Marc Le Menestrel

Angola: Searching for a new Spirit by Looking at the bright side

Marc Le Menestrel — 2016-12-08T04:44:18Z

December 2nd, 2016 was a historical day for Angola. Not because I was invited to speak at a conference on Corporate Governance in Luanda but because this is the day President dos Santos decided not to present himself to the coming elections. After nearly 40 years with him, Angola is in search of a new Spirit. I looked at it from the bright side.

And this is not necessarily easy. As Angola was to access independence from the Portuguese at the end of one of the most sombre European dictatorship of the 20th century, Angola was also discovered to be the bed of a great amount of oil. Under sea, yes; expansive to extract, yes; but of excellent quality. And as Angola is nowadays the largest oil producer of oil in Africa, it has also been the victim of the fall of oil prices in the last years. To be sincere, it has somehow been the victim of oil since its discovery: the famous Dutch disease or Oil Curse that characterized countries which rely too much on the sole wealth of oil to drive their development. But I said I was looking at the bright side. So the question is: how oil can help to nurture a new bright spirit for Angola? I witnessed the strong belief that it should not be through violence. Everyone wants to forget the bloody civil war and build on the stability which followed by the victory of future ex-President, his army and his party. I sincerely hope that the days ahead will allow the national forces to hold the ground and protect the country. With slightly rising oil prices, and a global momentum to move away from a carbon-based economy, there is a great chance to have the right amount of added value from oil to support a diversification. It was especially interesting to learn at the conference how people there dream of self-sufficiency in basic sectors such as agriculture, textile or raw material for construction. In Angola, globalization may not preclude autonomy.

A second most important question was also very much related to the global dynamics of the time: under which conditions banks can help finance this transition? If the dedication of Angola banks seemed sincere and competent, the question arises from correspondent banks that can ensure the connection of Angola's economy with the rest of the financial world. In our discussions, the power of the mighty dollar system was very much felt: as the given currency for oil of course (oil represents 95% of exports), but also through the norms pertaining to transactions and governance. Angola is asked (forced?) to adopt the accounting standards of the United States. And it is interesting to note that such exercise of power uses ethics and anti-corruption efforts as a means. Sensitive to this dynamics, and to the emotions felt by a country so proud of its political independences after a long-fought battle, it is not obvious to find a bright way out. There is however no other solution than taking the best of all systems. As Deng Xiaoping said (around the time Dos Santos came into power!), capitalism and communism are two ways to serve the welfare of the people. There is no need to oppose ideologies and there are many smart ways to combine them in order to avoid the worse of each. Angola may fiercely come to terms with practices that now belong to the past and it may do so without selling its soul.

To this end, the obvious bright side of Angola is the proud richness of its people and of its grounds -be it off shore or for agriculture. We dreamed of them leap-frogging to a green and circular economy that uses wisely the new conscience of our unsustainability. Besides the wise men who founded the economic successes of the country over the past 15 years, it was wonderful to meet a new generation of Angola people proud of their roots and farseeing in their visions. The unity provided by Portuguese as a language spoken all over the country is certainly a resource. Moreover, it seems that Portuguese themselves, who were very present at the conference, and expatriates in general, are grateful for the wealth Angola provide to their business or to their home country. In the difficult circumstances of the time, there is an obligation and an opportunity for a win-win post-colonial relation, based on a sense of care for the country itself and for its promises. The question is thus whether these Angola leaders will dare to invent their future on their own terms under the pressure of external conditions, be them coming from other nations or from nature itself.

This is in this context that I deliver my speech on governance as the wise use of power. Treating the global level as well as the corporate and the personal levels, I proposed three principles for the wise use of power.

Firstly, a principle for the mind that I termed duality. As the mind naturally thinks in classes and value-judgement, I invited participants to make the effort to think contrarily to their natural categories and to their prejudices. As Hermann Hesse wrote in Siddharta, “the contrary to any truth can be as true as the truth itself”. It is thus necessary to suspend judgments and apply critical thinking to our natural thoughts, beliefs and methods.

Secondly, a principle for the heart that is certainly called love. The mind can be treacherous to motivate us and there is nothing better than doing what we love to do it sustainably and with courage. Moreover, being able to accept our vulnerabilities helps to have the emotional maturity to thing broadly and creatively.

