Chronicles & Paradoxes of Performance

What if certain workplace problems didn't just stem from what others do... but also from what you contribute to creating? One sentence. One reaction. One interpretation. One demand too many. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to transform a working relationship. The Toltec Agreements are often presented as personal development principles. But what if we looked at them through our People & Culture lens? Not to apply them to the letter. To re:code them. 🟠 1. Be impeccable with your word You blurt out in a meeting: "Anyway, this project is never going to work." You might just be expressing a doubt. But what have you just created? Your words don't just describe the work. They influence the environment in which you will all work together. Being impeccable with your word doesn't mean always being positive. It means understanding that your words can be heard differently by everyone and measuring what they produce in others. 🟠 2. Don't take anything personally Your work is criticized. And you tell yourself: "I'm not cut out for this" / "I'm not good enough." Yet, feedback on your contribution does not define your worth. You can be challenged without being diminished. Distinguishing your identity from your work means being able to progress without letting criticism damage the relationship. 🟠 3. Don't make assumptions They aren't replying. They're avoiding me. Your manager isn't calling on you anymore. They don't trust me anymore. But what do you actually know? You don't always react to facts. Sometimes, you react to your interpretation of the facts. Before interpreting → verify. Because a healthy relationship often starts with a conversation you could have avoided... misinterpreting. 🟠 4. Always do your best But doing your best doesn't always mean doing more. Sometimes, your best is: Asking for help. Prioritizing. Saying you don't have the necessary resources. Or slowing down to be able to sustain yourself over the long term. So ask yourself: "What do I need to be able to give my best?" 🟣 Come on!! A fifth one. Be skeptical, but learn to listen What if you didn't believe everything? Not even everything you think. Listening doesn't mean believing blindly. Doubt doesn't mean rejection. It's leaving enough space between a piece of information and your conclusion to be able to think. 🧠 Re:coding agreements at work Your word → what you contribute to creating. Your reaction → what you choose to do with it. Your interpretations → what you decide to verify. Your best → what you can genuinely mobilize. Your listening → what you agree to question. Because collective performance doesn't just depend on what everyone knows how to do. It also depends on what everyone contributes to creating. 📚 To go further • Miguel Ruiz — The Four Agreements • Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. — The Fifth Agreement • Demerouti et al. (2001) — Job Demands–Resources Model #PEOPLERecode #Management #Leadership #PeopleAndCulture #Communication #Performance #CorporateCulture #HumanCapital #HopTeamAction

People strategy · Lasting performance 1. Thou shalt honor the human before the system, for no organization breathes without those who carry it… even when they show up late, coffee in hand. 2. Thou shalt listen before seeking to transform, for understanding always precedes action… even when the meeting could clearly have been an email. 3. Thou shalt welcome every arrival as a beginning, a passage, a ritual that says: "You're one of us"… even if you're still on probation. 4. Thou shalt offer feedback as a mirror that illuminates, never as a verdict that traps… even when the temptation to wince is strong. 5. Thou shalt watch over the inner weather of your teams, the way you tend a fire: with care, patience and respect… while keeping an eye on the KPIs, because we're still at work, after all. 6. Thou shalt celebrate progress as a path, for strong cultures are built step by step, not summit by summit… even when Monday morning's step is a very, very small one. 7. Thou shalt make of thy role a place of presence, not power — for supporting is an act, and watching over is a responsibility… and no, that doesn't come with a cape, even if you deserve one sometimes.

Some sentences resonate deeply with us. They don't just change how we think. Sometimes they change how we see the world. During the first session of the HEC Stand Up program, I heard this sentence: "Men who start businesses are often afraid of failing. Women who start businesses are often afraid of succeeding." I don't know if that statement is universal. But I do know it profoundly shook the way I think. Not because it sets women and men against each other. But because it opens up another line of thought: what if the real obstacle isn't always the fear of failing… but sometimes the fear of what success might change? Over the course of my career, rich in encounters, I've seen talented women and men hesitate in the face of an opportunity, a career move, or a change in direction. For a long time, I thought the main obstacle was a lack of confidence. Today, I believe the reality is more complex. Sometimes, it isn't failure that holds us back. It's everything success might transform: our identity, our balance, how others see us, or the responsibilities it brings. The work of Matina Horner on the fear of success, and Herminia Ibarra's on identity transitions, have let me reread these situations through a different lens. They show that certain career moves aren't just changes of title or status. They also involve a transformation in how a person sees themselves and projects themselves into their new role. That sentence didn't change how I recruit. It changed how I understand what's really at stake behind certain career decisions. Looking back, I believe it also opened up in me what Carol Dweck describes as a growth mindset: the ability to question your own certainties, stay curious, and accept that you can always keep learning. Because a successful hire isn't just the meeting of a CV and a role. It's the meeting of an ambition, a person, a manager and a culture.

"God... I'm going to go raise goats somewhere in the mountains." If you're a manager, a recruiter or in sales, chances are this thought has crossed your mind before. Not necessarily because you genuinely dream of a career change involving goats. But because at certain moments... you just need somewhere to put down the overflow. We're asked to be resilient. To bounce back. To find solutions. To turn problems into challenges. Failures into opportunities. Recruiters absorb the "no"s. Salespeople absorb the rejections. Managers absorb the tensions, the emergencies and their teams' problems. In short... we absorb it all. But where do we put it down? Because sometimes, before you can bounce back... you need to be able to land. To say: "Honestly, that was rough." "Today, I've had it." "This situation is getting to me." That's not necessarily a lack of resilience. Sometimes it's simply... human. And research actually invites us to draw a distinction. Sharing what we feel can help put words to an experience, seek support, and gain some distance. Bernard Rimé's work on the social sharing of emotions shows that we naturally tend to share our emotional experiences with others. But sharing isn't ruminating. And, above all... venting to let something go isn't the same as complaining to settle into it. A team needs to be able to say: "This isn't working." So it can then ask: "Why?" Then: "What can we do differently?" This is also where psychological safety and collective intelligence take on their full meaning. Because a team that can never say what's wrong eventually learns to... say nothing at all. So yes. I have the right to vent. But there's a difference between: "It was hard. Here's why. Now, what can we do?" and "Yeah, but..." Yeah, but the client. Yeah, but the manager. Yeah, but the colleagues. Yeah, but the market. Yeah, but it'll never work. The more we say "yeah, but," the less we're looking for a solution. We're looking for a reason not to try. And that's when "I've had it" can turn into "There's nothing I can do." And that changes everything. And let's not forget the managers. They can listen. They can support. But they can't be, all at once: manager, coach, mediator, counselor, social worker... and the whole team's emotional trash can. Maybe we simply need to create spaces where people can say: "I've had it." Without immediately being seen as negative, fragile, or not resilient enough. Spaces to put things down. To step back. To listen to others. And above all... to head back out. Because resilience may not mean never saying: "God, I've had it." It may mean being able to say: "I've had it." Then: "Okay. Now what do we do?" That, too, is People & Culture. And you — how do you like to vent? Let's talk about it. Sources & references: Bernard Rimé, work on the social sharing of emotions; Edmondson, A. C. (1999), Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams; Woolley, A. W. et al. (2010), Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups.

We often say that one person can destroy a team. I sometimes wonder if they're simply revealing everything the organization no longer dares to look at. The employee who monopolizes the conversation. The one who creates tension. The one who discourages others, who drives people to leave. But a question keeps coming back to me: why does a single person hold so much power? And above all... why does the organization let them? What the research tells us Roy Baumeister, in his work on negativity bias, shows that a negative experience leaves a deeper mark than several positive ones. A single person can thus take up a disproportionate place in a team's perception. Elaine Hatfield, on emotional contagion, shows that cynicism or anger spread quickly through a group when they're neither named nor regulated. Amy Edmondson reminds us that a team gradually stops speaking up once it no longer feels safe to voice disagreement. But another phenomenon strikes me as just as interesting: some organizations keep protecting employees whose behavior undermines the group, because they're deemed indispensable — rare expertise, a strategic project, excellent results. Technical skill can become a form of immunity. Individual results can mask a considerable human cost. A culture isn't defined only by the behaviors it values. It's also defined by the ones it chooses to tolerate. My take For a long time, I heard this sentence: "This person is destroying the whole team." Looking back, I'm no longer sure that's the whole story. I've often wondered why a single person managed to take up so much space — because they're impressive, because they get excellent results... or because no one actually has the power to question the situation? I've met managers who identified a concerning situation, documented it, raised the alarm — without being able to actually intervene, because the decision belonged to a level above them. Managers who watched their team burn out, tried to protect it, and yet felt powerless, because the person involved was deemed too strategic to let go. So the organization hesitates. It postpones. And without always realizing it, it sends an extremely powerful message: behavior becomes negotiable once results look important enough. Meanwhile, the whole team is watching, understanding, adjusting its own behavior accordingly. Trust erodes. People become more guarded. Sometimes, the best employees end up leaving. To my mind, the real issue isn't only about toxic people. It's about the power organizations hand them — power that doesn't come only from their personality, but from everything the system accepts, postpones, or chooses not to address. An organization doesn't reveal its culture only through the values it displays. It reveals it, above all, through the behaviors it accepts... and the ones it finally decides to address. The power of toxic people — let's talk about it. Sources & references: Roy F. Baumeister et al., Bad Is Stronger Than Good (negativity bias); Elaine Hatfield, John T. Cacioppo & Richard L. Rapson, Emotional Contagion; Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization; Bennett & Robinson, Counterproductive Work Behavior; Edgar H. Schein & Peter A. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership.

In many companies, certain people naturally become the "Swiss Army knives." They're handed recruitment. Then management. Then training. Then communications. Then team support. Then crisis situations. Because they know how. Because they're reassuring. Because they find solutions. But behind that compliment may hide another question. Is being a company's Swiss Army knife really a form of recognition… or a sign that the organization keeps leaning on the same people? What the research tells us Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn show that every organization runs on formal roles, but also on informal roles spontaneously taken on by certain employees. Peter Senge explains that people with systems thinking naturally connect situations, teams and issues, which often leads them to step in beyond their initial scope. Herminia Ibarra shows, finally, that the richest career paths are often built through a diversity of experiences rather than linear specialization. The most important roles aren't always in the job descriptions. Certain people become an organization's points of balance. Versatility can be a genuine strategic skill. In other words, the "Swiss Army knife" may not be a scattered profile. Sometimes it's the person carrying the invisible roles an organization needs in order to function. My take I've often met these profiles. They're the people you turn to when a project goes off the rails, when a team hits a rough patch, or when something needs to be built quickly that didn't exist the day before. They absorb tension. Connect teams. Ease relationships. Find solutions. We praise them for their versatility. But we sometimes forget to recognize the value of all these invisible roles. To my mind, the real question isn't whether someone is a "Swiss Army knife." It's whether the organization truly recognizes what it's asking them to carry. Have you ever felt you were filling a role far bigger than the one on your job description? Sources & references: Katz & Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations; Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline; Herminia Ibarra, Working Identity.

We often associate caring with gentleness. As if being a good manager meant protecting. Going easy. Avoiding difficult conversations. Preserving the relationship in the moment, even if it means sidestepping the truth. But is that really what caring means? What if we sometimes confuse caring... with complacency? Because shielding someone from reality isn't always the best way to help them grow. What the research tells us Authentic leadership, developed notably by Bill George, reminds us that trust isn't built by avoiding difficult conversations, but through transparency, consistency and integrity. Amy Edmondson shows that psychological safety isn't about creating a comfortable environment where everyone agrees. On the contrary, it allows people to express ideas, disagreements, mistakes or difficulties without fearing humiliation or punishment. Kim Scott, with the concept of Radical Candor, explains that real feedback rests on two inseparable dimensions: genuinely caring about the person ("Care Personally") while having the courage to challenge them directly ("Challenge Directly"). Research on transformational leadership also shows that managers foster their team members' development when they provide meaning, set a clear framework, encourage autonomy, and support growth rather than avoiding difficulties. Teams make progress when difficult topics can be addressed with respect. Trust is built more through transparency than through avoidance. Caring never excludes rigor; it shapes how that rigor is delivered. In other words, caring doesn't mean avoiding difficult conversations. It means creating the conditions for them to happen with respect, clarity and dignity. My take When I started out as a manager, I thought being caring meant protecting my teams... and, deep down, being liked by them. I sought their approval, believing it was a sign of good management. Then one day, a director said something that profoundly changed how I manage: "Caring means telling things as they are, with respect and dignity." That sentence stopped me in my tracks. Little by little, I understood there was a fundamental difference between caring... and complacency. Complacency avoids today's discomfort. Caring prepares tomorrow's growth. Complacency protects the relationship in the moment. Caring protects the person over the long term. Complacency avoids. Caring supports. Complacency reassures. Caring helps you grow. Complacency seeks immediate peace. Caring builds lasting trust. Today, I believe a manager isn't someone who avoids difficulties. They're not someone who judges. They're not someone who holds all the answers. They're someone who helps others get through difficulties. Someone who finds solutions when the team can no longer see any. Someone who absorbs tension so others can move forward. Someone who protects without hiding reality. Someone who creates a space where the truth can be spoken without diminishing anyone. Management isn't a position in a hierarchy. It's a relational responsibility. Telling the truth with respect is probably one of the greatest forms of caring there is. That was the day I stopped trying to be a well-liked manager. And started understanding that a manager doesn't grow because they're liked. They grow because they help others grow. How do you see management? Let's talk about it. To go further: Bill George, Authentic Leadership; Amy Edmondson, Psychological Safety; Kim Scott, Radical Candor; Bass & Avolio, Transformational Leadership.

Recruitment teaches us to analyze a CV. To run an interview. To assess skills. To compare applications. But it rarely prepares us for one of the hardest moments in our profession: delivering a rejection. And yet, I don't think recruiters who hesitate to give feedback lack respect for candidates. I think they're often facing their own discomfort. In psychology, this is called avoidance coping. Faced with an emotionally uncomfortable situation, our brain naturally seeks to push it away. We put off a call. We rewrite an email several times. We search for the right words. Because no one enjoys being the bearer of disappointment. The recruiter, too, is often the messenger of a collective decision. The manager, discussions with the team, the demands of the role… all of these factors shape a decision. And yet, it's often left to the recruiter to deliver it. But what if the real issue weren't the feedback itself... What if it all started from the very first interview? When we practice genuine active listening, when we seek to understand before evaluating, when we identify a candidate's strengths, motivations, skills and areas for growth… feedback becomes far more natural. It's no longer about delivering a verdict. It's about sharing a professional observation. Feedback can then answer three simple questions: what strengths did we observe? What made the difference for this role? What areas of development could be useful for the rest of your career? To my mind, a rejection takes nothing away from a person's value. It simply explains why, at a given moment, another application better matched the organization's needs. Quality feedback doesn't only close out a hiring process. It also helps a person know themselves better, grow... and sometimes come back a few years later with exactly the skills being sought. Feedback isn't a communication exercise. It's the consequence of quality listening. And maybe, deep down, the real candidate experience isn't measured by the quality of the interview alone... It's also measured by how well we know how to part ways. And you — do you think quality feedback is improvised at the end of a hiring process... or built from the very first minute of the interview? References: Richard Lazarus & Susan Folkman, Stress, Appraisal and Coping (1984), on avoidance coping; Carl Rogers, on active listening and the helping relationship.

"She's not going to like me. I'm too ambitious." Someone said this to me one day before going to meet a client. It stopped me in my tracks. Since when do we practically have to apologize for being ambitious? I simply answered: "I've never seen you step on anyone to succeed. I've seen you reach out to help others grow. Me included." So I asked myself a question. Why do we so readily link ambition with competition and domination? David McClelland's work sheds interesting light on this. According to his theory of acquired needs, some people are deeply driven by a need for achievement: progressing, taking on challenges, learning, and reaching demanding goals. The need for achievement isn't a need for superiority. It's a need for progress. Wanting to succeed, then, doesn't necessarily mean wanting to dominate. And yet... other people's ambition can sometimes make us uncomfortable. It can inspire us. But it can also reflect back our own choices, our own limits, or what we never dared to attempt. So is it really ambition that bothers us? Or what it stirs up in each of us? To me, there's a fundamental difference between: "I want to be better than you." and "I want to become better than I was yesterday." The first sometimes fuels competition. The second creates momentum. And when it becomes collective, it can become a formidable engine for growth. Maybe it's time we recoded our definition of ambition. Stop confusing it with domination. And stop asking ambitious people to apologize for wanting to grow. What's your relationship with ambition? Let's talk about it. To go further: David McClelland, Theory of Needs (need for achievement, power, affiliation).

For a long time, I thought the highest-performing teams were the ones that made the fewest mistakes. Among the work currently shaping my thinking, Amy Edmondson's has led me to see things differently. The highest-performing teams aren't the ones that never get it wrong. They're the ones where everyone can say: "I got that wrong." "I don't know." "I need help." "I have an idea." ...without fearing judgment. This is what Amy Edmondson calls psychological safety. And it's much more than an HR concept. It's a genuine performance lever. When a team feels safe to speak up: hidden mistakes decrease; decisions are of higher quality; collective learning accelerates; innovation comes more naturally; trust takes hold for the long term. Psychological safety, then, isn't just a wellbeing factor. It's a performance multiplier. This reading resonates deeply with what I've observed over fourteen years in recruitment and talent development. A talent performs when they can voice their ideas, doubts and mistakes without fearing judgment. A talent grows when they feel allowed to learn. A talent stays when they can be fully themselves. The real right to be wrong may not be the right to make mistakes. It's the right to say that you made one. That's often the exact moment trust, learning... and lasting performance are born. And you — in your team, is it easy to say: "I got that wrong"?

Why do some interviews turn into interrogations? Almost all of us have experienced that kind of interview. The one where the questions seem less about understanding... and more about finding what's wrong. The one where every answer demands a new justification. The one that leaves you feeling you have to convince, defend yourself, prove yourself... rather than simply have a conversation. At the end, a strange feeling lingers. Not the feeling of not having been selected. But the feeling of not having been able to show who you really are. So a question comes to mind: at what point does an interview stop being a meeting... and become an interrogation? Yet research in work psychology shows that a person reveals more of their potential when they operate in a climate of trust, one conducive to reflection and to expressing their abilities. What if we sometimes confuse rigor... with pressure? We talk a lot about psychological safety within teams. Why not apply that same thinking from the moment recruitment begins? I don't believe the best recruiter is the one who unsettles the most. I believe it's the one who understands the best. Rigor is essential. But it doesn't mean putting a candidate in a difficult spot. It means asking the right questions, listening to the answers, and understanding the reasoning behind them. A recruiter's role isn't to judge a person. It's to understand a trajectory, choices, skills... and potential. Not being selected doesn't mean having no value. It simply means that, at a given moment, the organization's needs and the candidate's profile weren't sufficiently aligned. Because an interview is also a candidate's first experience of a company, every exchange helps build — or weaken — its employer brand. I'm convinced a recruiter's role is to create the conditions for assessing a person's potential as fairly as possible. The best interviews may not be the ones where the recruiter impresses the candidate. They're the ones where both people walk away feeling they truly understood each other. And you — whether as a candidate or a recruiter, have you ever felt more judged than evaluated in an interview?

Hi, I'm Virginie. And it's been a year since I stopped defining my worth by my work. (I promise, this isn't a Workaholics Anonymous meeting...) For a long time, I believed that always working more was a quality. Being available. Never saying no. Always doing a little more. Being the one people could always count on. I saw it as commitment. Professional conscientiousness. Passion. Then, one day, my nervous system hit its limit. Looking back, I understood something essential. It wasn't work that had become the problem. It was the place I had given it in my life. Work had given me an enormous amount. It had let me learn, grow, take on challenges, and support women, men and organizations. But without realizing it, I had also entrusted it with part of my identity. So a question forced itself on me. Who am I when I'm not working? As I rebuilt myself, I discovered the work of two researchers who deeply nourished my thinking: Cecilie Schou Andreassen and Bryan Robinson. Their research distinguishes between two realities we often confuse. Commitment is a choice. Workaholism is a compulsion. Commitment sustainably fuels performance. Workaholism, on the other hand, can gradually exhaust a person, undermine their health, damage their relationships... and eventually trap their identity inside their work. What struck me most is this idea. The problem isn't working a lot. The problem is no longer knowing how to stop. Or no longer knowing who you are... when the work stops. Today, I look at performance differently. I believe a talent performs best when they know how to set limits. I believe a leader inspires more when they show it's possible to succeed without burning out. I believe a high-performing organization is one where engagement isn't measured by hours worked, but by the ability to create value... sustainably. For years, I thought I was my job. Today, I know I have a job I'm passionate about… but it isn't who I am. And, paradoxically, it's since I found that freedom again that I've enjoyed doing this job the most. Maybe the finest performance isn't giving everything to your work. It's being able to love it deeply... without needing to lose yourself in it. And you — how much space does work take up in your life? Let's talk about it. To go further: the work of Cecilie Schou Andreassen, creator of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS), and that of psychologist Bryan Robinson, author of Chained to the Desk, show that workaholism is a behavioral addiction distinct from commitment. It isn't defined by hours worked, but by a loss of control, difficulty disconnecting from work, and consequences for health, relationships and lasting performance.

Recruitment is probably one of the rare professions where we're asked to evaluate career paths… without ever being properly taught how to decode them. We're taught to write a job ad. To source. To use an ATS. To run an interview. But who really teaches us to read a CV? Not spotting a typo or a gap in a timeline. I mean understanding what a CV tells… and above all what it doesn't tell. Because a CV only ever shows part of the story. Most of us learned to interpret them through experience: by observing, by talking with colleagues, by developing our own instincts. Yet research reminds us that the most visible elements of a CV aren't always the ones that best predict future success. What the research says Sackett and colleagues (2022), revisiting Schmidt and Hunter's landmark work, show that the predictive validity of many selection methods has historically been overstated. Structured interviews rank among the best-performing methods. In other words… what's easiest to observe isn't necessarily what's most useful for deciding. Over time, I've developed a very simple conviction. The best tool for understanding a CV isn't always an analysis grid. Sometimes it's… a phone. A few minutes of conversation can reveal the logic behind a career path, the choices made, the constraints faced, or motivations that no line on a CV could ever tell. I don't think recruiters lack rigor. I think, above all, that our profession is immensely complex. And that the real risk isn't failing to understand a career path. The real risk is believing we've understood it… without having asked a single question. Before interpreting, I prefer to understand. And you — what's your instinct when a CV feels unclear? Let's talk about it. Sources & references: Sackett, P. R. et al. (2022) — an update to Schmidt, F. L. & Hunter, J. E. (1998), The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology.