really leaders who are trained, who know what they are doing in a really good senior position. And here I have, I know about your Young Professionals Program where Cedric is as well, but what organizations can actually do, is there some program for already established organizations where our seniors, and is it possible to, because you said about this CPI, so is there some program for already established organizations what they can do about their senior leadership other than like reading your book or like putting your book in the shelves of the organization? So like to really establish the noble purpose and redo the culture which would follow the 21st century and not stay in the 20th century.
00:42:08
Because sometimes it seems to me that big corporations that have big history, they are really staying in 60s, 17s of the last century, and they don't really work on the culture with what we have right now in the 21st century and to more nourish and like keep the people who are actually doing the good job. It's more as the blood culture that you have explained. Yeah. So there is positive news because I see quite some organizations and I meet quite some leaders who have understood that it is important to lead from a different perspective. And I know quite some leaders who for them as human beings, for them it's very important to lead from a perspective that is respectful, that is driven by care, that is often a more elevated level.
00:43:04
We have some in Belgium, but there is many in actually in the world to be quite honest. I mean, there is a lot of leaders. I mean, Cedric, I don't remember if you were present at the Northwest last year, so you were not in program yet, but we have been going to As They Works, which is chaired by Philippe Dirks and he is a very human leader. I mean, he can be very tough, which each leader should be, but it's not because you're tough that you cannot be caring and that you cannot be supportive. What we see is that a lot of leaders are very mediocre and they still are tough, right? And so that is a very dangerous cocktail of disengagement. But when people have clarity, when people have support, they will go a long way.
00:43:46
So I think he's a good example, but I think there is many good examples of leaders who want to run a business in a way that is respectful. Yesterday, we were visiting TVH Parts, which is a global enterprise, market leader in their business. They are Belgian-based and I was really impressed by the human approach of that enterprise. And it's a very, I would say, technical enterprise, very in the logistics. It's very, in a certain way, a male, and I don't only speak about masculine. It's more masculine that I meant than male. So it's quite of a masculine environment, but they have a very, found a very human approach to the things. And they were explaining, actually, the way how they run their business, the way how an important bank in the Netherlands, Rabobank, is being run.
00:44:41
It's also quite focused on the human parts, which is quite surprising, you could say, in the finance industry, although there is other examples that we can use as well. So there is leaders that are very convinced. The way how to do it is either they call us or they read the book. or they read any other book, because there are so many books that have been written about the way how you can develop people in organizations but the starting point Marie is that it comes from consciousness of the impact you have as a leader on others and when you are not thinking about that, what is the impact that I have as a leader on the people in my environment the narrow environment, which is like the people working with me and then the larger environment is the people that we influence, the people that we impact our clients, the people around the clients
00:45:40
when you're not thinking about that, it's going to be difficult so it requires a certain level of consciousness you keep me talking all the time about this consciousness, but I think it's very important I think when you are a leader of any kind of level which is when you are responsible for other people then you need to have that thinking, you need to be aware of your impact and now let me talk about, give me two minutes to talk about political leaders and the media leaders I can be very critical of political leaders and of media leaders the way how they manipulate people and the way how they have political discourse and how they run political debates I think it's just dreadful, if I have an opinion and each of you, you have an opinion, and we have three different parties I'm not going,
00:46:33
I think that we should not or that I should not try to convince the audience by calling the two of you stupid or idiots or questioning if you are even a woman or a man or all the surreal things that we can hear which seem to have become bread and butter on social media the way how people just yell at each other, it's of a level that I think is unacceptable, because as human beings that is not how we are supposed to interact with each other, so when I speak with political leaders when I speak with government leaders, I tell them, you have a huge responsibility in the way how you communicate, in the way how you want to bring your message around that doesn't mean that we three, again, thinking that we should have three different parties that we have to agree,
00:47:21
but ultimately we have to agree on the fact that we will have to find ways to bring the country or the region or the city that we are leading, or that we will have to lead together with our three parties, that we will have to find a way in doing it in a respectful, ambitious, coherent way, the same for media I think the way how certain journalists are writing and are popularizing news I find it very dreadful, and for me it comes from the perspective of not being doing that from a place of, what is the impact that I have when you are aware of the impact that you have you will look at the negative impact, the disastrous impact, or the positive impact and I would hope that a leader, that at least is my humanistic approach to life and to leadership, is for me, a leader is supposed to bring positive impact to his or her role or through his or her role to the people that they impact
00:48:26
I think that was a very strong closing remark, because I still wanted to ask something but I think we are going to leave it at that I think we had a very thoughtful discussion on no purpose personal life, business life and also, let's say, more broader societal level Olivier, thank you so much for joining us today on our Innovatology podcast, and I think for our audience out there as well definitely, I hope you are triggered to look at yourself more, take the time to reflect of why you are doing or who you are not why you are doing what you are doing, but who are you as a person because that will, in the end, define the actions that you will take so thank you very much, Olivier, and thank you very much for our audience for tuning in for today Thank you.