Thirdly, a principle for the soul that I called dreams. In a time of disruptive uncertainty, dreams can be like a light house in the storm. We do not necessarily head straight towards them, not even reach them exactly, but they offer an irreplaceable sense of guidance for our vision. Dreams help to avoid the many traps that direct routes hide below the surface.

It is with a sense of achievement that INSEAD organizers concluded the conference. There is a genuine opportunity for such events which allow conversations to take place beyond polemics and prejudices. An academic approach combined with a strong sense of relations in the respect of diversity, all with a superb organization, offer a bowl of fresh air in today's difficulties. In such conferences, the brilliance of INSEAD alumni prove that INSEAD is a business school for the world and it was indeed my privilege to be part of it. I wish Angola, its people and its Alumni to find a bright new spirit for the days ahead.

Reflections on Governance and the Africa Directors Program: at the forefront of responsible board practice?

Marc Le Menestrel — 2016-02-28T10:28:02Z

I wrote this short piece as a Reflection Paper for the Newsletter of the INSEAD Corporate Governance Initiative. It illustrates my commitment towards the transformation of business governance and the profound impact that South Africa has on my reflections about who I am: descending from African ancestors and man of white skin.

When INSEAD Corporate Governance Initiative accepted the invitation of the University of Stellenbosch Business School and their Executive Education branch USB-ED to partner in the offering of the Africa Directors Programme, I was especially interested in the programme's intention to bring ethics at the centre of the governance discussion and practice.

Crises of many types are currently raising new challenges for business organizations. In a context where capitalism is being questioned in its foundations, improved governance has emerged as one response and a critical issue for the credibility of the whole system. A new paradigm is emerging where business and boards have a new and more active role to play, where responsibility and power are two keys going together. This includes a shift towards a stakeholder view of boards, away from the previous shareholder view which is now recognized as having imposed too many negative externalities on other stakeholders (employees, bondholders, communities, governments and the environment).

South Africa at the leading edge of governance for social transformation

In this respect, it is remarkable that South Africa plays a leading role in the current discussion about corporate governance. As part of the post-apartheid transition led by Nelson Mandela's arrival to political power, a committee on corporate governance was constituted in 1993. Chaired by retired Supreme Court of South Africa judge Mervyn E. King, the “King Committee on Corporate Governance” has produced a series of reports over the last 20 years - the “King Reports”- that apply to all listed companies in South Africa.

It is important to understand that the political changes of the post-apartheid South Africa is one more instance of what is a profound transition, one that goes much deeper than the already complex change of political and economic dominance from white to black ownership. As program co-director Arnold Smit taught me, the King Commission was about designing a corporate governance framework that would be able to mirror the values of a progressive constitution, one that would match the new democratic dispensation and one that should guide the rebalancing of South Africa's economic and business landscape to make it fairer and more inclusive for all the country's citizens. As it faces this challenge, South Africa is an important point of focus and even a source of inspiration for the wider transformation of our societies.

Leadership, sustainability and good corporate governance citizenship are at the core of this new vision for governance. The King committee has brought South Africa at the leading edge of the discussion about corporate governance, heralding a different approach, for example, than that which Sarbanes and Oxley have advocated for the U.S.. The latter does not question the supremacy of shareholders, and has instead focused on a greater ability of detecting responsibility for value destruction and in particular fraud. This is mainly because SOX came as a legislative response to the big fraud cases of the 90's and early 2000's (WorldCom, Enron, Tyco …).

The South African approach has to be applauded and has indeed been recognized. It certainly has increased the perception of a greater effectiveness of South African boards. For instance, South Africa ranked #3 in board efficacy according to the Davos World Forum Global Competitiveness ranking.

In this program for African Directors, we are of course guided by the King Reports, which are an inspiration to identify and discuss key principles that could be implemented all over the African continent, a context that offers a broad range of worldviews and business systems. Especially, we allow stakeholders to take a prominent position when conceptualizing the role of corporations. It is held explicitly that business organizations shall be governed in a sustainable manner and for the benefit of society as a whole. This view goes well beyond the primacy of shareholders model and brings new perspectives to the governance conversation. It acknowledges the un-sustainability of the shareholder view and considers that, for business to exist in the future, it has to pay greater attention to human values, ethics, social justice and environmental sustainability. This rejoins the idea that greater performance arises when looking not narrowly at profitability, but also considering social and environmental impacts like in the “Profit, People, Planet” framework. In a sense, this program is one of the first in the world that is strongly built on such a transformative paradigm.

Developing a Capacity for Directors to Use Power Responsibly

In terms of pedagogical intention, the program aims at building capacity of directors for the contribution of business governance towards societal transformation. When we go to the details, it is crucial to realize that, ultimately, governance is very much about the responsible and irresponsible use of power. Thus, building capacity in governance is about developing effective uses of power that contribute to effective corporate transformation, and ultimately beneficial societal transformation. The creation of business value is not an end in itself but a means towards a greater end: the transition to a more cohesive, just and sustainable society. Business rationality is reversed: society is not used as a means to profits but profits are a means to a greater purpose which is to benefit society in the respect of environmental impacts.

Responsible uses of power give meaning to power and the program intends to give meaning to the power of boards. Rather than top down lectures, this is achieved through facilitated conversations: conversations amongst business, political and social actors, conversations across business actors, conversations at board level with employees and stakeholders, conversations preparing these boards which ultimately require deep conversations amongst board members and finally conversations within each board member. In this program, we enter into conversations that give meaning to the use of power in business governance and that prepare board members for the responsible use of power for the benefit of corporations and their positive impact on “people and planet.”

As the world is undertaking a profound transformation on its own sustainability, it is critical that business governance develops a language that allows conversations about the use of board power and its impact on profits, but also people and planet. As a result, this program is unique in its ambition to discuss the broad extent of the power of corporations on their environment.

As an outcome of the program, participants become empowered to give new meaning to their contribution to the boards they chair or sit in. For instance, they find new ways to empower their boards to tackle issues of risks – where excessive risks often lead to fraud and then corruption. Resisting the temptation of excessive or unwarranted risk, and then fraud, and ultimately corruption is thus a novel manner to preserve the value creation of an organization. As my mentor Ludo Van Der Heyden puts it, value preservation more than value creation is the most important responsibility of boards. It is also an opportunity to enter into a new meaning for the role of board members, and through them, of business in society. It is an opportunity that promotes strategies that are based on sustainability and justice. By proposing a language that overcomes the narrow mindset of shareholders profit maximization, we open a space that gives business a greater purpose and a more positive contribution to society and its ongoing and necessary transformation.

Enlightened Power and Ethical Shadows

Going deeper into the theoretical realm, the articulation of governance has been traditionally approached either about interests (how to further the interest of a particular actor, how to coordinate interest of different actors), either about ethics (how to constrain interest by ethical principles, norms and rules). The reality is richer and more complex because it must articulate both.
Governance is about the smart articulation of both interests and ethics. A fundamental principle of this articulation of a bias that characterizes us all: each of us are very good to perceive, think and communicate about the ethical side of our own interests and, conversely, to see and communicate the unethical sides of the interest and actions of the other actors. There is generally very little awareness of our own shadows, while there remains a very strong bias against those who may judge us or infringe our particular interests. This bias creates a sort of tiny corridor where one thinks about ethics, focusing only on one's own interest like the light at the end of the corridor. A main objective of the program is to empower participants to be free from that sort of ethical bias, if not blindness, i.e. to bring light to our own ethical shadows. That is the challenge that needs to be overcome to allow for deeper societal and thus ethical discussions at board level.

The word ethics has been used a lot, so much so that in many quarters it leads to dubious or even cynical reactions. We indeed believe that it should be understood in the presence of another notion: enlightened power. Through the use of carefully designed and facilitated processes, such as a cognitive, emotional and shall we dare say a spiritual awareness of our and our corporation's negative and harmful shadows, we can liberate that enlightened power from having dared to bring new light to our shadows. In the program, the harnessing of directors' enlightened power increases capacity of participants 1) to be free to think strategically about a wider range of opportunities for action and vision, 2) to be emotionally more mature to fully hear and understand the hidden risks of strategies that oppose legitimate interests, so as to combine them better in resolutions that are more satisfactory to stakeholders 3) to enter into board dynamics that leverage the grey zones of interests and ethics in an inspirational manner.
As a result, and as a final comment, this program is not just about governance for social transformation. It also becomes an opportunity for personal transformation. A transformation that equips us with a way to talk about some of the most pressing issues that capitalism face today in Africa and beyond, one that gives us the language to find meaning in our professional life and experiences as a director so as to truly become actors building and contributing to a better world.

As directors become leaders of their organizations, and even enlightened leaders, they integrate the changes and new mindsets their corporations need to acquire by anticipating, integrating, living and being the change before leading, inspiring, supervising it on the others, and particularly on the corporation. Isn't this leading a responsible and new view of the board?

Marc Le Menestrel
Co-Director of the African Director program

Values – Ethics - Decisions

Marc Le Menestrel — 2012-03-12T11:54:35Z

Description

We embark participants in a series of questions, situations and phenomena which make salient their values, their decision-making processes and their leadership attitudes.
A series of conceptual tools and frameworks helps participants to structure their understanding of values, leadership and decisions and prepare them to express their full potential when making decisions.
We give a special emphasis to ethical values and the trade-offs they may entail in business decisions, with the intention of empowering participants to strive in the grey zone of (un)ethical business.

Targeted outcomes

• Increase awareness of the role of values in business decisions

• Develop framework and conceptual tools for facing conflicts of values

• Prepare to become inspirational leaders by your values

Instructions for students

Read in advance of class two short case-studies: “Peter Green” and “The Talking Blanket” and reflect on your answers to the questions raised.

Love, Ethics and Peace in Fashion

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-11-08T08:54:45Z

When I was contacted for an interview by FT's fashion editor Vanessa Friedman about the CEO of a fashion house who is now partner with the creative director, I thought it was a joke.

The ethics of love in the fashion industry? What an insignificant subject to think or write about!

At that time, I was preparing a difficult assignment for a company involved in military intelligence. I was reading about covert operations, disinformation, influence tactics and strategic military planning. I was attempting to analyze how we now treat war and information as a business. I was feeling important and powerful, glad to study this subject professionally and not as a subversive covert activist. I felt disdain for the fashion industry.

In fact, my reaction was so much ego-driven that I could not avoid noticing it. I became prudent about myself. I first asked Vanessa about the ethics of writing about such a personal topic and she told me that they (the coming-out couple) asked for it. This was a good reason for her to do her job. I began to think more about the subject.

Discussing this topic is one more manner by which “love” enters business relationships.

I first thought about love as an antidote to violence, which is more and more present in business and which obviously raises ethical issues. I also thought about love as a source of true creativity, which has monetary value, particularly in the fashion industry. But I also thought of love as a metaphor to share about priceless values. In my dreaming sessions, I observe that most business leaders dream of a life where their personal values would be compatible with who they are at work. Hence, this love story is also about the tension between personal life and professional life, about the meaning of life. It was a fairy tale that says you can work and love. That was the input Vanessa will use in her article.

Bringing love to the debate about ethics and business also raises unethical issues. In a sense, we participate in a system where love becomes a business, and a show business that conveniently hides other unethical issues. I thought about Guy Debord and his “Societé du Spectacle”:

"Toute la vie des sociétés dans lesquelles règnent les conditions modernes de production s'annonce comme une immense accumulation de spectacles. Tout ce qui était directement vécu s'est éloigné dans une représentation."
Guy Debord

The world is becoming a show business and we are actors in this show.

Again, ethics appeared to me as a continuous experience where contradictions resolve when our actions reveal our true identity.

For these business lovers, how they will manage their affair will reveal who they are to themselves and to stakeholders. I wish they will see the many dilemmas they will face as opportunities to truly become who they want to be. They are bringing love to business.

Finally, “peace and love in business” came to my mind. In association with the FT, I thought it was too much. And I loved it!

Click here to read what Vanessa finally wrote: "When personnel get personal", By Vanessa Friedman, Financial Times, October 28, 2011.

Compliance and the Grey Zone

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-10-28T14:12:00Z

Compliance is an organizational process aimed at encouraging ethical behavior at work. However, it is not sufficient to guarantee ethics. It can also be perceived as a top-down constraint, pressuring even more managers who have already many balls in their hands. On the other hand, it is often a first measure to meet the expectations of regulators and stakeholders. A key aspect is to consider compliance not as an end in itself but as a means to promote ethics beyond compliance.

Approaching compliance and ethics as a grey zone allows to rationally think about the various situations where ethics conflicts with economic and financial interest. What are these situations and how can we analyze them? How do we act in front of these dilemmas and how can we honestly talk about them, inside and outside the organization?

These questions are at the center of a session whose objective is to empower participants to strive in the grey zone of business ethics and to move beyond compliance. Leading us outside our zone of comfort, the interactive method gives a special emphasis on the emotional character of values-loaded decisions.

In terms of organizational ethcis, moving beyond compliance can be especially useful to contextualize and harness a code of conduct. Because ethics is not guaranteed by compliance, it also helps to uncover ethical risks, to create a more ethical climate and to nurture a values-based culture.

Designed for a leading company of more than 200.000 employees, this session allowed to move from seeing compliance as a constraint to ethics as an opportunity. Thanks to the genuinely honest discussion about the difficulties of combining ethical values and business interest, it raised enthusiasm and willingness to act.

Ethical Risks: Identification, Mitigation and Transformation through Ethical Training

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-09-12T08:53:40Z

The concept of « Ethical Risk » refers to unexpected negative consequences of unethical actions.

A proper training about ethical risks allows the identification, mitigation and transformation of ethical risks, improving organizational efficiency and developing organizational identity.

Identification

Due to the dual nature of the ethical judgment, most actions have both ethical and unethical aspects (Cf. Ethics as a grey zone).
Actors tend to be unaware of the unethical aspects of the actions that they rationally choose, in particular when these actions are in their self-interest.
Because of these unethical aspects, stakeholders act in an adversarial manner, imposing negative consequences on actors (legal and reputation costs in particular, but also breach of trust and revocation of license to operate).
Because actors are unaware of the unethical aspects of their actions, these negative consequences are unexpected and constitute bad surprises.

Ethical training allows actors to identify systematically all possible unethical aspects of their actions, thus reducing the awareness bias and identifying ethical risks before they lead to bad surprises. Such ethical analysis can be carried out at the individual, organizational or societal levels.

Mitigation

When accused of unethical actions, actors tend to react negatively, emphasizing the ethical aspects of their actions and denying their unethical aspects. For instance, because they have implemented a compliance program, they find the exposure of their unethical aspects unfair and trap themselves in a reactive attitude.
These attitudes further reduce the self-awareness of ethical risks and can progressively lead to an increased propensity towards unethical actions. This is the “slippery slope”. Such reactive attitudes mitigate ethical risks only superficially because denials and justifications are effective only for the conscience of the actor itself. They also lead to increase confidentiality of unethical aspects. On the other hand, denials and justifications tend to nurture the adversarial attitude of stakeholders that are alerted or harmed by actors' unethical actions, overall leading to ethical crisis. Actors then face escalation of costs for the mitigation of unexpected negative consequences.

Ethical training allows actors to describe objectively their behavior and to anticipate the possible unraveling of ethical crisis. Aware of the unethical aspects of their actions, trained actors recognize the legitimate part of stakeholders' reactions, communicate with more sincerity and engage with stakeholders, thereby preserving trust and alliances. Rather than behaving reactively, actors act proactively towards the mitigation of the unethical aspects of their actions.

Transformation

In reaction to their unethical behaviors, actors end up externalizing their locus of control, as if they had no other choice. In this manner, actors reduce their own power to identify a profitable alternative course of action. They reduce their freedom to choose. On the other hand, inclusive awareness of ethical and unethical aspects triggers a natural search for more ethical actions (Cf. Psychological attitudes towards ethical dissonance). A rational analysis of the interest of such a more ethical alternative allows avoiding exaggeration of its costs (without proper analysis, a typical justification of an unethical action is that an alternative course of action would be too costly). Further, awareness of potential ethical costs increases the relative attractiveness of an alternative more ethical action. The re-framing of the situation allows the identification of new opportunities otherwise hidden to the actors. Eventually, an alternative and more ethical action may be implemented with ethical effort and without much additional cost, considered as strategic investment. Avoidance of ethical risks then opens the path to unexpected positive consequences.

Ethical training allows actors to make sure they spend at least as much time looking for opportunities of more ethical actions than justifying the actions they expect to maximize their interest (i.e. unaware of the unethical risks these actions have). Decisions not to engage in more ethical actions are conscious, responsible and reflect a power of discrimination. They are not traps for the actor. Decisions to engage in more ethical actions do not follow a blind faith in the benefit of ethics. In this manner, ethical training turns ethical risks into opportunities by dedicating cognitive and organizational resources to the identification, mitigation and transformation of ethical risks.

Business and Biodiversity: the Next Sustainability Challenge

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-08-05T16:13:29Z

As an aftermath of my growing interest for Biodiversity issues (See our initiative with Julian Rode Biodiversity and Ethical Business), I was proposed to lead the academic organization of the 26th Alumni Sustainability Roundtable at Insead. We have prepared an interactive process to draw from the expertise of a series of prestigious speakers.

Below is the abstract of the rountable, to know more, acces the INSEAD website of the roundtable

Business and Biodiversity: the Next Sustainability Challenge

23 September 2011

INSEAD, Fontainebleau Campus, France

There is a growing concern in business about biodiversity loss and change and about the risks and opportunities biodiversity entails for the bottom line. This roundtable will present and discuss the implications of biodiversity issues for the business world. In an interactive and participative process, participants will discover how biodiversity affects business through impacts and dependencies on natural resources. The purpose is also to identify critical trade-offs for society and business, and discover new ways of being smart in front of systemic interdependences. Improving our capacity to be part of the solution to one of the most comprehensive challenges the human species is facing is at the core of this debate.

A Journey Through the Forest

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-07-19T12:27:38Z

In these last years, I have been dreaming of accompanying executives in Nature, to share my teaching in this only place where I truly feel at home. I could see the day where I could teach from my true self, as much as a rock-climber or an academic.

Thanks to the vision of Jens Meyer at CEDEP and of his client, this became reality in June 2011 with a 2-day program in the Fontainebleau forest, followed by a 1/2-day debriefing to facilitate integration and re-entry.

I may have spent in this place most of my week-end before 20, discovering this magical forest in the typical tribal way of my rock-climbing friends and with unbounded passion. This journey was like coming home: a deep feeling of belonging.

Here is how the program was presented to a set of 40 Human Resources participants of a large multinational:

The purpose is to prepare you to guide the leaders of your company in their own journey. We will take the time for you to go deep in who you are and who you want to become: we want your own journey to become the primary source of your excellence towards others'.

We will dream, reflect, share ideas and visions to be ourselves, for us and for others: to work better together.

Day 1: Anchoring in the past, dreaming the future: being with integrity.

Day 2: Giving to others, protecting ourselves and trusting the unknown: becoming together.

½ Day 3: Integration towards my role as HR leader

Experiences in nature combined with cutting edge leadership development approaches and discussion are an effective way to help us realize how much we are part of nature. We also experience that our own accomplishment depends on looking after each other and the environment. Our nature can be a surprising and distinctive teacher…

Download the flyer (pdf) for more information.

Nuclear Governance: Choices and Non‐Choices

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-07-13T12:37:38Z

THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED TO MAY 2012

The International A. Sakharov Environmental University (Minsk, Belarus), the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands), in cooperation with the European Commission Tempus project “Environmental Governance for Environmental Curricula” and the OSI ReSET project “Governance of Global Environmental Change” announce an Autumn School, a Conference Panel and a Workshop on issues of nuclear energy in society.

The central theme of the three-part event is nuclear choices and non-choices. It will constitute a unique opportunity to explore the fundamental choices of nuclear energy governance at the scientific, political, economic, social and personal levels.

The event will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and allow a joint reflection on the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents. It will amongst other explore the differences and similarities in information and communication flows and in crisis management in nuclear accidents in such distinctively different societies as the USSR of the 1980's and nowadays Japan. On this basis, a reflection will be jointly developed on risks and
options for the future governance of nuclear energy and of its legacy.
Two key purposes of the three‐part event are to create a discussion space and to provide a quality research training taking a governance perspective on nuclear issues, i.e. to discuss the actors and networks involved in the issue, their interactions, their rationalities and their stakes. The discussion topics will include but will not be limited to: communication, ethics,
economics, politics of the nuclear energy sector, as well as essential technological aspects.

Another objective is to offer participants a hands‐on experience of constructing and participating in a policy/stakeholder discussion. The event also aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about constructing the first nuclear power plant in Belarus.

Read the desciption document to learn more about this workshop.

Teaching Ethics to Chinese Executives

Marc Le Menestrel — 2010-11-29T10:58:44Z

In September 2010, I was invited by Renmin University to teach 2 days in their new CMPM program, a 5-module training experience inspired by Mintzberg's IMPM but dedicated to Chinese senior executives.

I had a few surprises during my intervention, but I was specially impressed by the proportion of female executives (close to 50%), their assertive character, the deepness of their reflections and their high-status profile. Could China be at the forefront of gender equality in business?

Click here to watch a video for CMPM participants.