And this is not the preserve of highly educated

Commercial culture, financial culture, culture of cash, corporate culture or "corporate", the word culture is declined at all levels of the company. So far, that has to do with the general culture "Given the prestige afforded him, the company disclaims it all", notes Mohed Altrad, CEO of the Group Altrad scaffolding equipment (2.805 people). "It would however be wrong to think that economic culture and general culture are foreign to the other", continues this pattern, also author of four novels. The reason In times of crisis, when everyone relies on the same techniques and similar patterns of thought, the competitive difference plays on general culture and intelligence of the situations. At the time, multiply outside work knowledge makes more intelligible the complexity of a market, and gives back to understand ethical issues or social relationships difficult. That mediation through classical references historical, literary, philosophical, or gastronomic and oenological, or even by other less Orthodox such as manga, rock music culture or American television series.

Obviously, the great French patterns are not on the same wavelength as the famous Anglo-Saxon columnist, who believes "pleasurable", that a business leader to be cultivated, "insofar as it can have for neighbor table at a dinner". Of Michel Pébereau to Bertrand Collomb Anne Lauvergeon and Denis Kessler, many of them are important to the mediation of the culture to better decipher the economic environment. And this is not the preserve of highly educated. Without specific initial training, Serge Papin, the CEO of system U, now cites René Char in interviews, and Revels of the reading of "Confessions" of saint-augustin. For his own pleasure, but also to better compete with Leclerc and its surdiplômé President.

Out of the professional framework

Course, in the business community, priority is given to the enhancement of technical knowledge, accompanied by rapid profitability requirements. But since "tools do not solve everything, and that it is situations for which there is no tools", said sociologist Jean-Pierre Le Goff, managerial slogans regularly invite managers and employees to "get out of the framework" professional. "The general culture is an element of decoding, decryption, understanding and analysis: their environment Gaffiot!" insists Jean-Luc Placet, Chairman of the cabinet IHRD and member of the Executive Board of the Medef. Even in their daily work, a growing number of professionals earn to display a personality balanced between technical expertise and personal interests. Here, it is a Director of division that multiplies the references to the comic strip. A déveine for those in his team, who have read Hergé Franquin, but assured complicity with his superior hierarchical, must like him. There is a business manager who wins big contract after a discussion passionate on René Girard. "These are roundtrips each of whom made his honey, with a positive towards the company return if known to manage them," explains Jacques Chaize, President of Danfoss Water Controls (the heating industry) and the progress of the management Association. Break the ice with a good word, dampen a situation to move of literary references, or share a passion for rugby with a client is more and more pay. "My passion for the wine helps me to make new contacts," confirms Olivier de Cointet, principal at Booz & Company, and President of Pluris vintages, a European club of wine lovers.

Problem: by modesty, for fear of serve their professional image or, without the necessary culture, leaders, managers, or simple employees still remain many limit their reasoning to the only technical aspects. "Compensate for a lack of curiosity is always difficult," recognizes Jacky Lintignat, General Manager of KPMG, an Office audit and Council which proposes "opening modules" to its high potential mostly graduates of schools to not allow retreating in a role of "accounting supertechniciens. Nevertheless. Cultural levels decrease, according to many, and this phenomenon savings not the company. Appreciated for their international openness and their perfect mastery of the computer and multimedia tools, graduates would display "of gaps considerable artistic, historical, religious or political matters including good frameworks", by Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Board of AXA. But not only young people. The world does not follow the leader, which draws in the literature of the 19th century to describe certain human behaviors. The more one goes up in the hierarchy, most issues focus on the meaning and the relational.

Bonus curiosity

"Seek to promote the general culture in business should however not be an excuse to reproduce a social and cultural world that belongs to a generation or a specific layer of society", warns Frédéric Mion, Secretary General of the Canal group. This 12November, enarque and Princeton Graduate (United States), a defined general culture of too limited would a character "frozen, harmful, deleterious. "It fossiliserait ways of thinking rather than encourage curiosity". If it is not question to submit to the taste of the day the humanities in the 1950s, premium must be given to adaptive capacity and curiosity. The Internet, well used, can help. It must both allow Facebook, inform Indian caste of the Marwari is born Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, or can be viewed an array of Vermeer or Rothko. Companies are also Eugénie Vegleris, a consultant philosopher, Culture & meaning society or Barbara Albasio, in Sensi, to activate the intellectual curiosity and creativity of employees. The detour: art, in particular, is by far the most popular. "The leaders should be stimulate by contemporary art to see and identify what is happening." "Because, whatever the time, art remains the main transmitter of weak signals from the environment", provides Hélène Mugnier, consultant Art & Management. If the time to promote the general culture to the rank of enterprise value has not yet come (Altrad group however has a Charter of original company), the business community have still to win to book a Honourable rank this value named "spirit", often facing down and dear to Paul Valéry.