I’m Michelin: making every individual matter (with Florent Menegaux)

Thank you very much, Philippe. Thank you all for listening.

I'm the second of four brothers. My father worked at IBM launching the personal computer against Apple. My mother specialized in art and museums. Both were highly educated and pressured us to succeed at school. I'm one year younger than my older brother, then a brother five years younger, and a sister nine years younger. I lived in Paris, a real Parisian. I had a lot of responsibility early on, cooking for my brothers while my parents traveled. I liked being responsible. I studied finance but was more interested in making things happen. I knew I would make a difference in business working with people, and I liked leadership and transformation.

Not at all. I was always curious, never satisfied until I understand how things work. I like building things manually. For example, on retirement I'd like to make very good bread, a nice baguette.

At PwC, I specialized in options, swaps, derivatives when they were introduced in France. I became an expert in implementing these systems in banks.

I became frustrated because everything was notional and conceptual. I needed something tangible. Also as a consultant, I had great ideas but people said 'in real life it's different.' So I wanted to face real life.

Actually, I was fired from my previous job at Excel Logistics. I was transforming heavily and had issues with my boss. He said I wasn't feared by my people. I said I don't want to manage by fear. So he fired me. That was a big moment. I realized that to transform an organization, you have to be inside it, so I had to make some compromises. I started to define my red lines: compromise up to that limit, but not beyond.

First, listen to the other, process it, show empathy. The other may see things from a different angle. Only after that can you decide if it's acceptable. That became clear when I was 30-32 with a family. I felt responsible, not guilty. I had more at stake. I got a professional coach who told me to meet some people. When I knew it was Michelin, I thought it was nonsense—I'm not an engineer, I know nothing about tires. But I went through the process and met extraordinary people. There was a disconnect between my perception and the passionate, happy people I met. I joined for a year or two to see, and it's been 28 years.

I went through the same process. He asked me to write two sheets: one with three columns—what I know, my know-how, and how I help people; the second with what I like and don't like. It was a very interesting moment to write it down and think about it.

Absolutely. The two brothers: one painter, one engineer. The painter became the industrialist, the engineer the marketing man. They were geniuses, activating collective intelligence. Their first conviction: it's all about people. Second: they were very interested in innovating. They participated in the automotive adventure, then aircraft, trains, cars. They invented modern marketing: maps, road signage, promotions. The company started with five people, ambition to conquer the world. They communicated by letters and were on the same wavelength.

The first real plant was in 1905. In 1908 they started a plant in Argentina. The first innovation was the dismountable, easily repairable tire. They were convinced that putting people and looking at the world differently drives innovation. They were interested in solving issues, not just manufacturing.

Absolutely. At the beginning, there were four values: respect for people, customers, environment (including communities), and facts. We later added respect for shareholders. These values are still profound. Caring about people makes sense because a corporation is a set of people who agree to do something together. If you care about your people, they take care of the rest. In a plant near Clermont, workers wrote: 'The manager takes care of us, we take care of the rest.' That's the heart of empowerment. The brothers said with people like that, we can go everywhere. They sent teams to Vietnam, Argentina at the early 20th century with no communication, and they had to be empowered. You cannot empower if you don't care.

I've never had a career in mind. I was only interested in making things happen. I've never been satisfied, always willing to transform because the world is the way we shape it. I always think humans can reshape the world. The more you activate people around you, the more you can reshape. So I decided to take responsibility to have access to more power, not for me, but to have a bigger impact.

In every job, I changed almost everything. When I joined Michelin, I was sent to the UK, which was in bad shape. I met great people, motivated them, and we transformed it. Then I was sent to North America for truck tires, which was loss-making. I formed the team, reorganized, changed their frame of reference, instilled pride. I said, 'You have the best product in the world, be proud.' I brought them to the plants and research to appreciate the craft. We transformed North America, then South America, Africa/Middle East, Europe, and then I had the world for passenger car. Michel Rollier, the successor of Édouard Michelin, told me, 'I give you half the group. This thing has never created value in its entire history. It's too big to sell, but I don't know what to do with it. Figure it out.' And now it's the best-performing division. I'm an agent of transformation because I'm never satisfied. I always look at people's potential and want them to feel pride and urgency. What I like most is seeing the spark in the eyes of people who have success. I work with teams to challenge themselves. I've made many mistakes and failures, learned a lot about myself and my impact. I've been coached a lot because I was turbulent. Back to the lesson from being fired: I told my manager, 'Help me, there are things I don't understand, I'm not able to manage.'

Putting me in the hands of a coach that helped me. I've been coached six or seven times.

Not directly now, but just before taking the CEO role, I had a coach to prepare myself for that. After I was appointed, I pursued that coaching relationship for three years. But I also decided to first coach the top 600 of our management at Michelin, and also to coach the Executive Committee as a team. So we have a coach for collective coaching of the Executive Committee.

Absolutely. I become a little bit better now than I used to be, of course. And I've learned, for example, that the best management you can have is by listening. Yeah, by actively listening to the other one. First, because it helps the other one to realize that if somebody is listening to them, they don't have to shout, they just have to be clear about what they expect, what they want to be precise. So every time you put yourself in a listening position, you help the other one to shape what they have to say.

Yes. So it all started with relooking at what we are doing. And we asked ourselves a very simple question: what is a tire? For our listeners, if I were to ask you what is a tire and give me a definition without using the word tire, it would become very difficult. And it was very difficult for me. It took me several months to put a definition of what a tire is if you don't use the word tire. A tire is a critical composite that changes life. And then when I said, okay, now when I use this definition, tires are very nice, beautiful composites, but there are many other things that would activate the same know-how, same materials, same knowledge, etc., but very different market applications. That's how we came and said: we are not a tire manufacturer, we are building the world leader in life-changing composites and experiences.