Paul from Paris

Now that the French national team failed to defeat the South African team by more than five goals, I’d like to share three management lessons the French team taught me:

Don’t count on magic

Fans will tell you: the French team’s performance has been mediocre or disappointing, ever since the 2006 World Cup (when Zinedine Zidane bid adieu to the field with a head butt to an adversary).

The team qualified for the 2010 World Cup thanks to rules changes (that enlarged the pool of contenders) and contestable refereeing (in a qualification victory over Ireland, where officials missed apparent off-side play or the decisive role played by Thierry Henry’s hand).

Whether from hubris or blindness, the French team acted as if it had a place and a prospect in the 2010 World Cup, when it did not. Fans and commentators spun all sorts of stories about how the team would “gel” or “awaken” or “come into its own”. This didn’t happen.

In business as in sport, don’t count on magic.

Communication never stops

An enduring foreign stereotype holds French people out to be haughty, arrogant, and vain.

The behavior of the French team, especially in South Africa, illustrated this stereotype well.

The team spent most of their time in South Africa barricaded in a luxury compound, a five-star hotel rented out for the occasion, complete with its own training field.

The press and fans were not invited; South African police kept them far away.

The message clear sent: indifference, even disdain.

The members of the French team are football professionals. Their technical skills are beyond reproach. They are accustomed to being in the public light. They are used to being part of a team. Part of their job is to show enthusiasm for their work –which many fans experience, vicariously, as play– and to acknowledge that their sportsmanship is worth watching.

This can’t happen if the team is sequestered.

French junior minister for sport Rama Yade –energetic, young, female, black– questioned whether it was really in the team’s best interest to spend so much money on splendid isolation is South Africa. Simply asking the question provoked the team’s anger and a retort about the cost of Rade’s own South African room. These guys really couldn’t take a friendly hint.

The team became even more prickly and aloof when one player’s reported locker-room comments snowballed into a national scandal.

The message was clear: this team preferred to be left alone, out of sight. This is a problem if you’re wearing the national colors.

It’s silly never to acknowledge mistakes

Raymond Domenech, the French team’s manager, makes a fine case study of a bad French habit: never admitting a mistake or misstep, no matter how inconsequential.

Domenech’s mistakes arguably were many. When interviewed, he said as much, then refused to tell the public what those mistakes might have been: “that’s for me”.

Did this make Domenech noble, or brave, or stoic? No, in the eyes of French fans he only looked small. On his better days, he looked like a man marching to the gallows.

As a candidate, I interview poorly. This I’ll freely concede. But after having conducted many interviews, in academia and in business, I’ve developed a sense of what makes a good impression, and what doesn’t. Here are nine points that I would like candidates to keep in mind:

1. Present yourself in the best possible light with information and data: explain, don’t assert.
2. Lead with your strengths, not your weaknesses. Lead with recent accomplishments, not history from long ago.
3. An interviewer is more interested in what you have done than where you have worked or gone to school. These facts can make a good impression on your CV, not in an interview. Apart from your excellent school and excellent employer, what excellent things have you done?
4. Being in the top of your class is a reason not to reject you (to say no); it’s not really a reason to admit you or to offer you a job (to say yes).
5. Be generous with information on study abroad. I want to know: where? for how long? as an auditor or observer? in a program for foreigners? in a degree program? There is not a right answer, but an interview gives you an opportunity to provide much more detailed information than your CV.
6. If a job was routine, describe how it mattered to you. What did you learn?
7. If you say, “I want to do X”, don’t follow up with, “but I’d accept to do Y”. This undercuts your motivation for X. You can either focus on one thing, or try out several things. Avoid sending mixed signals.
8. “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer.
9. Why mention interests on a CV or in an interview? The rationale seems to be a bias in favored of well-rounded people. Being truly well-rounded means that you are good at a few things. Maybe you aren’t; it should be OK to say, “I like math, and I’m really good at it” (as demonstrated by papers and prizes and accomplishments) without also having to justify athletic prowess or humanitarian zeal. If you list interests on your CV, they should be current (a swimming medal won at age 10 probably should not influence a hiring decision) and demonstrate personal investment and implication.

