The full transcript of my conversation with Bertrand
This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.
I've sent my next book in advance to Service Design nerds from all around the world to see what resonates, what can be improved and how to go further after you read that book.
In this third stop of this international book tour we stopped in France with Bertrand Cochet.
Bertrand is the co-founder and head of experience design at Vahumana. Outside of business Bertrand shares his knowledge as a lecturer in schools and universities, and is working with the French chapter of the Service Design Network to spread the word about Service Design.
In this conversation, we explore topics like:
How microservices can create a smile.
How less information can be an act of love.
How to include spirituality in the toolkit of the service designer.
Thanks so much to Bertrand for this lovely book critic and insightful conversation.
Daniele Catalanotto: Bertrand, it's such a pleasure to have you here today.
Betrand Cochet: It's a pleasure too. Thank you, Daniele.
Meet Bertrand
Daniele Catalanotto: To get started, when you are in a party how do you present yourself?
Betrand Cochet: It's a really good question because I usually present myself as Bertrand. I'm a French guy living in Lyon. I have many years as you can see with my gray hairs. Many years of practices, of experiences in different fields. But speaking about my work is pretty difficult in a party.
Because usually people don't realize what we are doing and it's a bit complicated for them to get this. So usually I summarize with I work in IT services, helping people to do their tasks and activities in a better way than usually it is. That's the point. Sometimes I'm.
I'm a bit frustrated not to be able to go further. And sometimes I have the good the good luck to, to meet someone who said, Hey, I know it's ux, or it's a design, and then we can go further in that presentation, it's not usual to meet this kind of people.
The pain of explaining Service Design
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah I think it's a problem that we have worldwide. You're sitting today in France that you have exactly the same problem that I have in most parties, which is if I say service design, I will have so many questions, and right now I'm not up to it.
So I'm just gonna say something that, I work in design and I teach it. And that might close the conversation. What do you do?
Betrand Cochet: Even sometimes when you say design, it's not well understood. Then they can reply, Oh, you are doing objects, industrial design, and so on.
Daniele Catalanotto: The classical questions, which is, oh, what type of objects do you
Betrand Cochet: make?
Exactly. Yeah. I feel your pain. I feel your
Daniele Catalanotto: pain. But
Betrand Cochet: as you said, it's a universal pain for service designers and even graphic designers. Indeed.
Vahumana
Daniele Catalanotto: And so if we imagine we're in this in, in this party and as your friend, I will then come and basically do what you can't do because you are someone who's too humble to do it.
I would say, Hey, but you didn't know you didn't mention that you were the co founder of a company who has a very great name. Maybe you should tell him about that. Yes,
Betrand Cochet: with pleasure the name of the company co created five years ago now is Vaumana so it's an agency inside an IT company based in Paris and the will of of its director was to create a place where experience, data.
And strategy will be at the good place. Then we created it in Lyon and the company is called Vaumana. So it came from the old Persian name which means that you are someone With good principle, that is, good link with your book and all these principles. And the principle that led our company is good think, good talk, and good action.
And the four founders were totally aligned with this principle and these values. And we try to work with our clients and with our colleagues. In this way with the respect of the human beings, what we are, what are our cognitive limitations, and also to, to work in in a good respect and, yeah to be human, between human, doing things sometimes complex, sometimes simple, and it seems basic.
Thank you. But
Daniele Catalanotto: it's not so easy. I love how your, the name, is already like a manifesto, it already says a lot, where sometimes the names are like just placeholders to help people say something, and here it's, When you explain the name people already know, oh, okay, this is the type of agency or the type of consultancy it is, which is very different from what we see a lot in the consultancy work, which is very business driven, pure business.
And here I feel this is starting with the human touch which is. Which is definitely lovely.
Betrand Cochet: We can measure it when we talk to candidates during their recruitments or with our clients. They appreciate that.
Daniele Catalanotto: And might you, so I have a question for you because every con this is a conversation I had the other day with with Marc Fonteijn, and he said something interesting where I said, ah, I think the maturity of service design in Switzerland isn't so high.
And he said something interesting and provocative, which was, every, but every country feels the maturity of service design in their country isn't so high, but, I think that will never change because it's just, an imposter syndrome thing. So my question to you would be that one.
