So, let me tell you about this whole “Picard François” business. It still makes me chuckle, and sometimes shake my head, when I think back on it. It wasn’t a person, not really, not to us on the ground anyway. It was more like… a legend, a myth, a set of sacred scrolls handed down from the mountaintop, or so they made it seem.
This guy, Picard François – apparently a big-shot consultant – was hired by the higher-ups. Flew in, gave some fancy presentations with lots of graphs that went up and to the right. He was all about “synergistic frameworks” and “paradigm shifts.” Catchy, right? We were told his methods were going to revolutionize how we worked. Revolutionize! That’s a big word.
So, they rolled out the “Picard François methodology.” We got binders. Thick ones. Full of diagrams that looked like spaghetti junctions and steps for doing, well, pretty much everything we already did, but now with ten extra steps and a mandatory “reflection phase” after sending an email.
I remember trying, I really did. My first task under the new regime was to update a simple client contact list. Pre-Picard François, that was a ten-minute job. Log in, change number, save, done. Easy.
- Now? Oh boy.
- First, I had to fill out a “Change Initiation Form,” section A, B, and sub-section C-alpha.
- Then, I had to schedule a “Peer Review Synchronicity Meeting” – yes, that was its actual name – to discuss the implications of changing a phone number.
- Then, perform the change.
- Then, document the change in the “Post-Actualization Ledger.”
- And finally, hold a “Lessons Learned Huddle.” For a phone number.
It was madness. Productivity, which this was all supposed to boost, just TANKED. We spent more time talking about doing work, and documenting the talking, than actually doing the work. Everyone was frustrated. You’d see people hiding in stairwells just to have a quick, actual work-related chat without having to log it into the “Spontaneous Interaction Matrix.” I’m not even kidding.
The best part? Picard François himself, the actual guy, was long gone. Cashed his check and probably off to “revolutionize” some other unsuspecting company. We were just left with his… legacy.
After about six months of this charade, something had to give. Projects were delayed, clients were getting antsy. Quietly, very quietly, managers started telling us to “use our discretion” with the Picard François steps. Which basically meant, “for God’s sake, just get the work done, but don’t tell anyone I said that.”
Slowly, the binders gathered dust. The fancy names for meetings disappeared from our calendars. We went back to, you know, just working. It was like this collective sigh of relief went through the whole office.
So, what did I learn from the great “Picard François” experiment? Well, mostly that some things look great on a PowerPoint slide but fall apart completely when they meet actual, real-world work. And that sometimes, the best “synergistic framework” is just common sense and letting people do their jobs. It’s funny, isn’t it? How some folks get paid a fortune to tell you things that a bit of trust and common sense would have solved for free.
That whole episode became a bit of an inside joke. Anytime something overly complicated or bureaucratic came up, someone would just say, “Ah, that’s got a bit of the Picard François about it,” and we’d all know exactly what they meant. So, yeah, that was my practice with Picard François. A practice in patience, mostly. And in learning how to nod seriously in meetings while thinking, “this is completely bonkers.”