Old World Wisdom for Modern Leadership w/ Fabrice Desmarescaux

In this episode of Relationships at Work, host Russel Lolacher welcomes Fabrice Desmarescaux — McKinsey partner, leadership advisor, and author of The Art of Retreats — to explore how ancient wisdom can help solve very modern leadership challenges.

Fabrice draws from a range of traditions, from Eastern philosophies like Taoism and Buddhism to Western teachings and monastic practices, to show how leaders can reconnect with purpose, presence, and clarity in a fast-paced, performance-driven world.

💬 Topics discussed include:

• Why short-term thinking is eroding leadership impact
• How retreats create space for connection and insight
• The role of mindfulness, reflection, and solitude in leadership
• Applying ancient principles without bringing religion into the workplace
• A simple mindset check that can shift any leadership interaction

🗣️ “Everything I write about in the book is, as I said, 2000 or 3000 years old for the most part.” – Fabrice Desmarescaux

Whether you're leading a team or leading yourself, this episode offers a grounded, universal lens to rethink how we show up at work.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: On the show today, we have Fabrice Desmarescaux and here is why he is awesome. Besides the fact he's giving me the evil eye if I mispronounce his name wrong again, I'm trying man. He is a partner and practice leader at McKinsey and Company and through them an Aberkyn hub leader for Southeast Asia, which works to expand consciousness with leaders to be a force for good in our world.

Wow, I've got some questions. He's also the author of The Art of Retreats, A Leader's Journey toward Clarity, Balance, and Purpose. And today we're gonna dig into old world wisdom that we leaders can take into the new world of work. This should be interesting. Hello Fabrice.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Hello. Good morning or good afternoon for you, I guess.

Russel Lolacher: Yes. Yeah, we're yeah. Getting to be that way. Before we get into how we can look at the world a little differently by learning from what has happened before and, and different ways of thinking. I have to ask the question I ask all of my guests, Fabrice, sorry, you're not off the hook. It is, what is your best or worst employee experience?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: I'll tell you about my best employee experience. About 12 years ago, I studied a consulting firm with two partners, and we grew it nicely to serve clients in the region. That, for me, was the best experience. Now, I'm not sure I was an employee because I was a founder of a company and, and a, and a partner.

But it going to work knowing that you are in a safe environment. Mm-hmm. That your partners, your colleagues, have the same motivation that you have to, to do well for the clients, to do well for each other. And knowing that, you know, I could make mistakes, I could be myself, that was by far the best experience I've had, and we run this company successfully. We eventually sold it, and when I retired, I sold my remaining shares to my, to my partners. But that, that was a fantastic experience. And, and we, you know, we all had the same corporate experience. We all had worked in various professional services firms. Some excellent some, some less good. But we all wanted to have these small family feeling of really trying to do well by each other. Which was a very big difference compared to what I see around me in in the corporate world sometimes.

Russel Lolacher: And I'm hoping that this was intentional and not just a happy accident. I mean, you're building the environment as a founder of this organization that's going out and doing a thing.

You're setting the tone. What, what did you do to create an environment that was like that for you?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: You're absolutely right. So it was by design and not by accident. Obviously, reality was slightly different than what we had imagined. Companies have a life of their own, and, and cultures have a life of their own that you cannot predict.

But we, we, we started by doing two things. Number one is we wanted. People to be able to grow on the job. And so we had a, a continuum of, of roles and experiences for the people we would hire. We would hire typically young people in their mid twenties to, to early thirties. And, and over time we would apprentice them so that they could grow and potentially become senior employees and potentially partners of, of the firm. So that, that was one view as opposed to say, well, we pigeonhole you in this role and then when we need to hire someone more senior, we hire from the outside. So not we, we had to do it occasionally, but, but mostly we were trying to do apprenticeship and developing people.

So that's one. And that's a technique that I had learned in the, in the old days during my first stint at McKinsey. McKinsey is very much about promoting people from within and developing leaders from within. The second thing is that we put a lot of emphasis on working together, which is not a given in a lot of professional services firms because at the end of the day, people are their own bosses and producers.

And so they have to, to take care of themselves before they take care of others. And we turn the system upside down and we say, you cannot be successful in this firm unless you work in teams and you take care of others. And, and there was a perfect client justification for that. Clients preferred to be served by a team than by a single individual.

There's more diversity, better ideas, more, more, more continuity if someone is on holidays or sick or leaves the firm, et cetera. And so we created a team environment. And, and that made a whole difference because suddenly you are no longer as good as your last month or your last quarter. And, and you are on your own and you have to, to fight.

And, and, and as we know, sometimes business is good and sometimes it's not good, and you take the whole weight of, of those variations. Whereas in a team environment, the, the, the burden and the joys are shared and, and, and therefore much more pleasant to navigate and, and much more constructive.

Russel Lolacher: One more question to wrap up.

The, I'm super curious because you're building a culture, you're building a, an environment that people want to be in and nurture. But to your earlier point, you were hiring younger, I'm assuming you're trying to hire younger, that people that don't have too much baggage, that have, you know, are, are still bright eyed and bushy tailed as opposed to those that might be a little more jaded or set in their ways.

How are you looking at them to go, you are gonna fit within our culture, or at least we can help you grow within our culture, as opposed to, you know what, you're just not gonna be a right fit. Like what, what was it that you were looking for?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, actually we spent more time when we were recruiting, we would normally spend a lot more time telling our story and, and what we do and, and how we do things because people self-select.

And I think it's very important in a recruitment process to be as transparent as you can to, to say, look, this is, this is our firm. This is what we do. And I would not be shy to say, look, this is what we're good at and this is where we suck.

Russel Lolacher: Right.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: And, and, and let people self-select. Now, of course, occasionally there's people that you don't want to hire and, and that we would do that through extensive referencing.

So we would speak to former employers, former colleagues, et cetera. We would be very thorough in, in taking references. I'm not a big fan of the interviewing process. I think it's a necessary step in any recruitment to meet the candidates face to face and interview them, of course. Right. But that is.

Maybe 20% of the information. There's so many biases that emerge when we interview people. You know, we, we, oh, I like this person, therefore she must be good. Well, the fact that I like her and the fact that she's good are completely uncorrelated. That, and, and the recruitment mistakes I've made and, and my partners have made, and, and, and we, and, and we made a few recruitment mistakes.

Were all based on, I like this person, but we didn't check enough whether this person would had good references and therefore would, would either be a competent professional or would fit well in our type of culture.

Russel Lolacher: I, I love that you highlighted that. I mean, I know I've met people. I'm like, you're an amazing person, I would never want you to lead a team in your life. Like you are great to hang out with and, and shoot ideas around, but you hate conflict or you like so many other reasons that you shouldn't be integrated into a team just purely on my ability of wanting to hang out with you or my interest in hanging out with you.

Thank you for highlighting that. I really like that because people will think, because I like you, you must be a good fit. And those do not equate to each other.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Yeah. Now, I would not turn that into the opposite, like, because I don't like you, I'm gonna hire you.

Russel Lolacher: True, fair.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: I, I'm not here to make my life miserable.

So given the choice, I would rather work with people I like, but the I like you is not a very good criteria, so I would if I don't like the person I would normally pass, but if I like the person, then we would go into thoroughly checking the background, the references, the track record, explaining what we do and how we do it, and see if this person resonates and with, with our way of doing things.

Russel Lolacher: Fair, fair. Thank you for that. Let's get into what we're gonna talk about today. 'cause I'm super curious in looking at that old world wisdom as we defined it when I talked to you last time. I'm curious though, because the, one of the big things I've learned about this show is we have to define things because too many people will throw out terms and then we'll keep talking and they're like, are we on the same page? Are we actually talking about the same thing? So before we get too far, Fabrice, what do you mean when we are talking about old world wisdom, what are you referencing? What are you referring to?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, lemme take a step back. First, what do I do for a living? Because we said, okay, Fabrice leads, you know, as part of the global leadership practice at McKinsey. That sounds all super good, but what is it that we do exactly right?

And so we work very closely with our clients and, and so owners, CEOs, senior executive teams to help them reach higher levels of performance. Now we do that through a number of activities including one-on-one coaching team coaching, retreats teaching occasionally, et cetera. So I think it's important because we are helping our clients ultimately reach higher levels of performance.

Where I'm saying traditional wisdom is important is that there's a trend that I see in the corporate world has been going on for now for, for, for a while where performance justifies everything. Hmm. And so we lose our connection to purpose, of being decent human beings, of appreciating what the long term can bring us without trying to take shortcuts all the time.

Right? I see that pressure to deliver short term results and therefore do anything that is that you can do, and losing perspective of what is good, what is beautiful, what is true as the Greek philosophers would say. And that leads to all kinds of excesses. Now without going into the, the worst cases of corporate greed, et cetera that are well publicized, I think today, if you look at the quality of life in the corporations at large, and that could be for-profit corporations, even nonprofit corporations, governments, state-owned companies, et cetera, it's gone down because the people at the top are under tremendous pressure to deliver short-term results.

Now, that's particularly true for publicly listed corporations, where essentially the cycle is a, is a quarterly, quarterly cycle, right? But it's true everywhere. So to give you an example, I work with two large. Financial institutions both publicly listed, both doing extremely well, so they are producing great results.

But the share price for reasons that we don't need to go into right now, the share price has been beaten down and there's like a, a panic on board to say, oh my God, we need to cut costs. No more travel, no more this, no more that, because the market is not rewarding us for the good results we have.

Now, I can understand that if you're the CEO of one of these corporations and you continue delivering subpar share price, you're probably not gonna get your job, keep your job very long. At the same time, we see now leaders deliberately destroying corporate cultures and putting what I would call unfair pressure on, on their employees.

You know, it's sort of a, it's never good enough. You are, you are only as good as your last quarter or your last month or your last year. Layoffs, not justified again by the companies losing money. No, the company's making a lot of money, but, you know, we, we resort to layoffs as a way to, to boost the P and I, et cetera.

And so where is this taking us? I don't know. But what I see is that we're on a very dangerous trajectory, and so I bring my clients back to, you know, what has made us the, the, the great human beings that we can be. And, and for that there, there's no better place to go than to look in, in, you know, read the great philosophers and draw inspiration for the, from the major spiritual traditions.

And I often joke with my clients to say, look, anything you need to know about leadership has been written 2000 years ago or 3000 years ago. And you find all the premises, and I will give you a couple of examples, but you find all the premises of being a decent human being, being a leader, and building a great company in stuff that has weathered the centuries.

Mm-hmm. So an example. In, in the, the Bhagavad Gita, which is classic of Indian spiritual traditions, there's a line that says you are entitled to your work, but not to the fruits of your labor. Now, the exact sentence varies depending on the translations, but yes, you, you can do the work, but do not do the work because you are expecting outcomes.

Do the work because the work is good. So do what is good, do what is right. In a way we would call it today, we would call it intrinsic motivation. Do the work because it fulfills you. And this is not to say you shouldn't make money out of your work. Money will flow. Good things will flow. Happy clients will will flow from that. But you shouldn't do your work because you're expecting monetary outcomes or you're expecting market share or, or, or share prices, right? Do the work because the work is good and good outcomes will follow from that. And you find that in, in, in other spiritual traditions, you find exactly the same message in the Bible, for example, you know, the act of selfless service.

You know, do it because it's the right thing to do and you're not doing it for yourself. And everyone who does that ends up doing very well for themselves. That's, that's the funny thing. So do not lose the why you are doing something with expectation of outcomes. Now, this is 3000 years old. This has not been created by, you know, Harvard Business School or, or MIT or Insead. Does that make sense?

Russel Lolacher: It does. And so, but I mean, to be honest, anybody that's listening to it going, okay, but what does that mean? Meaning they're like, okay, is Taoism where I should start? Is that gonna help me improve my life and work? Or Confucianism, or is I looking at stoicism? So. It's a matter of, is it a matter of picking something and going down the rabbit hole to see if it works for you first, or is it just doing a buffet and sort of trying to understand how these ancient philosophies work for you and your intent in the workplace?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, I think anyone listening will probably have some cultural background in one spiritual tradition or another. I mean a lot of people define themselves as agnostic and, and that's absolutely fine, but you know, everybody will have been immersed culturally in, in the teachings of one tradition or another, and sometimes several traditions.

So all I'm saying is go back to the roots, go back to immersing yourself. And I'm not advocating, you know, I'm not proselytizing here and say, you know, adhere to an organized religion. I'm saying just go back to the roots. Read, read your classics, and you will find a lot of inspiration about what leadership is.

Let me give you another, another example. About 15 centuries ago, the Catholic monk Benedict decided to simplify life because, you know, there even, even, you know, in, in, in year 500, there was like already, you know, too many distractions. You know, they didn't have Netflix and, and, and, and mobile phones, but, you know, he, he was feeling the pressure of, of, of distractions and he said, well, let's go back to simplified life.

Let's create what was essentially one of the first monastic communities. And for that, he created a very simple rule. Yeah. Fifty pages of how the community would be governed. Now, 15 centuries later, there's Benedictine communities all over the world following the exact principles that were spelled out 15 centuries ago, and they're thriving.

So. What does that teach us? Well, it teaches us that you can think long term. You can ask for yourself and for your company. For example, where do I want this company to be in 15th centuries? It's not a stupid question. Right? Now, obviously no one has the answer. No one knows. But am I doing, am I putting down principles for my company that will withstand the test of time?

And I find a lot of inspiration in these classics because these are rules, you know, universal rules in a way of what it means to be a good human being. And, and, and by extension what it means to be a good leader.

Russel Lolacher: What was the catalyst for you to go down this path? I mean, have you always been going, I'm gonna set my blueprint based on 3000 year old teachings, or was it a matter of eventually going, no, no, something's not working. Or I need to overcome some sort of roadblock or challenge, and this is where you went for inspiration.

What was your own story around this?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, my own story is that I was like a hard-nosed performance for the sake of performance guy pretty much for the first half of my career. And so, you know, no particular religious education. Fairly agnostic. Curious but, but agnostic. And I thrived in, in that kind of environment.

But then I started looking around and through literally, I kid you not Russel, thousands of conversations with senior executives in the course of my work realized that something was really out of balance. You know, the work for the sake of work, growth for the sake of growth, profit for the sake of profit was actually making people fairly miserable.

Now they would be happy with what they had achieved in life. They had a big house, an nice car, et cetera. But there was fundamental, fundamentally something lacking from the lives of a lot of the senior executives I was working with. And I put that on, on the account that we have lost the connection with our spiritual roots.

Now, it doesn't matter to me what spiritual tradition you are most interested in, and if you want to cherry pick from one and another, then we can debate whether this is the, the, the, the fastest path or not. But I, I really don't care. But what I'm saying is somehow our system puts so much pressure on individuals and teams at every level of the corporate pyramid that we've lost track of what it means to find purpose and what it means to find balance and, and, and behave as a, as a decent human being. Now the thousands of leaders I've worked with are actually decent human beings, so it's not to say, oh, you know, the corporate is terrible. You know, only psychopath reach the top. I mean, yeah, I've also made a few psychopaths, but in general, in general most people are decent, but they're also a product of the environment in which they operate, which is why your topic about how do we create great environments? How do we build great relationships at work? How do we create great culture is so important because the difference between a culture that values human beings and a culture that just values the share price is enormous. So that, that, that's how it got me started, you know, in the, in the second half of my, of my life and my career really. I mean, that I made the shift, maybe I studied, you know, I, I guess I always had an interest in, in spiritual traditions.

I, I was practicing meditation and, and yoga and became a yoga teacher, meditation teacher when I was fairly young. But it's, it's really in the course of my work with leaders, with senior leaders that I said, okay, you know, there's, there's something that's missing out of the equation today. And the, the, my life today is, is about restoring this balance between performance if you want, and purpose.

And purpose without performance leads to bankruptcy. And that doesn't help anyone. So the performance with that purpose will lead to organizations that are first of all, that make people miserable, but also that are very brittle and, and, and subject to a lot of volatility. So reinstoring this balance between, you know, yes, we need performance so we need to constantly think what does the market want? What is the right pricing? What is the target operating model that we should follow? What is the right level of cost for the revenue we're generating, et cetera, et cetera. But at the same time, this question of purpose, why are we doing this and how..., who would miss us if we didn't exist?

When I go home and I tell my kids what I do, is there something that I can be proud of that I can explain very simple word words that an 8-year-old would understand? Why is it important what I'm doing? And once you combine the two I, I guarantee that outcomes are always very good, whereas just focusing on performance leads to tremendous pressure and, and a lot of kneejerk short term reactions. Oh, you know, we didn't have a good month, so let's start cutting people, et cetera. Which, which we see all around us, which is really another recipe for, for stability and, and, and for thriving organizations.

Russel Lolacher: I am glad you brought up meditation and yoga. The reason I ask this is it's one thing to read these ancient philosophies, but I almost feel like you have to operationalize it a bit. And a lot of this is self-reflection. Like when I think of any traditional wisdom, I'm going back into these things like meditation, silence, reflection, solitude. Like these seem to be hand in hand with any of these philosophies we're talking about because it's a lot of inner work. Before we can start practicing and you know, and, and implementing them in our work as well. Do you think that's the path to really start getting people more comfortable with this way of thinking and, and looking to these older reflections by putting these things into practice that help with that, like journaling and so forth?

That sort of, I don't know, it sort of feeds the beast, I guess, for a lack of a better phrase, to get you more comfortable with this way of thinking?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Hundred percent. I mean, you, you are absolutely spot on, Russel. I think if you, if you wanna think about the sort of a sequence, it's not a hierarchy, but it's a sequence.

You have to lead yourself before you can lead teams and before you can lead large organizations. The lead yourself part starts with self-awareness. Which by the way, you know, in, in modern management literature is you know, was popularized by Daniel Goldman. Emotional intelligence, right? So, so there's a vocabulary in the modern leadership literature that yeah but, but it, it comes from the spiritual traditions, particularly Eastern spiritual traditions, mostly. You know, meditation is essentially a tool of self-awareness. So what I tell my clients is, you know, don't, don't, don't go on a silence meditation retreat where, where, you know, for 10 days at the beginning starts with five minutes at home.

Russel Lolacher: Right.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: But start noticing what is happening. And, and one key, you know, I, I, I know you want practical tools is when you think about how you're going to interact with others, for example, are you coming at that situation from a place of love? Or are you coming at that situation from a place of fear? That is a very, very practical tool, right?

I need to have this meeting with my boss. I need to have this meeting with this underperforming employee. I'm gonna meet a client and they're not particularly happy with us. Okay? Am I going at this from a place of love, or am I going at this from a place of fear? This is a self-awareness exercise. If you don't spend time in silence and solitude regularly, you're not gonna be able to to notice these signals.

Finding, finding what fulfills you. I, you know, let's not call it grand purpose, because I think people say, oh, you know, I'm gonna save the world and whatever, but, but what fulfills you? What is a job that fulfills you? That takes a lot of self-awareness. Most of us fall into a career by accident, right? We, we, we just follow the, the, the road that is available in front of us.

Sometimes we're pushed by our parents. Sometimes we, we follow friends, whatever. But you know, a lot of us fall into a career by accident, but at some point you build that self-awareness. Is this career, is this job, is this profession something that fulfills me? That, that requires self-awareness. So I always say start with the leading, the self, self-awareness, managing your emotions, not pushing them under the carpet, but recognizing your emotions.

And then also noticing that emotions are very fleeting, that that comes straight from the Buddhist tradition, not noticing the impermanence in all things, including my feelings, my emotions, my physical sensations, right? So practice that and there's very, very simple tools and plenty of resources available now for, you know, everywhere.

And then move to the next practice, which is how do I create a team, right? How do I interact with others? In a way that is truthful, that is mindful. So, for example, another practical tool. When you meet someone, you know, standard, how are you? Well, do you care about the response or not? So my encouragement to anyone who listens is next time you meet someone, you go to a meeting and you, you're gonna have an interaction with someone.

Ask, how are you? And take an interest in the response. Maybe ask again, how are you truly, if it's someone that you know sufficiently well? Because most people won't tell you exactly how they are. They'll say, oh, I'm very busy. Okay, no, busy is not how you are. Right? So spending time to have meaningful interactions with others, slowing down the clock so that you can truly connect with another human being.

And yes, I know meetings are half an hour on Zoom, one hour face to face. You know, it, it goes very, very fast. But take a few minutes, take a few minutes at the beginning, it changes the tone of the meetings, right? So learn to build these interactions. And again, there's tones that, that, that come from the, from the spiritual traditions about how creating meaningful, how, how to create meaningful interactions with others.

And lastly, you move to leading large organizations and leading change at scale, right? So. I think it all starts with the self, and that's why I wrote that book for leaders because there was so much disconnection. You know, we're so much in a hurry to do everything, and then we're distracted by our phones constantly.

So, you know, 20 years ago or 30 years ago, before the smartphone, you would be much more connected to the present moment, right? You are in the queue? You wait. You are in the subway. You're in the subway, right? You, you look at the, you look at the other passengers, you see what's happening around you. Maybe you bring a book, right?

Today, the slightest moment, you know, 10 seconds of, of queuing time, oh, I'm gonna get my phone. So we've lost contact with ourselves and with our surroundings. So I'm just encouraging people. You know, in my book, the Art of Retreat is about how to take a little bit of time. In silence and solitude to reconnect with yourselves so that we can connect better with others.

It's, it's all very simple, but I haven't invented anything. Everything I, I write about in the book is, is, as I said, 2000 or 3000 years old for the most part. I mean, there's a little bit of modern psychology, you know, Carl Jung and, and, and the rest, but...

Russel Lolacher: I'm glad you started with self-awareness because I mean, a big part of this show is we talk about relationships at work, but the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.

Because truthfully, no other connections or relationships will matter or have as much connection or value than if you don't get yourself figured out. Now, here's something I do struggle with though, and it's, it, it brought it up for me because you were like, you're looking for tactical things. I'm like, I'm not really, because truthfully, my way of looking at it is if you don't shift your mindset, you're not gonna do those things anyway.

If you don't provide yourself the the new perspectives, new worldviews on even approaching ancient wisdoms, traditional wisdoms. Even looking at this as a value statement, if you don't look at it like this, you're never gonna try anything but on, and this is where my challenge is, but if you don't try these things, like the things you've illustrated, you may not be inspired to go further with it.

So I feel like you need to shift your mindset, but you can't shift... you need to shift your mindset and not focus on tactics, but you need to focus on tactics sometimes to shift your mindset to see that it has value and that it'll work. So how, how would you approach this if somebody's trying to go down this path and try to really make it, operationalize it, but at the same time, they're trying to shift their way they think.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: If there's not a need, if, if, if, if you don't feel a need, that something is not in balance, that maybe you are not following the, the, the, the best road for you, you're not on the right journey. If, if you don't feel that need and everything is working well, then I say it's very difficult to, to, to decide to change.

But what I always say is that, you know, if everything is going well in your life and there's absolutely no reason for introspection, just wait five minutes. Right? Because at some point, at some point, life is gonna come back and, and throw something at you. There is no one on this planet that hasn't been challenged by life.

Now some people have been challenged more than others, but you know, the looking at Instagram and seeing all these apparently happy people with their beautiful families and they're always on the beach, somewhere in the Caribbean drinking a Coke, you know, this is not real life. Real life is messy and real life throws a lot of challenges at you.

And it, it's in these moments of challenge. Maybe when everything goes well, you know, you don't feel the need to do deeper reflection and deeper introspection. But it's in the moments of challenge, which by the way, are the moments where we have the biggest opportunity to grow, that we feel the need maybe to, to, to, to reflect and deepen our self-awareness and deeper our connection with ourselves.

So I usually work with individuals who feel that challenge. Could be a crisis at work, could be someone who's been promoted into a big job. And I, and I do a lot of, you know, coaching new CEOs who are in the role for the first time, and we think, oh my God, you know, they must be so happy they finally get the top job.

But it's very difficult. It's very difficult. And there's no one to talk to because suddenly you're alone. The CEO is a very lonely job. So, you know, at, at these junctures critical junctures, people who have been very successful, have made a lot of money, and they're looking at retirement, but retirement creates a big void.

So it's in these junctures that people are the most open to the inner journey. And that, and that's usually where I come in.

Russel Lolacher: Is it, is it an easy conversation? And I bring this up because I have a bit of a challenge with a lot of executives because they've been rewarded their entire career with not having to be good leaders, right?

They get rewarded for productivity. They get reward for fixing results. They get rewarded for the ends, justify the means. So they are executive CEOs never having to be good to people because they were, they gave shareholder value, they made the board happy, and now they're at the top going, I have to learn this now. I'm too busy. Seven books to read. Sorry, I don't have the time, but you're saying that this is where they're most interested in addressing this problem. When I'm also looking at it going, hasn't that ship kind of sailed? Shouldn't we be focusing more on middle management and those people that are wanting to do better to get to that result?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: I think we should do both, right? I think we should do both. I tend to focus more on the CEOs because in a way there, there's not a lot of people who can work with them. They're, they're, they're also very selective and, and so they, they, there's, there's very few coaches who can empathize with what it's like to be a CEO.

So I, I tend to focus on the top of the pyramid, but I don't think we should neglect anyone. The thing for me is that it, it starts at the top. If I can change one leader, if I can change one CEO into becoming slightly more aware and therefore restoring a little bit this balance between action and contemplation on between performance and and purpose.

If, if I just make a 10% difference then it cascades down the rest of the pyramid. I will typically work with the CEO and then I will work with that team and that's where I can have the most impact.

Russel Lolacher: So what's the tipping point when you get to, to go back to my question, what is the tipping point for you to go to a CEO going, you're not gonna believe this, we're gonna talk about stoicism. No, wait a second. We're gonna talk about Confucianism. What is it where they're like, well, this isn't the latest and greatest innovative thought processing. What makes them more receptive? Is there a certain way of talking or introducing case studies that helps them along that journey?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Yeah, so I'm a, I'm a little bit more sneaky than that. I, I don't, I, I don't lead with the Isha or the, or the Bible. Right, because that, that has a way of scaring people away.

Russel Lolacher: Exactly.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: So. So I, I, I, I lead with business. And so my, my first session with any executive usually is about how's business? What's going on in your life? What's happening? How can I support you? Right? And we get a, a, a broad conversation about everything that's happening in their lives, right? Occasionally we talk about family. I say, well, you know, where, where do you go to where you need? Because now you are very lonely, right? You cannot go to your chairman because in a way, the chairman is evaluating you.

You cannot go to your former peers who now report to you. So where do you go? Who are your mentors? Who are your trusted advisors, et cetera. So, so we do a, a pretty extensive 360. I ask them about the personal practices that they have. How do you stay sane? Do you exercise? How do you sleep? Right? What do you eat?

Do you have any practices? You know, do you have, do you practice meditation, journaling? Right. Usually the answer is no. But you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. Maybe I don't have statistics, but maybe 20, 25% of people practice meditation and so, you know, if there's no opening, there's no opening. I don't, I don't force anything.

I'm, I'm not a spiritual leader. I don't do any positivism. I'm happy to talk business, you know, balance sheet, P and l all day long if you want. I don't have a problem with that. I don't think it's the best leverage. Because all these things are external and I think the real change happens when we start looking inward, not when we look outward, right?

So changing the, the outside world is all fine, but when you get the most bang for the bank is when you start looking inward and most people open up. Sometimes in the first session, sometimes in session number six. Sometimes they fire me after the first session because they think, they think I'm useless.

You know, it's, it's, it's a chemistry thing, right? So I don't, I don't have a hundred percent hit rate and I can do an entire coaching journey with a CEO and their team without ever mentioning any of the topics we discuss just now, and that's perfectly fine.

Russel Lolacher: Is that where retreats can become handy because you're removing them from the familiar. You are removing them from thi the crutches or the c, the community they can rely on to give them their self-fulfilling prophecies. So putting them in maybe another environment. Is that the reason for it?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Yeah. No, no. That, you know, you're, you're, you are again, you are, you are spot on. So when a CEO says, Hey, Fabrice, can you come and spend, you know, can we spend two days together with my team? I'd like to get some alignment. We need to look at the plan for 2025. I'd like to, I say, okay, but can we not do it in your office? Can we not do it in your boardroom? Can we go somewhere? And there's many reasons for that. Reason number one is the, the boardroom or whatever, you know, the, the, the meeting room next to the CEO office is so filled.

With bad vibes and bad energy of, you know, endless budget meetings and, and you know, the, you can feel that negative energy dripping from the walls. And so I said, let, let's go. Plus, you know, people are, are in the power status. You know, it's a glass building in the center of town, you know, the, the secretaries walk all the time in to ask them to sign papers.

So there's, it's really not conducive to deeper reflections. Let's, let's go out. But more importantly, when we go out, I, I get the chance to configure the room the way I want it. So I, I remove all the tables, for example. There's no more tables. We sit in a circle. The reason I do that is if you put a table in front of people, the first thing they do is they put their phones on their laptop, and then they're distracted and you don't have a hundred percent of their presence.

Remove the table. There's nowhere to put the laptop, and I kid you not, i've, I've had entire day sessions with very, very senior executives where no one looks at their phone. I mean, they will look at their phone during the breaks, but during the session, when we're in session, there's absolutely zero distraction.

People are a hundred percent present on their colleagues and on themselves because we remove the distractions. And the third reason why I, I go off on, on retreats is because very often we go to a nice place with nature, and the fact that you have trees and water and mountains or whatever around you completely changes the energy, completely changes the energy and you know, it reconnects the participants fundamentally to what it is to be, to be human right, which is to be connected with nature.

So, yes, for, for, for all that, I think a retreat environment... now, I don't call it retreat very often. I, I call it offsite. I, I don't like the term workshop, but offsite is, is good because if I call it retreat, then they immediately think, oh, you know, we're gonna have to to, to shave our heads and, and, and go into a monastery.

So yeah, there's, but, but it is a retreat. Just, I mean, the etymology of the world is, you know, we retreat from the daily environment. So to be in a place where we can be more present, right. So it that works very well. And, and, and I always encourage my clients, you know, take your team and, and go on a retreat with your team.

And you can talk about anything. You can talk about the plan, you can talk about the strategy. You can talk about the clients. You can talk about purpose. You can talk about how do we interact with each other? Are we telling each other the truth? Are we holding each other accountable? Right? So there's so many topics you can, you can bring in a retreat.

Russel Lolacher: As we're getting closer to the end of the conversation there, I kind of wanna I don't know if this sounds the right way of putting it, take you for a test drive for a minute. I wanna ask the question around, say, a leader is going down this path, understanding how traditional wisdom can be useful, but they want to understand something better and they're looking for what philosophies might help with that.

I'm thinking of clarity. I'm thinking 'cause definitions are huge, and I mentioned this off the top, 'cause clarity is not something that's really great in organizations. We use words, we do completely opposite things. We have values on the wall, we don't do any of those things. So we're never really clear about what we're talking about.

But if there's a leader going, you know what, I want to strengthen my ability to be clear, to communicate better, to connect better, what would you say, is there a, a, a, a line of philosophy that you would go, you know what? Teism is actually the, the, the philosophy that works best for what you are trying to achieve?

Is it as simple as that? Like, or is it a matter of, you know, what the, this area, eastern versus western philosophies might be more your jam? What would you direct a leader that's looking to fix or enhance that ability?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: So, I, I tell you what I do is usually I, I follow the, the traditions or the culture in which my, my client has been raised.

