Client stories
Twenty-one seminars, told from the inside
For each one: the context, the challenge, the running order, the redrawn materials, what was delivered and what we take away.
- Invented nameRéseau OrvaneA management charter written cohort by cohortA public body with a regional network wants decisions to be made closer to the front line. Its senior managers, then several hundred line managers in successive cohorts, worked on the question one link of the chain at a time. The charter of operating principles was written live, each cohort picking up where the last one stopped.Read the story
- Invented nameInstitut MorvelleLooking ahead to 2030 through a memory of the futureThe leadership of a public school had written its vision for 2030. Instead of presenting it, we had managers read it as a text written in the past tense, from 2030. They said what inspired them and where they pushed back, then opened concrete workstreams with clear roles.Read the story
- Invented nameVerlanceAbout a hundred ambassadors bring a leadership model to lifeAn international manufacturer was reworking its leadership model and came with a first draft. In one day, about a hundred ambassadors tested it against reality and turned it into observable behaviours. At 1.30pm the room was validating the synthesis of its own morning, put together with AI over lunch.Read the story
- Invented nameTessalineFrom lab to plant: rewriting the project process togetherAt a chemicals manufacturer, development and industrialisation worked in silos. In one day, some fifteen people from both teams stepped into each other’s shoes, reviewed their process phase by phase and drew a new one. The action plan was followed up for months.Read the story
- Invented nameGroupe OstrelAn annual transformation seminar, on the dancefloorAn international group takes stock of its transformation programme every year. That year, it had to celebrate how far it had come and connect subsidiaries spread far apart. We kept to a single metaphor, dancing, from the welcome desk to the coffee-corner signs.Read the story
- Invented nameRéseau OmbelleSeveral hundred alumni write a manifesto in one dayThe alumni network of an international leadership programme wanted to bring together very different cohorts and countries around one question: what future are we building? Everyone had a “home” team, put together by flowAI using diversity rules. In the afternoon people scattered across workshops, then came back to their table to write the manifesto.Read the story
- Invented nameArvelTwo days to turn a network of managers into a communityA public-interest organisation’s strategic plan was shaking up the role of its managers. Over two days, leadership acknowledged their workload, listened to them on the challenges of the job, then spoke using their words. A quiet ritual, the guardian angel, ran through the whole seminar.Read the story
- Invented nameCalvèneThe founding moment of a mergerA climate scale-up had just been acquired by a large group and brought together with that group’s climate team. The two teams did not know each other. In two days, they really met, asked their questions about the merger and wrote their mission and values together.Read the story
- Invented nameTessalineGiving an identity to a department born of a reorganisationA cross-functional department brought together three worlds, research, operations and development, without yet being one team. In two days, its managers looked their working relationships in the eye, took ownership of a long-term vision and wrote who they wanted to be. Owned workstreams came out of it, including a workshop between two teams told in the story “From lab to plant”.Read the story
- Invented nameManufactures SéraneSeveral hundred people, one collective paper artworkThe workshops of a luxury house, formed from two merged entities, had a vision and a motto worked on so far by leadership and managers. It remained to bring them to life with everyone. Over one day, several hundred craftspeople and staff built a paper artwork together, now on display in the production workshops.Read the story
- Invented nameHabitat CorolleHead office and the field together to rethink life in the residencesA social housing provider wanted to bring its head office and field teams closer, and to generate concrete ideas. About a hundred staff spent the day in a green setting, alternating between an ideas workshop and an on-site activity. The ideas produced really helped the company move forward.Read the story
- Invented nameFonds LucaneBuilding a community between a fund and the founders it backsA venture fund wanted its founders to find with it what they find nowhere else: their peers. Over two days, the fund’s team and its portfolio’s co-founders invented their own mutual-help rituals, played them out for real, and kept them. The community now works between long-standing and new founders.Read the story
- Invented nameMaison AubrelleA week of direct dialogue between plant management and the shop floorAfter a record year and then a sharp downturn, the production teams of a major house were worried about their future. Over one week, plant management met every workshop, group after group, using the same frame: the road travelled, the questions, live answers, then what to keep, improve, stop or start. Every question received a written answer.Read the story
- Invented nameMaison AubrelleBringing a whole leadership community together for the first timeBrands, sites, upstream, supply chain and staff representatives from several houses had not met together for a very long time. In one morning, over a hundred managers worked on three major issues and prepared their own questions for the group’s chief executive. Everything was captured and transcribed, board by board.Read the story
- Invented nameCorvaleSupporting a digital transformation programme in three stagesIn a major engineering programme, the team rolling out a new design platform was moving from concept to delivery, and things were rocking. We worked with them over a year, in three stages: a retrospective to become one team again, a day of demonstrations so the business could take ownership of the tools, then a half-day in a small group on posture.Read the story
- Invented nameMutuelle LisandreTurning a seminar’s commitments into dated proposalsA few months earlier, the managers of an IT department had made commitments. This day had to show what had really changed, then move forward on two issues: productivity and the relationship with the business. In the morning, teams shared their practices. In the afternoon, they turned six challenges into concrete proposals, each with an owner and a starting point.Read the story
- Invented nameEnnéaBonding a leadership team before bringing the organisation on boardA transformation was meant to move from the leadership team to a steering committee, then to a wider circle. The first link first had to trust each other and speak openly. In one day, the team worked on its candour, its vision and the way it cooperates. The transformation then sped up.Read the story
- Invented nameNéolisKeeping a network of foresight experts alive over timeIn a large energy group, a network of researchers spots the technologies that could change everything. Its mission was being redefined. We have been working with it session after session: first so it could respond to the new roadmap rather than just accept it, then so the network could design its own gatherings.Read the story
- Invented nameNéolisAn internal innovation contest, from bringing sponsors on board to the final pitchA large energy group runs an innovation contest open to all its branches. We designed and ran the whole journey over several months: bringing the jury on board, remote workshops, weekly coaching, then a four-day bootcamp with a maker space and a pitch in front of the jury.Read the story
- Invented nameNéolisListening to an R&D team before talking about reorganisationIn a large energy group, a research team had just learned that its R&D would narrow its focus, that its centre of gravity was moving to another country and that budgets were falling. Before the team day, we first asked the team what it thought. Its answers wrote the programme.Read the story
- Invented nameFondation AraliaA donor database migration where you are the heroA foundation had to decide the future of its donor database, with no digital department and teams that doubted their own data. We wrote a gamebook for it in which it was the hero. Everyone read their own path, then the group faced the cost of doing nothing.Read the story
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