How can we spread Service Design?
Daniele Catalanotto: As you're someone who's teaching it, who is building a community around it, what are the things that you have done in the past where you have seen, oh, this is working to share service design further. This is stuff that works well to teach it and to spread it. Because I think many of us are really willing to spread it.
But sometimes lack the experience on how to get started. Maybe you have a few experiences to share.
Betrand Cochet: Yes. I totally agree with Marc. I talked with him last year in Copenhagen during the Global Conference of the Service Design Network. It's a real point. In France, as in Switzerland, maybe in, in South Europe we have kind of problem.
We service design and more globally with methodologies to address complex problems to get and to find good solutions. I ask sometimes why when we met people from from England, from most of Europe, from U. S. All are totally aware, even clients they are all aware of what is service design what are the good opportunities that service design offer.
I still have no, no answer to that, but as I can say we did a lot of events in France, in Paris, in Lyon. We gather a lot of people, usually with a background of UX sometimes with a design thinking approaches, but real service designers are quite rare here. And we can see that as you do a lot of people are spreading the word showing what's the impact and the interest of service design.
We have to do a lot with education and be quite patient. When I run a session at university, I present the methodology of service design, but I don't stop at it.
I try to explain, impact the interest, the tools, but if students or even clients don't want to work with it, that's not a problem for me. But I know that some points, some insights. We'll do the way in their brain and sometimes maybe they will realize that, oh, it was interesting. Maybe service blueprints could be interesting for my project or for to create my own agency for students at the end of the education session.
It's, I can't say I'm a pure service designer. I manage that's. People need time here to understand fully what we can do with it.
Daniele Catalanotto: I think it's extremely inspiring. This notion of our job in spreading service design is the job of a good gardener, where, you put the seed, you put the water in, and then you let the plant grow, and you don't decide all of it, but you can be there, you can be of support, and if the plant doesn't want to come, it's okay, sometimes they don't want, sometimes they need a bit of And Sometimes they need a stick for where they can grow with.
And sometimes it just comes out directly and you didn't do anything because you didn't even put the seed, it just came from another flower. And I think this is this, I love your humility here and say our job is just to continuously share and then plant the seeds. And that's our job. We can't do much more.
And as long as we do that. We have the hope that if it's of use for people, they will use it. And if it's not, it's okay because they found something else that is useful for them. I love this, service design is not the solution. It's one aspect and we teach that. And sometimes it's something else and that's perfectly okay.
And I
Betrand Cochet: remember a talk with Birgit Mager, the founder of Service Design. And she said, we can't change an organization without The top level, the C level, if they are not included in the tools, in the vision, we can't ask to people under the C level to work with that kind of methods. It's a pity, but it's like that.
And I can measure it with some clients where all the stakeholders from the simple, and it's not bad to say that, but the simple employee. To the top level. If they're all aligned with this, that, that kind of vision and way of work, then the job is done and then you can hear and when it happened it's just a magical moment when you, the c e o of a company said, Hey last time you run a service, blue blueprints.
for the project, for a specific project, but I reuse it for another project with my team and it works. And then we know that we have done
Daniele Catalanotto: our job. I love it, this idea of if I had to visualize it, it's like a pyramid where you have to work on both levels, like making sure that, sure, the C level decision makers can.
Design and drive the culture in one direction, but at the same time that below, people see why it's made, why it's made, why it's useful. And when we manage to, to do it on both sides, then it's where the magic happens. And often we have to start somewhere, and either we start below or we start at the top and And it's a good reminder.
It stuff takes time. Having a tree, the trees behind you, it's for me are a good example. They didn't come in one year, they didn't come in two years, the size they have now, which allows to, for you to enjoy their shade, their shade had to grow for years and and sometimes.
Just reminding ourselves that it needs time is a good good relaxing factor. Do your work and it will come.
Betrand Cochet: Exactly. And we can address at some moments, only a CEO or a middle manager or an employee. They agree that they will talk with all the company, with their colleagues. And the magical tree.
We brought from bottom to top or from top to bottom, but we have to get all that line. To get to get success.
Daniele Catalanotto: I see that the conversation is already quite deep and rich in metaphors. I'm excited also to see the next metaphors that will come out of this conversation. And the first question that I'd like to ask you about the book that I shared with you a little bit in advance is the following question.
The good stuff: Pausing music in hotlines
Daniele Catalanotto: Is there anything in that book, that you felt, this is something that I resonate with and that I'd like to put a light on?
Betrand Cochet: That's a good question. All the book is very interesting and I don't say that only because we are face to face now.
It's as you introduce it it's not about service design methods or methodology. It's about tips, insights that can help people who want to work with this vision.
One of your principle I loved really is when you are waiting at a call for an enterprise, you have to reach the client service and you have a music. that are running for minutes and minutes, and you don't want to listen.
And I really love your idea. I never thought about it. But just to be able to press zero, to stop that fucking music, because I just want silence. Or maybe the robot is able to say Okay, what do you prefer? You prefer rock, classical music, and yeah. I love that. Thank you so much
Daniele Catalanotto: for that.
Indeed. I have to give credit where credit is due. This is an idea from my dear friend, Romain Pitet and which definitely is something very small, but just say, this, I hate this music, please let me stop it.
Betrand Cochet: Awesome. Just the power of microservices. Indeed.
Daniele Catalanotto: Indeed. Microservices are very strong to, to change the emotions.
Betrand Cochet:
The good stuff: Frustration chapter
Betrand Cochet: The frustration part was very interesting for me, for many reasons. As I tried to explain during your introduction and how to introduce myself at a party.
We live with frustration, good frustration, when we explain what we are doing, but also when we are working.
with clients on some kind of projects, and then how to manage that, how to be able to to cope with that, that, that kind of emotion we can feel as designer and to get the job done, then this this chapter of your book is very clear for people who want to understand how they can act and more to, to change that that usually when you are designing services, we, because our brain and your cognitive system needs to to do some economy.
We will go quickly to the simplest approach, but working with clients on complex subjects, you can do that. And usually we can we can miss some information. We can miss some good subservices. We can add to the things we will create a new book for that. And that part about frustration is very interesting.
The principle don't give me too many information. For a problem I can't solve. It's so interesting because when you are performing a meeting with colleagues or when you are working during a workshop with clients, it's often happen. We have a lot inform of information and when we try to talk and to analyze all this information, sometimes we're stuck with that because too many things.
To understand, too many things to manage, then this principle is very lovely because it's a time to say stop. And it's also
a posture of a service designer, of globally designers, so people who are working in services to be able to say stop. And I would just add something I use lovely. Also, because in your introduction you put that word and it's something very interesting because usually books are very oriented to problem solving for methods.
And then you add in that book a kind of emotional or more human way to interpret and interact. With others and what they are saying or doing. So thank also for that because I think when we perform too many projects and actions, sometimes we forget to listen to our hearts what we like to do or love to do what we don't like also to do and to be in, in a good posture.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's super interesting, this idea that. I like how you frame that, also in the workplace this notion of if you love people enough, that there is stuff that you don't need to tell them because they can't act on it. And that it's. The real love is not the love of sharing everything you know, but sharing all that the person can use and make something with.
Because if I share so much information with you, that in the end, you're overwhelmed, in fact, it wasn't love, it was protection. It was, I just wanted to give you everything, because, so that you can't say, I did hide something, but the real love would be... I'm okay that there are parts that you don't need and I take responsibility for not giving you all of it, which is like a counter intuitive thing, that it's because of love that you are maybe not giving everything, but at that time it's not needed and it's okay.
And I, in the workplace, that's it, that approach of it's showing love to not give every piece of information is like a. An interesting shift.
Betrand Cochet: I agree. We are used with cognitive load. So giving too many informations will stuck the brain and then it's difficult to think about solutions about even a good way of thinking together.
So I totally agree with that principle.
Daniele Catalanotto: And it's funny, it's I had this conversation just this week with a student who asked me the question. Yeah, it's all good, this, but... What can I do with it? And I was like, this is the perfect question. Just please continue to ask that question.
Whenever somebody teaches you something, always come back to, Okay, I understood it, but at that moment, for me, it's not useful. So please make it useful to me. Okay, now I know that I've missed something in the sharing part. I think this is such a good question, the question. At the moment, it's good information, but not useful.
So what am I missing? What is the part that maybe you missed in sharing that makes it useful to
Betrand Cochet: me? That's a question of alignment. We can measure it also regarding the previous discussion we had about alignment. Service design spreading all, all around, that's the same thing. It's not for you now.
Okay. Don't go further in that and find another way to give information and to help. Yeah, I agree.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's, and it's quite, this part, again is super interesting to me. It's like this additional layer of, there might be moments where you share stuff, where you think it's valuable, but the other one just doesn't see the value.
And. It's a good moment to just verify the alignment that maybe it's, you didn't, you weren't clear enough and then you can adapt it, but also there is the possibility that it just isn't useful at that moment. And again, this posture of humility that you bring, which is, Oh, sorry about that. Then just let me reassure you, it's fully okay that you don't do anything with it yet.
Which is very, again, an act of, if we go back to this word, love, of saying, ah, it's okay, you don't need me, you don't need that, feel free to continue your journey without me, or without that, which is, again, a pretty, pretty great act of love, of saying to someone, At that stage, you don't need me, it's okay, go your way, or you don't need what I just shared, and it's okay, I can be humble enough to step away from the world.
Yeah,
Betrand Cochet: it can also have an impact over creativity. If you are performing a workshop and someone is in that kind of mind, then it will block all people gather during that moment. It will block all the creativity all the feelings, and it's not good. It's also interesting to, to be able from each parts.
To say this, I don't need for that moment, or this, I don't understand it, maybe it's for later. Yeah,
Daniele Catalanotto: and the simple fact of showing humility, then... In some way, acts as some, an example that people can reuse that where you're basically telling people without saying in the future, tell me again when it's not useful, but you're not saying it like as a principle you're just acting it.
And then people say, ah, okay, with him, he's okay that that we interact and that they say, this is useful. This isn't useful because. He shows humility, so he's not in the preacher role of this is true, this is false, but he's more on the coach or guide role, where he says, this might be one way.
Let's try it. Ah, you don't like that way. There are many other ways. Let's try another one. Exactly.
Betrand Cochet: And Marc Stickdorn and Adam Lawrence. During the session about expect facilitation they explain that. And one of the advice is to begin session workshops or other kind of activities with groups just to begin to begin and to end your session with what are the objectives.
All the sessions, what do you need, what you don't need, and also as a facilitator to, to be able to express this for them and to say, okay, this, I don't need for the moment. This I need really, if you want to to go at the end of the session with all what we have to do
Daniele Catalanotto: and to create.
Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. It's always impressive to me, to see how a few words, once you talk about them, what comes out is always so much more profound and richer. And and that's like the exercise that I'd like also to promote here is whenever you read a book take it out, bring it to a friend and say, I just read that.
And this, I like this. I didn't like and chat about it because then it's in the conversation. That's what you'll make out of most of the book, because the book are just a few words, but the conversation is what will bring you further and bring you to the next phase.
The bad stuff
Daniele Catalanotto: I'd like to transition on the parts of the book where you say this is stuff that Is there I wouldn't agree with directly or where I would add something more to make it more accurate? Were there parts where you say, ah, there, I have a good critique to share?
Betrand Cochet: Good question. Because I read the book twice, to be honest, because I wanted to prepare the session. No, I, I didn't find things with, I'm not agree with, so I think we share the same vision of what is service design, the way we need to work with others with the tools, with the methods with even the spirit of the service design.
So I was totally aligned and I wanted to thank you for that because sometimes we can. Read some books and some chapters can say, Oh, no, I don't agree. Oh the references the author used for that parts. I'm not aligned with, because I have others in mind and I would have preferred it's my preference that's it all about them.
But in, in the case we are talking about, no it's. Very good.
The bad stuff: Using the body and energies
Betrand Cochet: Maybe what I'm missing is it's the, what you introduced with level, that that's what it's a major question for me now because how can I help people to, to work with more the human approach?
We usually work with our mind, all the mental models, et cetera, et cetera. But with the body, we don't work so much. With body, I would say during a workshop helping people to move to put their feet on the paper, on the ground, and to feel what it did to have the feet on it.
Thanks. If the word written on the paper on the ground creates inside me,
in emotion, not in mental. And this is a special way to work, not useful not usual, sorry. So it's very interesting. Mental, body, but I also work with emotion as you do. But also, with what I call energies, it's a word not useful in, again, not in use in professional fields, but it exists. We can feel sometimes you will work with a group you never met before, and then it will be just a perfect moment.
All people are aligned. The ideas will be great, but sometimes not. What's the difference? Individuals? Maybe. You? Maybe with a small night, with kids, etc. Maybe you are not in the best approach to be able to perform. But I assume that there is others. And another thing, and I call it energy, and at the moment I read a lot of books about that, because it's very interesting, and psychologists work a lot on the energies of the groups, and it's very useful, and as service design is linked with people and with groups, with communities, it can be interesting, if you agree with me, To maybe to introduce a more global vision of a human being and what it can do with others.
Daniele Catalanotto: I love your critique. I will reformulate it in my words and you tell me if I understood you right. From what I understand what you're saying is the book is quite mental, it has many stuff which is good at the mental state. It has a few approaches which are pretty good at the emotional state, but two parts are missing and that's the stuff that I like.
The one part is like the body part, how can we Stop thinking with the brain and emotions, but more with our full body, how can we use the body as also something and I think that's definitely something which is out of the radar in this book. And the other part is this as the, as the husband of a preacher, I will call it spirituality, obviously.
Also, energy, spirituality you can englobe it in these elements. And and it's something that. That, I think is missing in that book and that I'd like, so the body part, I'm I'm not an expert on, and I'd like to hear from you maybe a few tips on that. On the spiritual spirituality part, I think I might have a bias that I can share today, which is, I'm, I would say I'm quite a spiritual person.
But I've learned that in business, I don't show it that much, and slowly, as Hair becomes grey, you start to become a little smarter. I'm realizing that, in fact, there is a big space for that too, that giving space for spirituality. Sometimes you just have to change the name because then it might scare people, you can use other names, Reflection, Time of Silence, and this kind of stuff.
It's just a question of
Betrand Cochet: definition. Yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yes, definitely. Because when you redefine these words, And then you let people experience it. It's quite strong. And it's another tool, and instead of having this view of, yes, we are service designers, we are designers, consultants, whatever you want to call ourselves, and obviously this is very mental, it would be sad to say, Hey, we are using the 10 percent which is here of the human let's use also the rest.
And I think that's a very good reminder. So might I ask you on the, on both the kind of body part and the spirituality energy part what are your experiences? Working in services and maybe in businesses, how do you translate that? How do you bring that into that world?
Because I'm very curious here.
Betrand Cochet: We, with physical approach it's quite easy. It's just puts people gathered in a room in movements, not during all a session, but sometimes, usually in service design or design thinking. When you ask the people to write ideas on post-its, then usually you ask them stick it to the wall and explain to others so people are obliged to go there and come back.
This is movement. This is a small part of movement, but if you want to to make a pole, you can do it by people going from apart to another and stay. where they want to stay, and others are able to see, okay, five guys are there. But for me, I feel better here. And others can move and switch. And it's a way to introduce physical activity during a mental intellectual session.
That's the first part. And there's many others. Augusto Boal, the guy who work a lot with with theater in, in, just a moment, in activities for helping people at the global states. He used that kind of of,
Daniele Catalanotto: and it's quite, the whole triage thing is extremely strong, I feel, especially from what I've noticed, there is one thing That I like these days when it comes to psychology and mindfulness is which I'd like to see how we can translate that into the service design world. For example, when you have a headache, there are different approaches to, to handle that headache.
There is one approach, which is I don't take any medication. I don't care about it. This is just mental. I just go through it. One approach. Another approach is let's take medication and it will pass. And then there is another approach, which is like the mindfulness approach where we say, oh, let me concentrate on it.
Let me just ask myself and ask the language is a bit strange, but let me ask the headache. What does it want to tell me? Should I sleep more? Maybe should I drink? And once I've done that, let me concentrate on it and see where is it? Does it move? What shape does it have? Is it warm? Is it cold?
And one thing that I experienced in doing this, which is a funny experience, is like I had this experience trying to concentrate a lot on it and to really understand it, like the shape for, and then suddenly I got angry because I was like, it disappeared. I can't find it anymore.
Which is extremely interesting. And so I'm asking myself, how can we. How where instead of people just thinking about experiences, how can we just bring them, hey, here is a room, it's a reception, go through the reception, move in it, feel how it is, feel is the distance big, is it short, where do you feel trapped, where do you feel, oh I'm welcome, maybe you don't have an explanation for it, it's okay, but where did you have different feelings and emotions in your body, where you felt that?
Here, I. I don't know why, but at this place of the reception, I didn't feel okay. And this can be used also as this more energetic body experience where people use it to explore what is a service in a way that isn't like the typical mental thing.
Betrand Cochet: You can also feel that that thoughts when people are talking about a problem. You can feel that it's difficult for them. It's emotional. There is political issues and a lot of things you can't see. It's behind the scenes. But if you come with them and to help understand, Okay, what's your feeling now?
And expose your feeling to others. And then others can react to that. Understand better what's the problem. At the moment, and then you can create a kind of empathy with the group or in face to face too, and ask them to realize when the problem began. We talked about your headache. Usually when I do the same thing than you, I realize that, oh, maybe two years two hours before I read an email I didn't like.
It hurt, hurted me. And, oh, two hours later, I have a big headache. And if I'm able to get into introspection in my body and in my feelings, I can link the pain with the origin of the pain. In a group, or in professional field, if you can do that, all the small problems can pass away. And it's very interesting, and it's yeah, spirituality approach.
How to bring spirituality in the business world
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, indeed. And I like the fact that, I think this is one key that I'm learning from you is the fact that When using a word like spirituality, which can be understood in many different ways, depending on your culture, your upbringing, your context. It just needed to say, okay, when I speak about spirituality, that's how I define it for me.
Thank you so let me ask you, how do you define it when you're working with more business y people, and you want to make people a bit aware of the more holistic work that you're doing? How do you speak about spirituality? How do you onboard people with it?
Betrand Cochet: Today, I never use... The term spirituality or all the other words linked to that, because as you said, in professional field, it's not, we're not aware that we can do that because there is a lot of judgments about that.
One thing, very important, I traveled a lot for leisure, but also for professional work, and I realized that. Every people I met have a goal for and this goal will be defined during during the life, during the experience. But we all have a high goal for us. And when you are working, sometimes you forget or you put aside that goal.
And maybe it's linked to the years after years experience after experience. You realize that your goal is not so far from what you can do and act all the day. For when I work with other professionals, I just try to show them that the present moment is important. It's also spirituality, if you read that kind of books about the present.
We have a walk, we, where we are always. Looking at what was before and what we have to do, but when do we take time to say, okay, it's now, we are Tuesday it's 11 o'clock and what am I doing now? Am I thinking about the next hour, the previous hour? No, I'm just here now and during workshops or a working session, you can introduce that approach to say, okay we have talked a lot many ideas that came, then we'll do a little stop and just get aligned with ourself and look and feel what's done.
And then it's usually a nice moment for the group because it's a kind of pause. They can listen and understand what they've done and what the, what will go outside from the group after that is usually richer that if you don't do that little step and to get into the presence and only the presence.
Daniele Catalanotto: I'm not sure if I can hear you. Absolutely clear. It's a, it was one of these in the moment moments, where you're like, okay I'm totally here. I totally agree with it. Maybe it, it reminds me, let me share an experience which was quite similar to this which I tried to make with a, with an organization, which I'm helping at the moment.
And we took moments. So as it's a social organization and that has also a church side, the spiritual aspect is easier to bring. But, there was an expectation that as it's strategy work, we're going to be very business. And I always try to bring back the spiritual aspect. And one exercise that we made.
that we took, which worked really well and that I think, now thinking back at what we're, at our conversation I think could work in many settings is the moments of listening, and what we basically did, we said, okay, now we'll just have a stop. You can go out, nature is not far away go out.
Your task is basically just to go out and listen and feel. So we have this project. You've thought a lot about it. We've practiced a lot. We did a lot. Now just go out and see if there is something that you resonate with. See if there is something that speaks to you. And strangely enough, when people come back, they have these little moments where they were like, Oh, I was.
I was next to a farm and I saw this and it made me realize, blah, blah, blah. And then they tell you something and then it's like a tipping point in the conversation where suddenly you have the image that unlocks the rest of the conversation. And everybody suddenly said, that's the image I agree totally with.
That's exactly what we should do. For example, there was an image for that group that was a person seeing rabbits in cages. And where she said, oh, but there is everything they need outside of the cage. Why do we put people in the cage? And there was this big reflection of, but are we putting our employees in the cage?
Are we doing the same? And because there is already everything. And so maybe our work is not just to give resources, but to give freedom because resources are there. And, this kind of unlocked a whole other conversation, Which was much more previously very business y, what are the resources we need, what's the plan we need?
And there suddenly it was on the very cultural aspect of how can we free people of the cages that the organization has created. Without us knowing it, and how can we there change the language? How can we change our posture so that people feel that, yes, we are, they are bosses, but still there is a lot of freedom and a lot of available resources.
And, and I'm thinking now that we had this conversation, I'd like to play with that in more business structures, where I think if we put people outside and they see stuff and they come back and they have images of I don't know why, but this resonated with me, sometimes it's the, I don't know why is it always a good start, I don't know why, but it resonated with me.
And then somebody else says, that's quite interesting. Yeah. That resonates with me too, because of this. And then maybe the other one has the other part that that can unlock it. And you perfectly
Betrand Cochet: introduce the physical approach in your example, when you ask them to go out for a walk. And we know that the, our brain.
Needs that when it's too overloaded with information and things like that.
Resources to go further
Daniele Catalanotto: Bertrand, I have to say, I didn't expect that we would speak about spirituality today, but I'm extremely happy for it. It's so cool. Let me come with the next question, which is What are resources, elements that you'd like to share for people to go a step further?
So you told me right before that you read a lot of books about energy, spirituality, whatever we want to call it at the moment, that it's inspiring your work. Maybe do you have a few references that you'd like to share on that topic or in general that you think would be a kind of a good next reading or a good next exploration for people interested in these topics?
I have
Betrand Cochet: many books I can talk about.
Books from Carl Jung
Betrand Cochet: Maybe it's not so easy for people who don't use to read a book about psychology, that Jung is a very good example of psychologists to manage both psychology and spirituality.
And the links he did was were evident.
For me so it's a good point of departure.
Books about Albert Einstein
Betrand Cochet: I also read a book about Albert Einstein, not a book about what he imagined and created, but the way he was living, and he explained a lot and a lot of things when he was stuck with his mind. What he did to get the solution without thinking.
And it's very interesting because he was highly spiritual and he was also highly aware of what a human being can do to go further with, regarding his own limits.
Book: The Power of Now
Betrand Cochet: Eckhart Tolle wrote a book which was really stunning for me because he is able to mix a lot of vision of belief that's. Totally aligned with what we are and the goal of our life, and the way we are acting everyday life for that goal or not.
And we can measure that sometimes we forget some part of that goal, and it helps to reorganize the way we are living, we are thinking, and we are working too. But it's totally a spiritual book. Yes, it can help.
Lovely.
Daniele Catalanotto: Awesome.
Thanks so much for these recommendations. I'm sure people will have with it a complimentary review that can help them to not see just one part of the way that we work, which is the thinking or the emotions, but also add to it the body and the kind of more spiritual part. And for that, I'm extremely thankful to you for adding like Putting a bit of light on the blind spot that is existing in that book and which I think enabled also this lovely conversation.
Get in touch with Bertrand
Daniele Catalanotto: And now I'd like to ask you: how can people either get in touch with you, read more from you, discover more of your work?
Betrand Cochet: It's quite easy. There is a website, an application called LinkedIn. It's just perfect for that. Seriously, it's quite easy to contact me. To get discussion even if people doesn't agree with me and my position I explain now or if they want to do further in, in that that thinking. They can contact me, yes, on LinkedIn but also with the agency Vaumana and then, yeah, I'm totally open to.
To discussion, to, to organize also maybe events when we can talk about service design, hopefully but also this other part of what we are and what we can do for us and for others.
Daniele Catalanotto: So I will leave this like a call to action to the community. For those interested in working on the holistic experience taking the whole human into consideration invite Bertrand to have an exchange.
Again, thank you so much Bertrand for this lovely call for this time that we shared. And I hope you'll have a lovely day after this.
Betrand Cochet: You too, Daniel. And thank you so much for everything.