“We will win the battle of the story. Before long, everyone will be talking about a humanistic enterprise. And this is not bad, but it is not a big deal. The battles of the story with innovation and technology were won, but in the end all of this has not had a great impact on the GDP.”

With this call to realism the strategy and innovation consultant began Xavier Marcet his intervention at the Purpose Driven Leaders Forum, organized by Vocento, which took place last October.

“The word humanist is sweet. Who is going to say no to putting people at the center?” the speaker continued saying, “What idiot is going to be overwhelmed by that, is going to defend silence and obedience? “We are going to levitate, we are going to create an extraordinary speech.”
But obviously that is not the point, as the speaker said. The point is to have a real impact and “avoid jumping from posture to posture, from PowerPoint to PowerPoint, and generate a dynamic in which this is true.”

Marcet continued by putting on the table the incontrovertible fact that Companies need to deliver results. It is not something optional, and it must also be done in a very competitive context. And in that context, it is also necessary to know what we are talking about when we talk about humanism. Because humanism means that, “At a time when we will have to rebalance between people and technology, we will do the difficult thing, which is to opt for people; and as a society we are interested in it being that way.” But he also warned, looking at the issue from the other side, that “humanism is not goodism, it is not infinite condescension”, It is respect, but also speaking clearly and acting with those who do not practice that respect.

The European contribution

Xavier Marcet said to defend the need for a European management characterized, precisely by humanism. “I believe that this could be Europe’s great contribution to this issue. Europe, in the 20th century, has been capable of the worst and the best. The worst is the Holocaust and the best is the only experience in the world of a society with a certain social balance, where people do not die in the streets or at the door of an emergency room because they do not have a credit card.”

The speaker highlighted the difficulty of putting this humanistic management into practice because, at the same time, results and competitiveness must be maintained. But the thing is “don’t do it anyway. And everyone knows what that means at home.”he added. “This is noticeable when difficult conversations and decisions come, which always have to do with people, not machines.”

Once again showing the other side of the coin, Marcet pointed out that Europe must be very competitive and abandon a certain complacency. “In Europe we have been completely wrong about some things, but I am very confident, I think it is the only space capable of creating a certain balance.”

Sending is not enough

Make it happen a humanistic management It has a lot to do, according to Marcet, with a certain way of leading. “Leadership implies that commanding is not enough”he pointed out. “Leadership is influencing and recovering a certain management of simplicity. “Leading is absorbing a certain amount of complexity and returning clarity and example.”
Elaborating on this topic, the speaker said that common sense must be recovered: “Complexity is incompatible with simplicity. But it is compatible with simplicity. Simplicity is sticking to the shortcut. Simplicity is something else, it is making it look simple which, in reality, is very difficult. This is leading with capital letters. To sophisticate, complicate, invent twenty more indicators, anyone will do. “Leading is something else.”

Marcet believes that it is essential to create companies managed by humanistic leadership because we are going to live in a moment of great impact motivated by artificial intelligence; here he stressed that “The impact will be real, although the level of noise and nonsense with artificial intelligence is infinite”. From his point of view with AI, as happened with the internet, the difference will be made by people. “AI will force us to think to make the best use of it, to ask it the best questions, and that is what people do.”

The three l’s

Leadership is one of the vertices of the triangle that Marcet applies in his consulting work. It is a triangle formed by three L’s, with the R for Results in the center. Apart from Leadershipthe other two l’s are, using English terms, Learning (learning) and Legacy (legacy).
In relation to learning, he said that it goes beyond training, that it is about “grow by growing” and to have a permanent mentality of an aspirant, a candidate, of thinking that there is always something more to know and to achieve, because if one thinks that one has reached the summit, the only option is to go down. It is also about having companies equipped with wisdom, and not just experts.
Regarding the legacy Marcet, threading with the main theme of the forum, he said that the purpose must be linked to it, because if not it is pure vanity. “The purpose will be important if you remember it and apply it in critical moments, in conversations and difficult moments”. Marcet ended his talk by alluding to the great importance of personal purpose and legacy.

Talking to Reason Why

“I do a type of management and I write about management completely attached to my clients”commented Xavier Marcet at the beginning of the conversation he had with reason.Why on the occasion of his participation in the Forum on purpose business organized by Vocento. “I get inspiration from my clients and complement that with readings. There are people who do it the other way around, but in my case there is no article I write that doesn’t have to do with what I do with clients.”

The way he carries out his work was one of the topics of an interview, in which the consultant also talked about growth management, the importance of founders and the relative importance of plans.

RW. When we talk about growth, it seems that it is only about growing results and forgetting other facets of business activity, which are also important to develop and promote.

I think it is good that any organization, and particularly a company, has the impetus to reach another level. This logic of leveling up has different perspectives. One is that of the results. You have to get them, but not in any way. We live off them. They are the fruit of everyday life, they are essential for survival, although the short-termism of focusing only on them is a cancer.
So we have to grow in this sense but, on the other hand, those organizations that manage to grow their market a lot without at the same time growing people, become internally dislocated. They experience complex leaps, because they incorporate many people who do not have time to assimilate the culture that has been fundamental for the first successes. You also have to grow as a company and that means that you stop being just a business. A company has the imperative need to create corporate valuebecause if not, he dies. But at the same time you have to create social value: It will be a complete company when it becomes a good provider of prosperity.

And many times the founders of companies find it difficult to manage this process.
The role of founders is always very interesting. They are basic to guide a company towards growth or towards being small. Those who have the ability to multiply through people, grow. Those that have the capacity to multiply with sufficient quality grow; Those who are very obsessed with customers and immaculate quality usually do not grow. They themselves are the funnel of their growth.

Plans, or not

Marcet then spoke about how strategic plans They are not essential elements for leadership, but for the success of a company. It is, above all, about managing complexity and making things happen. At the end of this audio, he predicts a change in the role of consultants:

RW. Do you think consultants have more and more value?

I have had a consulting company for twenty years and every day I ask myself what my way of contributing is. We now work very differently than we did at the beginning. We make plans, but less, and what obsesses us at this moment is not to cut and paste, but understand that each company requires its own unique thinking, specific levers. There is a background library of trends and changes but, above all, you have to focus on the company you are working with. When I work with little ones, I make myself small, because I have great challenges and few resources. When I work with great people, I try to become great, because there are still great challenges, but you have more resources. Both things are difficult.

RW. When you add talent to your company, how do you manage to align the purpose of the person and that of the company?

In our case there is a shared culture about the will to co-create with clients. We try not to give lessons, but to share learnings. We evolve together, we make proposals together, I don’t make them and the rest obey. It is important that the team feels very much their own about the ways of working with clients, which are changing.

Xavier Marcet explains here one of the ways in which this change manifests itself:

RW. Is there much difference between working with a company whose leader has a clear purpose for the company and another that does not?

It shows authenticity. Purposeful leaders are good at remembering that purpose in difficult conversations. I prefer leaders with legacy. The purpose is very good, but it is aspirational. The legacy is what you leave, what will be remembered about you when you are gone, so you better choose it well. We work a lot on how to enhance leadership and we do it not with endless seminars on the subject, because we believe that people learn to lead by trying, doing it with awareness of the importance it has, with the ability to create a sense of urgency to change… Basically, learning of the experience of leading.

RW. There are certain positions or intermediate positions in which there is usually a lot of dizziness when making decisions.

There are certain organizations that adhere to all management fashions. But the important thing is authenticity, leading by example. Real leaders know that people do not work for them, but rather they work for their people. This seems to me to be the basis of everything. Ambition, humility and fleeing from coalitions of experts and bureaucrats, which are devastating, and going towards a coalition of wise men and leaders. Hopefully with purpose.

If you want to listen to the full conversation, you can find it here: