Christian: Hi, this is Christian and today is a very special episode, it's the first one from CoA France. Today, Head of CoA France, Jean-François Caillard, interviews Blaise Agresti, Mountain guide and former Operational Officer specialized in mountain rescue and crisis management. He's also the founder of Mountain Path, but just all about learning from altitude. Enjoy!  #00:00:53-4#

Jean-François: Hello, we are thrilled to welcome Blaise Agresti today! Blaise Agresti, you have an incredible curriculum, you are founder and managing partner of the unit consultancy Mountain Path and a former colonel and head of the Mont Blanc rescue team in Germany. You are a father of four. Would you introduce yourself briefly?  #00:01:16-6#

Blaise Agresti: Yes, hello everybody. So, I'm very happy to share with you some ideas about the mountains and all guys and (unv. bei #00:01:25-2#) just adapt themselves. So, I born in Nice, so in the Mediterranean sea, and then I was clearly to be on my life in the environment of the mountain. Because my father was a mountain guide and my mother was the highest woman is a world in 1966, so she climbed a (unv. bei   #00:01:52-7#) which is the highest mountain in (unv. bei #00:01:57-2#). So, I had this background in my childhood of being in the mountain for my whole life. And I climbed it, I was very young, and we lived in U.S., we lived in different places, abroad. So, I just had this deep learning in my childhood with my parents about mountaineering. And then I chose a military career, and I was at a military academy in (unv. bei #00:02:27-2#). And for my first duty, I was head of this mountain rescue team in Germany. So, it was a (unv. bei #00:02:37-1#) in French, (unv. bei #00:02:40-1#) platoon. High mountain Germany platoon. And I lead this unit for four years, then I was head of the national training school for mountain rescue for two times. And I was head of all the units in France for six years. So, I had this chance to be an expert in the (unv. bei #00:03:03-2#) for more than 15 years. And then I moved to the corporate world as head of sales director for PETZL, which is a outdoor company. And then I create Mountain Path, so three years ago.  #00:03:22-0#

Jean-François: Thank you very much. Chief of Anything is about leadership, and you have a great experience in this field. You have been leading high-level teams when you were very young in the position. The managing mode of a rescue team is very special. And what learning can you share about this? How do you lead like a guide?  #00:03:46-8#

Blaise Agresti: So, it was strange for me because when I was head of first mountain rescue platoon in Germany, I was the youngest guy in the unit. So it's not very easy to lead when you are the youngest and with the lowest experience in the mountain rescue. Even if I had this mountaineering experience from my parents my childhood, but in fact, you are not able to lead as we are usually, we think this unit are leading. We think that in the military unity, you have a chief, you have some deputy commander around the chief and then you have some chief of operation on the ground. And there is a kind of vertical leadership. And in fact, it's totally the opposite. In this unit, the decision are taken on the ground by the chief of operation and the rescuer and the pilot and the doctor. So you have ground cell of facing the risk and facing the event. And you have to start the story and with this idea that decision always start from the ground, started from the ground and starts from the ground. And in the corporate world, sometime we forget this basic idea, which is we think that decisions start from the steering committee leader. And in fact, when you face uncertainty like we are facing from the Covid period, in fact, for the longest one, we have to stay connected to the ground, as this is one really important lesson we can take from the guide world or the rescuer environment.  (unv. bei #00:05:43-0#) one idea. The other one: You start always your decision making process with a glance over the risk. You always look at the risk to start the story. And when we talk about efficiency, if you just look at performance of the team without any concern about risk, you take a real high risk for your organization. So, starting from the ground, starting with the risk, it's always the way that guides and rescuers start to take decision. So I don't know if after that if you want to go deeper on this idea, but we can start with these two points.  #00:06:27-1#

Jean-François: This is very good, very good. Let's go ahead.  #00:06:31-0#

Blaise Agresti: So, if I want to add over this two first ideas, the third one for me is (...) Or you build, also in French, I say "consensus", or you walk with your team to take the opinion of each member of the team and then to build in a collegial mode the right decision. Because when you face complexity, when you face uncertainty, you need to several opinion. According to cognitive bias, all the way that we transform the information process, we need to have several opinion around the table. And when you build the decision into mountain rescue team, we always start by the youngest guy without any responsibility. Then you had the pilot, the doctor and the different (...) We have different steps. And the chief will finish the process, just in a validation mode. You will never see a chief of operation or a chief of unit taking himself the decision. If he proceed like that, he will fail. It's absolutely obvious in (unv. bei #00:08:00-5#) environment. So, you use this process to build, what I call the "true consensus". And the process to build this true consensus, is the way that you never start the process by the opinion of the chief. And when we observe in the same way the corporate world when we look at (unv. bei #00:08:23-6#) for steering committee (unv. bei #00:08:25-2#), we observe that regularly the chief, the CEO of the company, will start to explain his opinion in the first position. And it's a big mistake if you want to open the mind of your steering committee and if you want to have the right opinion of each member of the steering committee. The CEO will have not to start to open the process of to build this true consensus. You will have to finish the process. And it's a very important step, I discover in this modern risk unit. If you start as a youngest guy of the unit and you are the boss and you start to talk at first, when you are in the decision making process. Of course, the oldest guy of the unit, very experienced, will just say: "Okay, why you talk first? It's not your place. You have to wait for the opinion of each member of the crew, of the team. And then you will finish by your observation or your validation." And that's a big piece of (unv. bei #00:09:45-7#) where we talk about leadership and uncertainty, it's a very important piece for me. The last, perhaps less idea, I can share at this moment, it's perhaps when we talk about "Lead like a guide". A guide compared to a mountain rescue risk team is alone. He has to do exactly the same process but is alone. And of course, you need to take in your mind that you always start the process to take a decision as a mountain guide with another piece which is ambition. What is exactly the place that you will let to the power of intuition? Because you're not able as a human, as a rational human, to take your decision only with rational input, it's not possible. So, all we managed to let the door open to intuition, I think it's a very important question when we are talking about mountaineering and such activities.  #00:10:57-1#

