Leading Across Cultures
at Michelin (C)
409-010-1
Four Years Later Spring 2008
Olivier Chalon walked up to the microphone at the annual meeting in Montreal for 500
managers of the business unit.
“I am pleased to report that thanks to your hard work and dedication, for the third year
Chalon had to stop for a moment – he was actually becoming choked up with emotion and
pride. But he regained his composure – he was not going to hold back from giving the praise
his colleagues expected and deserved. His rough start in Greenville seemed a long time ago,
but he had not forgotten the lessons he had learnt.
“I realised that just as I was misreading the cues my colleagues were sending, they were
misreading mine. I just was not aware of the cultural gulf between us. We really had
different ways to relate to one another and to motivate people. Looking back, I realise
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What did I do to turn things around? After that first meeting with the consultant, I tried
a number of things. Once I was aware of the differences in management style, I needed
to develop the cultural awareness of my direct reports – the 15 directors reporting
directly to me. I did this in a number of ways. First by talking with each of them, both
in groups and individually, about why I manage the way I do and helping them decode
my messages. When I say, “Good, thank you for the presentation,” they should hear
“Great job!” and when I say, “Okay, fine” they should hear “That is very good!” They
should also know that with me no news is almost always good news, as giving explicit
over the months. It was as important for them as for me to understand from a third
party how cultural differences could influence our day-to-day behaviour.
Just as important, I made a concerted effort to give more praise – genuine praise and
where it was deserved, but also to express my appreciation when people were giving
their all. I particularly worked on this with my staff at large. With 15 individuals
reporting directly to me, I could ask for a bit of understanding and compromise. But for
the nearly 4,000 individuals working under their supervision, style-switching was my
I noticed how much more motivated my managers were once I changed how I gave
feedback. I was still a tough manager and I continued to push for complete
accountability. Some of my colleagues nicknamed the monthly performance reviews
‘barbecues’ and as a joke gave me a chef’s hat at my farewell party because I would
grill them so thoroughly during the presentations. I wore the hat at the party, to
The team ended up really coming together once we understood each other better.
Within 18 months, we were able to implement the turnaround and achieve record sales
and profits in our division. It was a virtuous cycle: we worked well together and we
achieved very good results, and so forth. Analysts even highlighted the division as the
‘success story’ of the Group Michelin in 2005. I was pleased with how things turned