Two types of performance have always influenced strategic planning within companies: economic performance and organizational performance. But to combine them successfully, you still have to make the right choices at the right time… and know how to put the second at the service of the first.
All businesses are looking for growth, and all dread the glass ceiling. Agencies, of course, are no exception to the rule… in order to structure themselves, to expand, to limit costs and to continue to perform economically, the challenge for them is to increase productivity.
And for that, a ready-made solution apparently exists: versatility!
Because on the face of it versatility offers the prospect of added flexibility for employees, and therefore, for projects too, right? The multi-skilled employee is everywhere. He is called upon for everything… and also, suddenly, for nothing on some occasions.
Thanks to its multidisciplinary nature, however, it manages to stay on course. You even consolidate your position in a market!
But when the economic factor is no longer the only driver of the company's development, the dreaded glass ceiling finally comes back to bite...
The downside of versatility is that it limits levels of expertise: as a specialist in everything, you don’t develop expertise in anything.
However, when it comes to offering The Best Or Nothing to our customers, expertise remains the most relevant factor: until proven otherwise, having the right person with the right skills in the right place is the only way to keep the promise of optimal efficiency.
As a result, as the company’s organization adapts, the level of expectation rises, and the notion of added value in projects really assumes its full meaning.
Everyone’s area of involvement is shrinking, in favour of greater expertise - and the word development is becoming synonymous with agility.
In Project Management, in particular, versatility creates serial multi-hatters.
What difference does specialisation make to this?
It offers the guarantee of still having serials, but this time, serial-doers and serial-entrepreneurs: experts in their field.
The serial-doer is a master at putting in place the human, technical and logistical resources.
For him, the moment that counts is above all the M moment!
He has only one objective in mind: that the implementation of the event to which he is dedicated be qualified as perfect, once the moment has passed - both in its conception and in its implementation.
For his part, the serial entrepreneur is part of the Project team. As his name suggests, as an outstanding entrepreneur he manages a project in its entirety, working hand in hand with the client, but with other stakeholders too! Supervising the experts working alongside him, he advises, sows, reaps, communicates and lays the foundations for the project that his client wishes to create.
And he does not leave the ship until it has returned to port for good!
Do we still need to say it? People are the essential capital of our business.
So if, in the past, the versatility of our employees has given them a title, representative of their multiple, yes, but fragmented knowledge - that of Project Manager, in this case, supplemented by its notion of level, junior or senior - their specialisation within the very expertise of Project Management will bring them much more: the possibility of expressing the best of their skills for the benefit of projects, and, with it, the possibility of projecting themselves in their career.
It’s necessary in order to motivate, to engage, to attract the best talents and to keep them over the long term… and beneficial for everyone concerned, including us, the agency, you, the client, and you, our talented current or future employees!
Florence MAYER
Deputy Managing Director
Project Management
Paris
Bordeaux
Lyon
Brussels
Shanghai