Jean-François: Thank you, Blaise. Mountain is a lot of preparation. What learning for corporate leaders preparing a strategic plan, for instance, what would you advise them at Mountain Path?  #00:11:20-2#

Blaise Agresti: When we talk about corporate (unv. bei #00:11:25-2#) and strategy, we just do the parallel with when we climb the mountain. All we can succeed to climb the mountain. And we have just a couple of questions to answer. And the first one is, what summit I will choose with my team. And if you are not able to answer this question: What is the summit I can propose to my team? As a performance, as a human and social and environmental goal. I would not propose a real project to my team. And it's not necessary to start, because if you don't have this element of what kind of summit I want to achieve, it's not necessary to start the story. So, we always say: To succeed/to climb something, you have to decide what kind of summit you want to climb. And when you will look at the cooperate world or company at this time, just in the middle of the Covid crisis, we have to just look at this question. Because the goal and all the things we want to achieve before Covid crisis, today are just totally different. So we have to think again about this question of what kind of summit I can propose to my team, to my partners, to my (unv. bei #00:12:58-0#). After that, when you have defined this summit, you have also to define the way that you will lead the leadership process. Do I want to preserve my decision to let some initiatives, to let people take their own decision? So, I can distribute my leadership. So this is the step two after the summit: Do I want a model of leadership which is totally traditional, hierarchical model? Do I want to distribute my leadership? And if I want to distribute, I need to precise the rule and the way that people will take their own responsibility. So it is step two for me. When we went to succeed the project in a corporate world. After the summit, is a way that we distribute and reorganize leadership and the decision making process. When we have done this step two, we need to look at the ways that we will implement the decision. Or we can succeed. When I took a decision, okay, or someone in my organization take a decision or we will implement and succeed to implement this decision. So it's a step two of the success or I implement my decision. Step four, it's a very simple idea. It's how I manage my resources. And when I'm talking about resources, I'm talking about skills, knowledge, abilities. But I'm talking about energy also, the way that we manage time. So it's all the resources to achieve the summit. And if we compare to the backpack of the guide: What are the resources I need to put in my backpack to succeed? And I need some skills, I need some energy, I need some food, I need some logistics. Better so, I need some way of managing my time. Because, of course, at this period of crisis issue, we are not able to manage time, will often fail in the way to manage performance. And the last piece is: Or I build the confidence in my team. So if we are good enough, to precise a summit, to define the way that we take decision, the way that we will implement our decision. So we that we will manage our resources and the way that we built the confidence, we are in right ways to succeed, whatever is the topic. Also, the field of aerial company, it's something - I call that - essentials of success.  #00:15:59-5#

Jean-François: Great! At Mountain Pass, you are teaching crisis management and most leaders have experiences during the Covid crisis. What do you advise them to prepare to the next crisis?  #00:16:15-7#

Blaise Agresti: It's a very important question. I think we put aside a crisis management mode, because we are a little afraid about crisis. So it's very hard to prepare crisis in company, because we think that it will never happen. We hope and we believe that it would never happen. And in fact, it happens regularly. So my advice is very basic: Of course, you need to have the mountain modern of the different step of a crisis. So, this is very basic thing, I can explain in very short way: When you start a crisis, there's always some weak signals before the crisis happen. And when you need to organize a way that you will kept and the data of this weak signals before the crisis, and you need to take some preventive measures to start. This is a step one. Step two: The crisis happened, so you need to take emergency measure and it's better to have some ideas of what kind of emergency measure I can take when I face a cyber-attack, when I face social crisis inside my company or whatever. So emergency measures could be prepared with different scenery inside a company. Then you need step three: To organize your command and control. We talk about crisis cell. So you need to understand the different aspect of the success of a crisis cell, the right organizations and main missions, the way that you will manage the information and the communication. So it's step three. Step four, it's always, when we face a crisis, we have to avoid to put 100% of our resources on the crisis. You need always to preserve some reserve. We talk about continuity of the activity, but you need to prepare a resource not dedicated for the crisis only, but for different (...) As a mission to preserve company, its business, its partners, its clients and so on. So you need to preserve your continuity of activities, step four. And the last piece of this mountain model to manage a crisis, and for me it's most important part, it's step five: Step five is to define the key factor of success to finish, to end the crisis and to succeed to manage the crisis. And it's exactly the function goal anticipation. We need constipate the key factor of success of a crisis, even when we start the crisis. And it's the hardest job ever as a crisis manager to do. And we can observe that even the government had some difficulties to define the key factor of success of Covid crisis, it's very difficult to do that. But in fact, we need to concentrate our best element of the company on this function we call anticipation to define the key factor of success. If you've this key factor of success in mind as a CEO of the company, as leader, of course, it will be really easier to drive the different action to achieve this key factor of success. So it's step five, when we talk about crisis management, that is for me the most important part.  #00:20:06-0#