Après avoir participé pendant des années aux jurys d’admission et de recrutement, voici quatre conseils à l’attention de mes étudiants :

1. Ne pas devenir un candidat professionnel ; le CV est un moyen, pas une fin. Tout CV peut être analysé, décortiqué, critiqué, perfectionné. Son objet est de présenter le candidat de manière succincte et de donner envie à son lecteur de l’interviewer (voire de lui faire une proposition). Le CV est un outil de sélection, de qualification. Chercher la perfection à travers un CV est un leurre et une perte de temps.
2. Au lieu de présenter beaucoup d’informations, privilégier plutôt la bonne présentation de quelques informations. L’entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki préconise une règle 1/2/3 : une page, deux points clés (dont le lecteur devrait se souvenir pour se rappeler de vous), trois parties. Trop d’information tue l’information.
3. L’ordre chronologique inverse. Ce que vous faîtes maintenant est autrement plus déterminant que votre situation d’il y a cinq ans.
4. Ne fabulez pas, n’inventez pas. Vous vous sentez obligé d’inventer ou d’exagérer afin de vous aligner sur d’hypothétiques attentes ? Vous ne vous sentez pas à la hauteur du recruteur tel que vous êtes ? Pourquoi ? Si vous méritez d’être sélectionné (c’est-à-dire, invité pour passer un entretien), pourquoi mettre en péril votre crédibilité ? Si vous pensez ne pas être à la hauteur, pourquoi postuler ? En cas d’une sélection chanceuse, qu’est-ce qui vous permet d’espérer une réussite future ? Si vous estimez souffrir de lacunes, comment pensez-vous les combler ? Comment une lettre d’admission ou un offre d’emploi peut-elle vous apporter des qualités que vous estimez manquer ?

Christine Boutin

Christine Boutin, a conservative politician best known for opposition to gay marriage and interest in prisons, lost her job as minister for housing and urban affairs; she had previously lost her seat in parliament.

Despite inactivity, Boutin suffered no hardship. Boutin remained a county representative (conseiller général), paid € 2,605 per month. A pension from the national assembly brought her an additional € 6,000 per month.

Boutin made the news last week when it was reported that president Sarkozy had entrusted her with a mission: to formulate proposals on the social consequences of globalization, in time for the G20 meeting later this year.

To carry out this mission, Boutin benefits from a chauffeured car; offices in Paris; secretarial assistance; the services of four staffers (all of whom, judging from salary, are quite senior, as they earn between € 4,740.67 and € 6,000 per month); and a monthly remuneration of € 9,500 (reportedly net of social security and related payroll taxes). This seems to be a very generous pay package for very easy work, so Boutin’s package made the news.

Unfortunately, Boutin seems not to have an advocate –a friend, an ally, a confederate– who could answer the media by rhetorically asking, “Since when do we debate the merits of what people earn?” or by stating impetuously, “Good work, if you can get it.”

Boutin instead spoke out on her own behalf. She made a few missteps:

• First, she clarified that her mission was real, as opposed to a no-show job.
• Second, she claimed that she had no say or choice in the remuneration, that the €9,500 monthly emolument resulted from a bureaucratic calculus that took account of seniority and what other highly qualified people would be paid.
• Third, she spoke down to the people she serves, claiming, “I’ve heard French people who have little wages who, today, cannot understand that there’d be a political leader who has a cash inflow of about 18,000 euros.” (emphasis added)
• Finally, Boutin declared that she would waive “my 9,500 euros”. (emphasis added)

France enjoys a long and honorable tradition of civil service. One would think that (semi-) retired elected officials would accept sine pecunia the leadership of a mission to advise the president.

In France today, the school calendar sets the back beat to which life goes on, for everybody.

More than the calendar or holidays (be they religious or secular), the school calendar provides a rhythm familiar and comforting to all.

In France, the school year ends with a bang: the baccalauréat examination, administered to all students in their final year of secondary school. For these teens, the baccalauréat marks the end of secondary school and opens the door to higher education.

The baccalauréat has long been a rite of passage, but today increasingly is a right of passage: as success rates reach 80%, the baccalauréat is less a wall to climb than a hoop to jump through.

There exist many kinds of baccalauréats. The one in the public eye is the general baccalauréat, intended for students who plan to go on to higher education next year. It starts with a bang: the philosophy test. This attracts much attention from the media and ordinary folk. The philosophy questions put to students this year (which they have to answer in four hours) are (all translations mine):

• Does happiness depend on us?
• Can art do without rules?
• Can the search for truth be disinterested?
• Must we forget the past to have a future?
• Can a scientific truth be dangerous?
• Is it the historian’s role to judge?

Students choose between two questions; I’ve grouped the choices offered to different groups of students.

I’ve long admired the high-mindedness of the philosophy test, and the expectation that teens can respond to the questions presented with reasoned argument.