Reflets Magazine #149 | How to Combine Meaning, Well-Being and Performance

In Reflets Magazine #149, Marjory Malbert (EXEC M12) offers her advice on how to become a positive impact leader and enable teams to combine professional success with self-fulfilment. Here is a free online translation of the article… subscribe to get the next issues (in French)!

 What do Julie Chapon, Edgar Grospiron, Pascal Demurger, Sarah Ourahmoune, Emery Jacquillat, Céline Lazorthes and Laurent Tillie have in common? These entrepreneurs, leaders, and high-level athletes have all dreamt, created and succeeded. Individual and team work, professional passion and meaning, a healthy lifestyle, failures, questioning, resilience, perseverance and respect for others have contributed to turning these figures into role models for today’s company founders.

Yet are entrepreneurs truly inspired by these figures? Do they draw on these models to consider the notions of success, self-fulfilment and performance? Are they aware that the time has come to create sustainable value and become ‘positive impact’ leaders addressing the challenges of our modern world? 

Three pillars are fundamental to this perspective: meaning, well-being and performance.

Meaning, or The Dreaming

For Australian Aboriginals, ‘The Dreaming’ describes the period which preceded the creation of Earth, a period in which all existence was spiritual and immaterial. Before creating, one must thus dream. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: ‘Make of your life a dream, and of a dream a reality’.

Is that not what an entrepreneur does? Does everything not begin with a dream? The dream of changing the world, solving a problem, satisfying a need or making a positive impact? Lucie Basch, co-founder of Too Good To Go, dreams of a world without food waste. Isabelle Autissier claims that at the age of 10, she dreamt she would sail around the world.

Is that enough? For a dream to become a reality, the entrepreneur must ‘visualise and feel’ their ideal world, define their ‘why’ - Why do I get up every morning? Why do I act? What do I contribute? - the mission they lead and the values that will drive them. All these elements constitute the foundations which will enable them to build the rest and ensure its longevity. They give meaning to action, guide the right decisions, facilitate the commitment of stakeholders and establish SMART goals, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. These goals help you to constantly challenge and question yourself.

Well-being, or thinking of yourself first

Once an entrepreneur has their dream, solid foundations and clearly-defined goals, they can rapidly forget about themselves, putting in long hours of work (52 hours per week on average in Europe). As the Amorak observatory revealed, they sleep less, rest less at weekends, take fewer holidays and do less sport than a salaried worker. They are exposed to exhaustion, a lack of discernment, loss of energy and increased stress...the recipe for burnout!

Does an ‘impact’ entrepreneur forge on, head down, towards their dream, or do they follow the example of athletes who set up a programme with the team around them for their physical and mental preparation and recovery?

Novak Djokovic’s wife, Jelena, encouraged the tennis champion to adopt new habits. He now combines more yoga, meditation, breathing and diet with mental preparation, to manage emotions and energy and gain clearer self-knowledge in terms of thought patterns and behaviour. As he admits: ‘To get to the top of such a demanding sport, you have to realise that everything matters, absolutely everything. How and how long you train, who surrounds you, how you eat, how you sleep...all this affects the finished product, in other words the result on the court.’ 

Consequently, KPI, essential guides to respond, rectify, adjust and change course if necessary, cannot be limited to financial results They must also take well-being and meaning into account. The daily routines we create, the small steps we set ourselves, need to be measured or they will quickly become merely incidental.

Performance, or the creation of sustainable value

Company performance is thus not simply a financial result calculated for the annual report. It is an improvement process which leads to the creation of sustainable value on various levels. It involves CSR commitments in keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): taking care of oneself, the plant and ecosystems; redistributing wealth to the greatest number; acting for diversity, etc. 

This is what Paola Fabiani, co-founder of Wisecom (call centre) does for example, by tutoring judoka Amadou Meite, Paris 2024 Paralympic Games hopeful, via ‘Team Réussite’ [Team Success], a programme initiated by INSEP Alumni Club and the French Institute for Entrepreneurial Mentorship (IME). When Paola and Amadou meet, they discuss their current goals and challenges. Amadou visits the company to meet employees and share his path and experience with them. This initiative is in keeping with the company’s values and CSR policy for its staff and its ecosystem.

Combining meaning, well-being and performance takes us on the path to professional and personal fulfilment. It consequently implies ongoing learning and taking regular stock of your organisation (and of your entrepreneurial self), to ensure the company is heading in the right direction, in line with its purpose and the SDG.

To embark on this exciting adventure, the entrepreneur can opt to take part in a transformation circle. By engaging with and drawing on the support of a goodwill collective, the entrepreneur can question and address their challenges in a trusting, supportive and empowering space.

Interview by Louis Armengaud Wurmser (E10), Content Manager at ESSEC Alumni 2- "Translation of an excerpt of an article published in Reflets Magazine #149. Read a preview (in French). Get the next issues (in French).

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