IN CONVERSATION WITH JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DESLARZES
From values to behaviour: what lasting transformation actually takes
What does it take to turn company values into behaviour people actually live?
We spoke with Jean-Christophe Deslarzes, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Adecco Group and Constellium, about culture, leadership, and why lasting transformation demands much more than defining the right values.
Many organizations invest heavily in culture and leadership transformation. Yet the change they want often never really takes hold. For Jean-Christophe Deslarzes, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Adecco Group and at Constellium, the reason is simple: defining values is not the same as changing behavior.
A new strategy is launched. Values are agreed upon. Posters go up, presentations are delivered, and the new language starts appearing across the organization. Then, months later, people are surprised that little has changed.
“The bad news is that you need much more work for change to happen than posters and glossy papers portraying the new values,” says Deslarzes.
For him, transformation starts when values become observable behavior. If trust is a value, what should people actually do differently? Be more open? More direct? More transparent? Those expectations need to be clear enough that people can recognize them in practice.
The harder part is making sure they show up across the organization. Recruitment, development, promotion, and other people processes need to reflect the behaviors the company says it values. Otherwise, the values remain separate from the decisions that actually define the culture.
From values to daily practice
Deslarzes saw this firsthand as Chief Human Resources and Organization Officer at Carrefour, which at the time operated around 10,000 stores and close to 500’000 employees. What mattered was not merely that the company had defined its values, but much more that those values had been translated into behavioral competencies and that, in turn, those were integrated in all people processes and tools people could actually use.
He recalls a manager of a 20-person store in a very remote area opening the company’s platform before an interview, printing out a questionnaire, and using questions that were actually designed around Carrefour’s behavioral competencies to attract the “right” employees. As a result of integrating these behavioral competencies into the recruitment and selection process resulted in attracting and selecting employees who would bring the values to life across the global organization. In integrating the behavioral competencies into all people processes, the targeted behaviors were nurtured, in turn the values developed and the culture fostered.
For Deslarzes, that is when “the magic kicks in.” Culture becomes real when it triggers everyday the desired behaviors across the organization.
“This is not about something fuzzy and warm and ‘HR stuff,’” he says. “It is about rigorous, disciplined implementation of the values you want to have in an organization, because that drives your culture.”
But processes alone will not get you there. Deslarzes believes transformation has to start at “the top of the house.” If senior leaders talk about one set of behaviors and demonstrate something else, people notice quickly. Middle managers then become the missing link between top management’s intent and daily reality. If the behavior is not visible at the top, the transformation rarely travels much further.
When values become lived experience
There is also a limit to what people can learn from being told what good leadership looks like. Deslarzes first encountered Stucki more than 25 years ago and later used experiential learning in several organizations, including during his time as Chief Human Resources Officer at ABB.
During one ABB program, participants completed a via ferrata high above the ground. One participant froze and could not continue. A teammate encouraged her to follow him step by step, placing her feet and hands where he placed his.
She made it through.
Years later, she still carried the carabiner from that day on her bag. When she faced difficult situations, she would return mentally to that experience. If she had been able to move beyond a boundary she had set for herself then, perhaps she could do it again.
The lesson was not the via ferrata itself. It was what trust and courage as core company values felt like in practice. An idea that could easily remain abstract became personal, memorable, and something she could draw on later.
For Deslarzes, that is the core of transformation. Human behavior can develop, but it rarely changes because an organization announces that it should. People need to understand what is expected, see those behaviors in their leaders, experience them for themselves, and encounter them consistently in the way the organization operates.
The values on the wall are only the beginning.