Oh, okay. And I go deeper in that tradition, right? So if if my client is a Christian for example, then I will ask them, you know, where, where do they find inspiration in, in the, in the Bible, for example, or, you know, in a, do they have a, a community? They do, they go to a specific church, and I, and I, and I find anchor points to say, well, maybe you can find moments of friendship and companionship in that community, and ask yourself, for example, what is different in that community, in that spiritual community from the way you and your teams work in the office? Right. If I work with a a, a Muslim client, typically they will, they will stop for prayer five times a day. But these prayers are fantastic times for self-awareness because it's imagine, stopping for, for 10 minutes, five times a day. What a wonderful opportunity to reset your nervous system. So I say, well look, instead of skipping the prayer, because a lot of them, you know, in big jobs, they, they keep the prayers right. I say, no, go for it. Particularly the, the Friday prayer is important. In, in Asia, a lot of people have been brought up in, in Taoism or, or, or Buddhism or some combination of both.

You know, there's a bit of syncretism that happens everywhere. So say what? Go, go, you know, go, go, go find your inspiration where you come from. And now in the west, a lot of people are agnostic and so they, they don't feel particularly tethered to any spiritual tradition. And they say, well, why don't we start with simple mindfulness, you know, non-denominational. Paying attention to what is, and we start with mindfulness. I recommend them, you know, some resources, some apps, some whatever, and say, let's, let's start with that. And then maybe you know, do five minutes of mindfulness and then maybe a bit of journaling. What is going on for you? What are you grateful for?

I don't need to name any spiritual traditions, but gratitude is part of every tradition. You find gratitude in Buddhism, in Christianity, in Islam, and Judaism, everywhere. So, you know, I don't need to name it. I connect people to what is most accessible to them.

Russel Lolacher: And less conflict, lean into their comfort levels. I can see the adoption being a lot easier when it comes to that. Where my brain go is though, is the diversity side of things. So if there's a leader that's going well, I wanna lean into my Christianity, and then their team at work's agnostic and they're like, you know what? I don't wanna buy into what you're selling because it works for you, but it doesn't work for us. Is there any pushback when it comes to introducing old world wisdom when it's tied to religion that people might not be comfortable with outside of the particular individual?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, I think religion is a very personal thing, and so I, I would not recommend bringing your religion into, into the office unless you know that this is, you know, this wide widespread acceptance of it.

So I think it's a personal topic, but I think the principles of any religious tradition or any spiritual tradition are universal. Right? And so I always work on where, where does your tradition come from on this topic? What, what learnings, what teachings? If you go into, you know, a period of reflection, maybe on the weekend, take one hour, bring, bring your, your, your traditional texts with you, do a bit of reflection, a bit of journaling, where does that guide you to go?

And then you bring the. Of that to your teams, but you don't say, oh, you know, the other day I was, I was reading, you know, the analyst of Confucius and it tells us to do this and this and that, or, you know, no, you don't need to to impose anything on, on anyone. I, I think that a gentle approach. Of leveraging whatever resources you have and then bring that following universal human principles of kindness, generosity, gratitude, attention to each other, presence, et cetera, is, is is the way to go.

Russel Lolacher: It is just hard when divisiveness is such a default for so many people. I, I completely hear you. And going, don't bring it up. Even if it's personal to you, do not bring it up in the workplace. 'cause that's not what this is for. It's about bringing people together. It's just, I hate when people use any excuse to go, no, that's not me.

It's you ones and zeros. It's binary when it shouldn't be. It should be about community and it should be about what connects us, not divides us. So I appreciate you clarifying it in that way.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Yeah, and these principles are universal. I think anyone will resonate with a principle of community. Anyone will resonate with a principle of generosity.

It doesn't matter where you come from. And we don't need to mention any religion, any spiritual tradition for that.

Russel Lolacher: Nope, I love that. So, Fabrice, I gotta wrap this up with our last question, sir, which is, what's one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Well, I'll, I'll say again what I mentioned briefly earlier. When you're gonna have an interaction with someone, ask yourself before the meeting, am I going at this from a place of love or am I going at this from a place of fear? And there's no judgment, no. If you're going at it from a place of fear, all I want you to do is acknowledge it and, and, and, and be aware of it.

It's okay to be afraid, but once you acknowledge it, it diminishes the fear, anyway.

Russel Lolacher: That is Fabrice Desmarescaux. He's a partner and practice leader at McKinsey and Company, and he is the author of The Art of Retreats, A Leader's Journey toward Clarity, Balance, and Purpose. Thank you so much for being here, Fabrice. Really appreciate it.

Fabrice Desmarescaux: Thank you, Russel. I really enjoyed it.