Jean-François: Great. Leaders in 2021 and onwards must accept as a permanent risk and still show a lot of perseverance. Does mountain teaches you when you messed up and until when you must be perseverant? How you feel this as a leader and as guide?  #00:20:32-6#

Blaise Agresti: It's the hardest question. And I can say that, of course, it's very easy to talk about that. But it's harder to do it on the ground. When we stop, when we to turn back to the valley with our client, because there are some clouds, and some lightnings or perhaps just some people tired in the rope team. "When I have to turn back?" is always a very important question for our mountain guide. And so when I was talking about intuition, we need really to listen deeply, all the piece of energy we have around us. Because if you sometimes you think that it's not possible, but you will do it, you will persevere, you will move up to the mountain even if there are some clouds and lightnings or some part of your team a little tired. But you have to have this perception of this energy of the group, the ability to face, and then you will take your decision. But it's something very tricky and not so easy to take. I've done some mistake in my experience as guide, some time I thought that it was possible to move up and it was not exactly the case. It was hard to manage after that. And some time I take the decision to turn back, to go down to the valley, and it was probably a mistake, because I underevaluate the situation the ability of the team to face. So, what I can just say for me on this question: We have to put away all the belief we have. As a belief about the power of the summit, the attraction of the summit, you have to take away this idea of obsession of achieving something. So it's very important to put away this belief, to put away the overestimation of the risk and the underestimation of the risk. So it's two things, really difficult to evaluate. And then to let the place of your ambition, your deep ambition, to say "Okay, can I do that with my team/with my rope team/with my corporate environment? Are we able to do that?" And you to try to find this feeling, this deep feeling, inside your body, your mind and say "Okay, let's do it, it's possible." And if I have this feeling, we can try. If I don't have this deep feeling, I think it's better to turn back and to go down to the valley.  #00:23:31-7#

Jean-François: Thank you. So, today there is a lot of uncertainty in the corporate environment for all companies. And this uncertainty of course also exists in mountains. Do you think that uncertainty is a new normal for today's leaders?  #00:23:59-9#

Blaise Agresti: So, it's (...) A couple of weeks ago, I would answer "Yes" to your question, but today I will answer "No". Why? Because I put some title of some conference I did a couple of days ago, exactly like that. It was "How we can uncertainty into a new normal", it was my title of my conference, just a couple of weeks. But in fact, it's a paradox. Uncertainty is the opposite of the normal. It's another environment, I need to think differently, I need a different mindset to face and uncertainty. And if I put the word "Normal", I try to put this uncertainty in the normal box, which is: I need process, I need some new skills to face this as kind of project management. And in fact, no, if we start to move our mindset from the ability to adapt ourselves to uncertainty, to something, which is a new normal, we will be not ready to face the real uncertainty. So uncertainty, if we want to talk about this topic, to face uncertainty, we need three things: We need to have a strong team. We need to have a strong confidence inside your team. We need to have the strong function of anticipation, so it's corporation, anticipation. And to find some new way, some new path, to find new solution which is innovation. So when we talk about uncertainty, it's not the way that we can transform uncertainty into a new normal, but it's to understand the essentials to face uncertainty which are corporation, anticipation and innovation. If we succeed to have in your team's history abilities, of course, we will face uncertainty. And we have just to be afraid and to take care about the fact to consider uncertainty as a new normal. Uncertainty to something we need to have a real open mindset to face complexity with diversity with some diverse opinions. So it's totally the opposite of normal.  #00:26:43-7#

Jean-François: Thank you very much, Blaise. It was a fascinating podcast. We see, that in the mountain environment, intuition, trust, empowerment, adaptability take a great role in your leadership. And that's great lessons for today's leaders. And I hope we will have opportunities to continue this conversation during other sessions.  #00:27:10-7#

Blaise Agresti: Yes, thank you, Jean-François, thank you. And goodbye,  (unv. bei  #00:27:15-9#), see you in the mountain.

Blaise Agresti: [ENDE]