• • •  Archives  Understanding and using culture: a pioneering approach to difficult social situations

By Alain SIMON

In complex situations, offering simplistic answers is simply self-righteous, and even dishonest.

In this article, two firms (ACG and Barthelemy et associés) have combined not only their approaches and methods, but also their sensitivities, to attempt to show why and how these situations can be conceived.

Two different yet complementary angles. One of a strategy firm dedicated to business anthropology, and the other of a large law firm specializing in social law. It is another way of looking at problems with a view to finding solutions best suited to the stakeholders.



The viewpoint of the business anthropology consultant

Suffering results primarily from the loss of belonging to one’s culture. Grief for culture must be a passageway and not a dead end.
As a result of economic conditions and modern technology, industrial and service site closings, as well as corporate reorganizations through sales or mergers, have become a fact of life.
In France, the cases that received the most media coverage are still fresh in people’s minds: Lu, Moulinex, Marks and Spencer, Renault Vilvoorde and Metaleurop, to name a few.
Without clumping these different cases together, however, we witnessed the emotional violence and profound pain expressed by the employees affected.
It should be pointed out that in almost every case, even before discussing money or unemployment, the men and women we saw and heard cried over the loss of their “home”; in other words, above all other considerations, suffering stems primarily from the “loss of belonging”.
The loss of belonging to a culture which allowed them to practice their craft, acquire new skills, incorporate gestures into shared rituals, and so on. And how do the company, the public authorities and those implementing the reclassification programs respond to this suffering: with rational answers that deal only with money.
It is clear that, even when the financial compensation is generous and reasonable and provides a certain degree of security for the future (in the case of Lu and Danone, for example), the suffering continues.
It is a situation which then leads to chain reactions that are sometimes violent and, at any rate, give rise to individual and collective frustration, while carrying a high price tag not only for the companies themselves but also for the country as a whole, if we take into account the collateral costs actually incurred as a result of these situations (decline in investment, drop in consumption, increased healthcare costs, and so on).
In view of these facts, of which we are all well aware, an approach that mitigates the effects of these management decisions, for the most part inevitable and justified, is possible. It entails support of the social structure, from a cultural standpoint, designed to prepare people for the grief associated with a company closing and, once this grief is accepted and “managed”, for a re-birth toward something new.

Cultural support can also help ensure the success of sales and mergers. The legal field is becoming one of the favored battlegrounds of employee resistance. Cultural blocks are the foundation of conflicts; they bolster them and give them meaning.
The legal procedure must be based on the entity’s specific cultural data.
The real answer to recreating social cohesion is not necessarily limited to economic redistribution.
Cultural support, because it involves an approach and a method that comes under the heading of “symbolic resolution” and allows each individual to understand why and how his planned, inevitable loss of belonging will undoubtedly require a period of painful grief, but that this grief is a passageway rather than a dead end - a test of strength.
Moreover, it is essential to help the person understand that this belonging has nothing to do with the “psychological being”, profound as I may seem, but is merely about the “social being” who involved himself in his company. It should be noted, however, that the risk of damage to the individual psychological reality does exist: “with my social being destroyed, I am nothing”.
This support is not manipulative in any way. It leaves the field clear for social bonds, trade union negotiations, and all matters that are open to discussion, be they economic or interpersonal.
Its objective is to help each person understand what is happening collectively and individually, and consequently to bounce back faster and more easily.
This has positive consequences not only for the people involved, but also for the community and, most importantly, for the employment pools in question, where one can take a positive view of the private and/or semi-public investments that will be used effectively.
In our professional practice, we observe that this cultural support approach is most meaningful with regard to sales of industrial and/or commercial sites, and we are well aware that there are and will continue to be many such operations as a result of worldwide corporate reorganization. This shows that the specific nature of the discussions (legal, economic or industrial) in no way changes the individual’s or the group’s cultural perception. However, the rationality of managers, shareholders and public authorities too often obscures the symbolic trauma suffered by the social structure (training as non-managerial personnel) in these situations. This also causes grief.
Nevertheless, even in these cases we know and observe that this real grief must be managed, sometimes just as painfully as in the previous case, and in the completely rational interest of the purchaser who has made an investment for a particular result, and the seller who, more often than not, remains at the site as a supplier. In this way, the social structure has undergone the test, thus hastening the belonging to the new culture. Support can then be extremely effective. In this case, it will also be necessary to make people aware of the cultural differences they can expect between yesterday and tomorrow. It will therefore be necessary to prepare those who are bought out to be mindful of the new do’s and don’ts associated with the purchaser’s culture. To understand, accept and learn to co-exist, without exasperation or suffering.
All that we have just described has nothing to do with pious wishes of utopian intellectuals in their courtrooms. It is extremely important to note that, in France today, large industrial groups have recognized the value and importance of such measures and have put them into practice. It is time for many others to follow their lead, and for the public authorities to understand that a real and in-depth social cohesion approach exists, the only true answer to the all-too-familiar social divide, and that it is not necessarily limited to economic redistribution.



The viewpoint of the lawyer specializing in labor law

The reorganizations and restructuring measures implemented at a number of companies and groups do not always produce the expected results, speaking also in strictly financial terms. Cultural explanations are increasingly high on the list of causes of these failures. Disregard for companies’ cultural foundations creates problems that can impede change. The legal field then becomes one of the favored battlegrounds of employees’ resistance to the project. Legal strategies involving systematic obstructions are implemented in a way that may at first appear irrational, but which are based on logic whose origins are generally cultural. For example, we have observed a work committee’s refusal to give an opinion on a project involving the introduction of new computer technologies, thus resulting in no loss of jobs, even though the entire staff recognized the importance and even the urgency of such a project. Still, the staff’s representatives, backed by the employees, filed more lawsuits in court. The real cause of this reaction stemmed from the fact that the project had been designed according to preparation methods and formulated in terms that were totally inconsistent with the company’s culture. This case is indicative of a whole series of hidden issues, which factor into most reorganizations. If the cultural aspect seemed so obvious in this case, it is because it was presented within the context of a change that did not question any of the elements normally considered as a source of conflict, such as layoffs, salaries or work time. Rejection of the project could not be explained according to the usual causes. However, in many large-scale reorganizations that give rise to traditional matters of opposition, there are underlying cultural blocks which play a key role. These blocks are the foundation of conflicts; they bolster them and give them meaning. Oftentimes, traditional claims and the lawsuits in which they are presented, if they have their own reasons, also serve to raise questions of another kind. The legal-social conflict then becomes the vehicle through which problems, whose foundations far exceed the conventional legal arena, are exposed. In order to prevent such crises from taking shape, it is important that the legal procedures are not designed and carried out merely on the basis of the company and the proposed changes.

Two main approaches should be avoided: 1. First of all, a mechanistic approach to legal obligations should not be taken. In matters of reorganization, there is no standard procedural model that can be routinely followed. The rules established by the labor code are merely basic requirements that are incorporated into systems developed on a company-by-company and project-by-project basis. The legal procedure must be based on the entity’s specific cultural data in order to be consistent with both the collective and individual discussion and negotiation forums. The rule of law should not be applied in terms that are external to the company, but should instead be adapted to it.

2. It is also important to look beyond the mere economic aspect of the project. It is true that the labor code requires companies to give an economic reason for an entire series of operations. However, it is not necessary to limit the notion of economics simply to the financial fine-tuning of the company’s management. The definition of a project, its content and its limitations also depends on other parameters, including cultural notions. Of course, these are new, complex issues. Moreover, when they are taken into account, there is often a tendency not to want to give them too much attention, and to place more emphasis on arguments, generally of an economic nature, that are considered more appropriate. However, it is essential that all these aspects are specifically included, and even highlighted, when the reasons for the operation are presented. Indeed, getting locked into purely financial explanations often tends to diminish the project’s legitimacy and therefore its legal force. Conversely, reasons founded on a broader vision of the company’s management are likely to constitute an advantage. In this regard, the joint efforts of ACG and the Barthelemy firm allow the cultural and legal data to be synergized, so that change can occur under the most advantageous social and legal conditions. Getting locked into purely financial explanations often tends to diminish the project’s legitimacy and therefore its legal force.