Company culture: Time to go back to the office now !

As a manager, I have always attributed a lot of importance to corporate culture. First by mimicry, then quickly by choice. My first company, an advertising agency, was a breeding ground for experimentation. I was 23 years old, and the first recruitment just blew my mind. The candidate was on first-name terms with me during the interview (which is really inappropriate behavior in France) and literally put his feet up on the table. I was a young entrepreneur, and the first code of self-proclaimed respectability was just shattered.

I quickly discovered that the advertising world was full of codes: when you're a creative, you have to dress like one, be on familiar terms, smoke a joint and have a weirdo attitude. Sales people like well-tailored suits, polished shoes (this was before the era of sneakers) and if possible a shiny watch, especially if you're under fifty.

I quickly understood that I was going to be eaten by these codes and soon decided to install my own. People had to be polite to the boss (who, at 23 years old, did not have enough charisma to accept being on first-name terms with older employees) and I needed to create my own universe. The agency is branded " Sioux", and obviously the playing field is easy: we will adopt an Indian culture, except for the peace pipe that I will refuse to touch during the whole life of the company (thus refusing to let think that good ideas only come under the influence of substances). Talking stick, titles (I become the Big Chief), meeting rooms, branches, teepee in the tribe; buffalo at the entrance... everything tastes the Sioux culture. Our prospecting mailings breathe serenity and ancient quotes. The planet is our garden, the ancestors a well of science and our children the recipients of what we will pass on. The company culture is created and the employees self appropriate it, develop it and pass it on. Customers love it.

Fast forward 25 years laters, and I'm still running an advertising company. Now on THE street that symbolizes advertising, in THE city that symbolizes advertising, in THE country that symbolizes advertising. Adwanted is based on Madison Avenue, New York, USA. Madison Avenue has a nick name: Mad Avenue, which in the 50's was THE street of advertising, and the people who worked there were the Mad Men (hence the eponymous TV series).

Working in advertising is exciting because the image of advertising people is kind of cool: a little extravagant, artists disguised as business leaders, with a high voice and a pitch always ready. Advertising is always associated with bling bling, tanned faces and wild parties. Unfortunately also with its shortcomings: unbelievable working hours, impromptu art critic clients, and that damn firecracker image. Symbols live long.

In this spring of 2021, the bar (yes we have a small bar) that serves as decor at 275 Mad is deserted, the bottle of Whisky is no longer emptying. The view from the 20th floor is no longer shared like it used to be, when we were a team. The employees come twice a week, maximum, especially when I am there. In Chicago we no longer have an office.

In Paris the employees are confined and 4 out of 60 come to work. In London the same. I haven't seen 95% of my employees physically in 15 months.

With the pandemic, the corporate culture is evaporating. People are leaving, for good, and adopting new rituals. Create new demands.

Two years ago, our employees were proud to be part of the adventure, delighted to meet their colleagues whom we had selected with precision, precisely to ensure that the whole would be homogeneous. Homogeneous? Does that still make sense in 2021? Having a coffee on zoom is anything but spontaneous. Talking about your grandmother when there are more than two of you on a call makes no sense. No one turns around in a conversation where they don't feel part of it. No one there to train the juniors and pass on the "codes". Dress codes, communication codes. I'm thinking of all those companies where the game consists of literally climbing the hierarchy to get to the boss's floor, by force of will; I'm thinking of all those parking lots where the sign of success is the place near the entrance of the offices, and if possible with a nameplate. As for company cars, what happens to them? I think of all the projects that are put together to detect the talents of the company, to congratulate those who give of themselves and show it. I think of all those employees who arrive early and come home late, or both, who are motivated as never before, but whose investment nobody notices. I'm not even talking about the interpersonal relationships, the seduction, the rapport with others that are fading at a rapid pace. 

To be coach of a team when the team members don't even play on the same field and when you have to schedule the observation via e-mail is a new kind of job or ... is it just a possible one?

The pandemic makes us discover the pleasure of working at home and being free of our schedules. Often in the wrong way, precisely. But it also makes us discover the "Zoom fatigue" perverted by the ambient narcissism (we spend our days observing ourselves in self-view; a bit like if we were walking around with a mirror). Our psychopathies develop: burn out, lack of communication, isolation, self-management to the point of self destruction.

As a new hire, who should I observe? How do I choose who my role model is when I can't pick one within a group? What's the point of being a stickler when you have no one to tell your jokes to? What is the use of having developed empathy skills when you can't share your experiences and emotions with your colleagues? Who can you talk to about the problems at home and the children who have become unbearable? At home, do we want to talk about the problems at work and about a colleague who gives you a hard time, or about a humiliating boss? "Your job is fine, thank you. Now can we talk about something else?"

The pandemic changes our behavior, our way of being. I was shocked the other day to discover one of my employees in his pajamas...his dog had managed to open the door and he had gotten up to fire him. How can you be in your pajamas AND be dedicated to your job? It seems incompatible with my codes. My parents' and my grandmother's. "But how beautiful you are in a suit, it's classy"... Today in jeans and sneakers, is it the same message that I pass to my interlocutor? Is my boss right to think that my house is a mess? Does it make him feel better to see my kids show up in the middle of a budget meeting? What does that say about my commitment? Besides the paycheck I get at the end of the month, what happens to my commitment?

Besides, as a boss, what should I think of an employee who was recently recruited in Paris and who now decides to move away, 3 hours by plane from the office, where the cost of living is twice as low? Or of this employee who moves to the other side of the world and in another time zone for 2 months? Basically, as an employee, what is the part of my job that makes me stay in this company?

Last month I was on a zoom call with a Japanese entrepreneur, mentoring her. Took a month to schedule. She had to stop the discussion twice to open the door for her nanny, and the baby she was carrying while speaking would cry like crazy every 5 minutes, until she decided to... breast feed him ! Of course she turned the camera off to proceed. Odd experience...

I wanted to reschedule but she seemed to be fine. Now you know what the big issue was for me ? she was Japanese with a terrible english accent; I am french with a terrible accent too, and If I didn't want the breastfeeding spectacle, I definitely wanted to be able to read on her lips, like I do all the time here. Close caption made lips... I'm fed up with the masks; and now you want to turn your video off?! Seriously ? Was I embarrassed? Was she? How would I have reacted, if she were one of my own employees?

Have I become a freaking old school guy?

The company culture is the cream of the crop. It's the cushion of pleasure, of well-being, of exchange. It is the foundation of community life, the breeding ground for future development and the invisible added value.

Internal surveys are clear: only a few managers want to come back to work full time. 50% of employees want to come back 2 or 3 days a week and 50%...not at all!

The code has changed, the pandemic has created pockets of isolation and is killing the corporate culture. Now it's time to get back to the office.