In 2017 I was contacted by CPAM Loire-Atlantique for a day of reflection and presentation on modern forms of management. I was part of a program that had been triggered a year earlier, much more global, much more vast. And here and there, over the years, CPAM, particularly its director, would call me back for cross perspectives, proposals. In 2022 notably with the launch of sociocratic circles (which I’m told are a success “we wondered if managers should participate, but we make so many decisions there that they must participate!” – for example). I quickly saw alongside this director that Agnès Bellorgey was taking an important place, and understood very well everything that was happening, particularly thanks to her sly, mocking smile that she would give me during certain meetings or interventions.
This month I was able to participate with Agnès’s invitation to an event following this long program that is proving to be a success. I am very touched as a citizen to see that our public services are setting an example in a difficult field, that of modern forms of enterprise. And I wanted to give the floor to Agnès.
Agnès Bellorgey, manager at CPAM Loire-Atlantique since 2005, is currently Communication Innovation Projects manager. She introduces herself:
After years of reflection and experimentation on management, I was one of the drivers of CPAM 44’s transformation towards a company based on trust, responsibility and innovation. Also in charge of individual and collective support for CPAM’s 80 managers on changes in posture, I am always engaged in improving daily work for a public service adapted to changes in society.
PABLO: Agnès, we crossed paths recently for an event, which one?
AGNÈS: It was an inter-organization social security meeting whose purpose was to take stock of our internal transformation processes and, not to compare ourselves, but in any case to confront each other, to let ourselves be surprised by what had worked for some and not at all for others, and why not give new impetus to each and everyone on these transformations.
P: I want to say that I’m missing an element there, is it particular transformations?
A: Yes, these are transformations that we can call, which have different names depending on the people who carry them out, empowering companies, liberated companies, or simply managerial transformation, but sometimes managerial transformation seems a bit reductive to me.
P: Why is it complicated to give a name to this type of management or organizational movement?
A: It’s complicated because it has sometimes been conceptualized in a very assertive way in certain books and then with a bit of procedures or a bit of very marked ways of doing things. And so, ultimately, our realities don’t necessarily correspond to these denominations of liberated companies. And it’s also complicated because asserting it, that we are for example an empowering company, would also mean that across all our sectors, across all relationships, across all the people who work there, everything is done, established and perfect. But that’s never the case.
P: You don’t want to be locked into a label because you don’t embrace everything.
A: We never wanted that.
P: Okay, from the beginning, you didn’t discover it by doing it, it’s from the beginning?
A: From the beginning, so there was a reluctance in the leader driving the approach not to call ourselves a liberated company, simply in relation to the concept, you see, in what way wouldn’t we be liberated to already do as we usually do, we wouldn’t even be free to do as we currently do. And then gradually, it was accepted. But there are still many taboos and still many sarcastic writings about liberated company equals foosball table plus chief happiness officer or that kind of thing and we wanted to protect ourselves from that kind of shortcut too.
P: There you’re talking about a person who was at the initiative, at the beginning it’s not by chance, it’s the big boss, let’s say, or the big boss lady.
A: Yes.
P: in the organizations, in all your organizations, social security, what do you call them? Health insurance funds?
A: It’s not just health insurance funds because we could see that there were also CAFs, the Caisse Nationale des Industries électriques et gazières, but actually yes that’s it, it’s the social security funds.
P: So it’s triggered by a person at the head of a classical hierarchy who wants things to change. Is it like that all the time?
A: Yes, all the time. It’s a leader, always the general director or general directress who carries, in any case who initiates at least the reflection and who brings along or not a team, an executive committee, in any case who…
P: And there, how long has it been to give a bit of…
A: For us, it’s 2016.
P: 2016, ok, so that’s eight years. And how many people is it?
A: We’re a thousand, something like that.
P: Okay, and the thousand, because there, you were saying earlier, we can’t put a label either because embracing the organization in its entirety would perhaps be a bit peremptory. So, of the thousand, can we say that the thousand have had closely or remotely at least contact or strong contact with these new ways of doing things?
A: Yes, that’s for sure that the thousand, especially in eight years, have been aware of why the approach, what the approach is, I’d say that’s really the minimum, and I even think we can go as far as all managers trained in a specific program linked to this transformation, the executive committee as well, many, I don’t know, I could give in the order of at least 400 employees have been part of working groups or in any case collaborative bodies and all the employees, for example, participate in elections without candidates, well there you go, in all sorts of measures or new practices that come from these transformations.
P: And I imagine there are other people like me who are curious to say, who first see this with a very positive eye that it’s been happening for a long time now in the public service. And so there you cited in this day there were quite a few organizations of different types. What’s the envelope of how many people all that you imagine in your field? Do you realize the envelope or not? No it’s too vast a question?
A: It’s difficult, we have organizations that have quite different sizes, but in any case if we take CPAM du Rhône, CPAM des Yvelines, Carsat Bretagne, CAF du Var, well there you go. I think there are easily 10,000 people who, closely or remotely in our organizations, have at least heard about approaches and have changed their practice for a certain number of years.
P: So if I come back to CPAM Nord Atlantique, I have the impression, tell me if I’m wrong in what I see, it’s you who embodies. Today it’s your position that embodies this movement. You don’t do it alone, there are lots of people around you, naturally, by essence, by definition, but it’s you who embodies it, am I wrong?
A: I’m not necessarily the best placed to say it, but in any case, yes, people have given me that feedback and indeed, I can hear it, yes.
P: I’m asking this question to know where you were at the moment when the person, this director, said I’d like us to trigger this. Where were you and what did you perceive from that place when it happened?
A: I had a function, I was head of the healthcare costs service that reimburses the insured’s healthcare costs. It’s a big sector since it’s a bit the heart of our activity. We were 120 at the time and so I was responsible for that sector. And so, being part of, let’s say, top management, I participated in seminars, well, in management seminars, it was occasional meetings with these managers and he shared this intention with us. But in parallel, we had started a participatory company project where we had five work axes at the time which were “work better together”, “live the company better”. And I was pilot of the “live the company better” axis. And I had informed myself, I had been inspired, it was at the time of the release of the film Le Bonheur en Travail by Martin Meissonnier (Editor’s note: in the audio Agnès says “Philippe”, but it’s indeed “Martin”). So, it had resonated a bit.
P: And what made you set yourself in motion, so to speak, you were probably in motion before, but what made you start looking in this direction? What provoked this search?
A: For me or in relation to exchanges with the actors?
P: For you, the fact that you were on the management committee and you were in this pilot driver part, so you had a desire. Or a wish or a need.
A: Quite simply, it’s that what I heard in the experiences of Meissonnier’s film or in the writings of Isaac Getz or other things, I said to myself finally, I’m going to be able to be the manager I want to be and not the one that training gave me how to say, classical training, the classical image, with control.
P: And now, eight years later?
A: It corresponded to my values in fact. There you go. And to what I wanted to be. Beyond my values, it was also how I wanted to experience management, but not just me as a manager, but how I wanted my teams to experience management. It corresponded to that.
P: That’s the overall context. And now that we’re eight years later, can you say that between what you imagined, what are the symptomatic or symbolic gaps, I don’t know how to say, between what you projected? So maybe first another question, are you the manager you want to be today?
A: Yes.
P: Does it have the form you imagined it had or are there gaps from the projection you had at the time?
A: There aren’t so many gaps as far as I’m concerned and how I do it. After that, it’s because, undoubtedly, I take this freedom to be… In any case, if I speak for myself, there are few gaps. But if I speak at the scale of the company and all the managers, it’s that not all managers necessarily have the will to be those managers.
P: Yes, okay, they don’t all find themselves in that projection. Ok, so I’ll ask my question differently. Have you had surprises compared to what you imagined in this journey? ….No, your face?
A: Personal?
P: Yes, personal. I think I’m going to make an audio recording so we won’t see your face, but your face shows that you’re searching and that it’s not obvious.
A: No, I don’t know if it’s surprises, but in any case… how to say… I hadn’t necessarily imagined so much the necessity of setting the framework in a very explicit way to create this space of freedom and responsibility. That is to say that I imagine, I have a belief in responsibility and the spirit of initiative and even maturity. I’ve always refused the discourse of other managers who told me yes, but my team isn’t mature. I think that all the people who are there are adults and from the moment they’re adults and they do everything they do outside the company and they… They’re mature to do it. And that, I don’t question. However, I’ve clearly identified the necessity of always setting this framework and even coming back to it, being very rigorous in making the framework explicit to generate trust, responsibility, taking initiative and therefore freedom.
P: I want to come back to the event we were talking about. What are the lessons learned, if you can tell us about them, if it’s not confidential, what are the lessons, the two or three major lessons we could draw from all these public organizations that have embarked on this adventure?
A: I have rather questions I’m asking myself, it’s: is it really necessary to announce this type of approach explicitly, to make specific communication about it, or rather to do it by saying a bit in an empirical way. Some people want to try, try, hey that, that becomes, it’s something that works. We’re going to expand it and all that, but without big announcements. And I think that…
P: It’s a first observation you’re making of something that seems to, is that what you’re telling us, that seems to work better.
A: Work better than perhaps what we did, the other lessons…
P: Knowing that you’ve become, I don’t know how you say it, director or communications manager today.
A: Manager. I’m on communications. Yes, there you go. No, but absolutely. Precisely, it’s that, it’s that we’ve perhaps spent, in any case, the last five years, I’m putting the Covid period in parentheses, there you go, but we’ve spent our years trying to show the benefit of this approach, to show the benefits, to find ways to communicate, so all sorts of ways to communicate. And in the end, ultimately, people in the teams integrate ways of functioning and wouldn’t go back. But not thanks to our communication, thanks to daily life and the way they function and which they simply wouldn’t go back on. And so, there’s not necessarily a need to do com, posters, materials, videos. It’s daily life that changes people.
P: We’ll stop there, I necessarily have lots of other questions coming up, I’m not asking you to answer them now we’ll do another session, but just that one of saying, but you haven’t experienced it yet, we had mentioned it if it falls apart, given that people can no longer work any other way, if I listen to you and I believe it too, what happens? It’s interesting to address next time, you have mobility and the impact of mobility, in positive in negative.
A: But in any case, when I say it’s better not to communicate, it’s not necessarily not being explicit about what we’re doing. It’s not the same thing.
P: Yes, but if it’s not the target. Not making it the banner, not making it the target. Yes, yes, I hear.
A: Yes, that’s it, there’s no need for logos, there’s no need for things. But in any case, being explicit about what we’re doing, that’s also what allows continuity and the follow-up. I think that there, for us, our need and our follow-up, it’s really that. Except that me, I have to speak to the executive committee at the beginning of January. There needs to be a roadmap for continuing the transformation. It needs to be explicit, to at least the 80 managers.
P: And that reopens the question of what’s the target? Is it the transformation or is it something else? Or is it the insured’s satisfaction, etc.
A: It’s both. We’re not letting go.
P: Yes, but you could say that the transformation is the means to the insured’s satisfaction.
A: Yes, after that I always tell myself that the way we do things reflects what we want to do.
P: Yes, okay, so you’re saying…
A: Can we do insured satisfaction?
P: My practices will generate… Ok.
A: And we can do insured satisfaction by going back to the carrot and the stick.
P: I’m still recording, you know.
A: Honestly, so there, really, I think that… there you go.
P: Okay, there, that differentiates us because I think that in the… We can have results with the carrot and the stick, to use your expression, but we’ll never have as good results as if it’s…
A: I agree,
P: So we agree.
A: I agree, but us there you go, how to say, pay the insured within deadlines, and fight fraud, we can do it without asking questions, so I think it’s a mistake and that it doesn’t correspond to society and that lots of things and there we can think back to mobility, but in any case we can do it “the old way”.
P: We can do it the old way, but we’ll still have worse results than if in my opinion, that’s what I’m trying to tell you and I think you agree. We’ll still have less beautiful results than if we’re with teams that want to, that have empowerment, that are autonomous.
A: We agree. Yes, yes, yes. Precisely, there are lots and lots of organizations that still do it like that. There you go, anyway.
P: In any case, thank you very much for this conversation, because then I’m going to try to do speech to text, maybe I’ll put the audio track, we’ll see.
So I did a speech to text with Transcribe which offered me 30 free minutes and which worked remarkably well.
The little mp3 is on my little raspberry at home, let’s hope it holds up, those who want a ddos: there’s the target