Explorers of frugal Mondays, let’s take a step aside, shift the angle, and transform the view. Let’s look differently at the way we do business, right here, at home.
That morning, in a modest café, the kind of place where the floor tiles stick slightly underfoot but where truths are spoken without a filter, I was sipping a mint cordial. A man was speaking to another. Two workers, straightforward and direct, no small talk.
They were talking business.
And then, without meaning to, one dropped a sharp and striking sentence: "In France, when you do business, the only goal is to make as much as possible while grinding the other guy into the ground. Otherwise, it’s not a win."
I’ve heard this sentence before. Not in words, but in attitudes, in silences, in handshakes that are just a bit too firm. It captures what I’ve long called the winner-loser logic. The opposite of win-win. A game where cooperation is just a means to dominate. Where people smile through clenched teeth. Where elegance is a disguise, never a natural state.
In the collective imagination, business is supposed to be a dance for two: each moves forward, each gains, each grows. But in France, let’s be honest, it too often turns into a duel. A chess game where the real dream is to crush the opponent with flair. The joy comes not only from victory, but even more from the other’s defeat.
Why is that?
It’s not by accident. It’s cultural. A legacy of Cartesian thinking, where everything is classified: right or wrong, strong or weak. A mindset shaped by rankings and competitions, where success is measured by elimination. A legacy where the military has influenced the business world, with its taste for frontal strategy and rigid defense.
But there is a cost to this mindset. Weakened networks, strained relationships, eroded trust. And above all: stalled innovation. Because in a world full of suspicion, who would dare take a risk on a new idea? Who would open the door to fertile randomness, to serendipity? That magic of productive chance cannot survive in distrust. It needs softer, more generous, more vibrant soil.
In contrast, true win-win is not some utopia dreamed up by consultants in open-plan offices. It is a mechanism for growth. A driver of connection. A game where people are not afraid to share, to recommend, to create together. