Do You Tell Your Staff How or Ask Them Why?

FAVI is a French company that casts components for customers like Fiat and VW, a very successful company.

One of the reasons why they are successful is the attitude of their CEO Jean-Francois Zobrist.  He has a simple categorisation of organisations.  They are either “Comment” or “Pourquoi”.

Comment (How) organisations tell their employees how to do things, what to do and when to do it.  They spend large amounts of time enforcing rules and policies.

Pourquoi (Why) organisations ask their employees why they are doing what they are doing.

By making this distinction Zorbrist has transformed his organisation.  It has no HR department, purchasing department, individual bonus scheme or marketing department.  It does have 21 individual work cells that manage these functions independently.

Zorbrist believes his job is to “help the operators be more independent and not to control things”

FAVI has 80% of the European market.

So do you work for a “Comment” or “Pourquoi” organisation?  Below is a YouTube video, “Pour Quoi”.  Can you see it?  Or is there just a lot of white space because your companies internet policy forbids it?

Perhaps the answer to the second question gives a clue to the first.

Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash