Bruno de Montalivet is an expert in participatory innovation. He gives us his point of view on this essential method, in an enriching interview.
Bruno de Montalivet, expert in participative innovation
His background
I have a double experience of operational management and HRD in the business essentially of BtoB and BtoC services. For more than 10 years now, I have also been carrying out transition missions. At the same time, I own an HR consulting firm that offers coaching and training services, especially to interim managers, to help them in their presentation or in the construction of their sales pitch to clients.
How Bruno de Montalivet became an expert in participative innovation
In 2002, I founded with other Innov'acteurs, an association to developParticipatory Innovation. For the record, I was at that time Project Director at Accor's Human Resources Department after 5 years as Human Resources Director for the Group's European business unit, which represented 4 brands: Ibis, Formule 1, Etap Hotel and Courtepaille.
In this context, with the President at the time, we worked on the company's values. And we wanted to include innovation. My specifications were based on making innovation a reality for the employees. So I observed what was happening at that level. And in particular in the industry sector because the service sector was rather poor. I also approached consulting firms that had clients with problems related to employee innovation, in particular the firm Inergie. The latter facilitated the bringing together of all the people and organizations interested in sharing practices within an entity. We therefore decided to join forces to better develop Participatory Innovation.
And the association was born from this observation. It was necessary to find tools to better develop this approach by relying on the 6 members of the association. In particular Renault, which had a long-standing experience. Its President at the time, Louis Schweitzer, supported the PI approach and said:
"Taylorism is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that Taylorism structured the organization of production, the bad thing is that it separated the thinking heads from the little hands that produced. But participative innovation fixes that"!
The development of the association
From there, we developed the association more and more because there was a real need. The industry was becoming aware thatcontinuous improvement needed to be refined and developed. The drafting of a repository, the development of "spontaneous ideas" and "provoked ideas" (challenges and challenges to indicate the strategic priorities of the company, by issuing requests to employees to come up with ideas on specific needs) and the further structuring and development of the association.
5 questions to Bruno de Montalivet, expert in participative innovation
You say that "the sustainability of the approach depends on a structured management". How is the role of management essential?
For me, the success factor of aparticipative innovation approach is of course the number of ideas generated, the participation, what it brings to the company... That is to say, all the KPIs that can be put in place. But above all, success lies in the extent to which managers are involved. Because they are the first relays of the employees.
Management must be convinced thatParticipatory Innovation is not an additional task for the manager. Rather, it is a tool that facilitates problem solving and the achievement of objectives.
Digital technology has helped a lot in this respect. It has allowed an improvement in the administrative aspect of the follow-up of the ideas.
Digitalization has had a significant impact in recent years. How has it impacted participatory innovation?
Digital has had a positive impact on simplifying the administrative management process. We were able to see how many ideas were generated, what types of ideas. For example, the improvement of working conditions represents 30% of the ideas. Moreover, theAnact (National Association for Working Conditions) supported Innov'Acteurs in its approach because it made real sense to them. And their support shows thatParticipatory Innovation has a positive impact on the feeling of belonging and well-being at work. It is therefore only to be developed further.
So yes, digital technology has made it possible to have data, databases of good practices that can be exploited, to have a real phase of appropriation by the team. It is clearly used as a first learning experience for participative innovation in the implementation of information systems.
However, we must not confuse the objective with the means. Digital technology should not be developed forParticipatory Innovation, forgetting the real targets, i.e. managers and employees. Digitalization is an interesting way to give them more material, to save them time in centralizing ideas. But this is not what will convince them that the process is essential for them. So we have to be careful about priorities.
As an expert in participatory innovation, what advice would you give to companies in setting up their approach?
I had the opportunity to set up and support companies during my transition missions and the challenge was also toengage employees.
During my experience at Accor, I was able to set up aParticipatory Innovation system in its entirety, on five continents, with thousands of ideas to manage and in several languages. So it was a relatively complex project. From all the ideas proposed, I selected 10 main ideas, and these implemented ideas brought financial gains to the company. But more than that, there was team satisfaction that was just as important or more important. People are more fulfilled in their jobs when they have room to create things, to get to know other
people. All of this greatly enhances pride in belonging.
Even if there have not been studies large enough to demonstrate these gains in satisfaction, because it is complicated to obtain neutralization elements only on this variable, it is obvious to me from my experience.
When we proposeParticipatory Innovation to cultures that are not, companies can encounter obstacles. I am thinking in particular of the banking sector. At the time, what was asked of employees in this sector was to apply the rules. Not to go outside their framework. So initiative was curtailed, which went completely against what participative innovation is all about. That someone in the field can come up with good ideas. A culture of innovation is therefore being put in place through actions to gradually demonstrate the importance ofParticipatory Innovation.
A structured managerial approach is needed. Managers must solicit the field teams, ask for their opinion and involve them in solving a specific problem. And that's where many ideas will emerge, including some extremely good ones.
What are the gains and barriers of Participatory Innovation?
The benefits of aParticipatory Innovation approach are multiple. Of course, there is the economic performance that is important to measure. But not only that.Participatory Innovation develops teamwork, pride in belonging, autonomy and initiative-taking among employees, and improved well-being..... It also solves problems of working conditions on the ground, such as finding solutions to improve teleworking, ideas to reduce the feeling of distance with colleagues. Because according to many surveys, there is a real disengagement with the company but also with colleagues. The distance from the company is well and truly present. It is therefore necessary to put in place concrete actions that will compensate for this disengagement.
Of course, beyond the gains, we can encounter risks and obstacles as we saw earlier. The manager may seeParticipatory Innovation as yet another task to manage. He may not be aware of the benefits it will bring him. The most important thing is therefore to target managers first. We must accompany them and convince them thatParticipatory Innovation brings concrete benefits. They must realize that employees have the solution to their problems, thanks to the emergence of multiple ideas. The challenge is to find ways to motivate managers to support their teams.
How do we deal with fears of disengagement?
Faced with fears thatemployee engagement is low, my advice is to set up an initial challenge. The manager will ask the people in the field what solutions they can bring to a business problem that is a priority for them. You can also ask if there are ideas that have been put forward by colleagues and implemented that could be shared with other departments and that would be interesting for them. And then, ideas will simply emerge.
In the emergence of ideas and solutions, employees will propose co-construction which will lead to commitment. The success of participative innovation is a management process. It must be validated and carried to the top of the company. It is the way of managing that motivates the employees.
As an expert in participatory innovation, how do you see the participatory innovation of tomorrow?
The boundaries and contours of the company will become increasingly blurred. And the sense of belonging will be more difficult to maintain. We need to foster a collective sense of belonging to attract new talent. Indeed, they need to feel committed, involved. They want to have fun, to feel like they are learning and proposing things.
Nowadays, companies have several stakeholders working on the same project who have completely different links with the company (customers, employees, etc.). They gather a maximum of expertise thanks to diversity. So we need to find management methods and mechanisms, to have more inclusive and structured processes. And participative innovation is an essential tool in the development of challenges and work with the implementation of brainstorming, hackathons, calls for ideas...
So yes, companies are becoming aware that Participatory Innovation is important but not enough. As an association, we need to communicate more about the economic and social impacts. The real problem we are facing is to show the differences in effectiveness of participatory innovation depending on the approaches we follow and the way we manage it.
And for the process itself, we must find solutions to show how to convince more. How to make the participative innovation approach more quickly and better rooted and to remind people of its many advantages. It is up to us to convince the operational line of the benefits of such an approach.
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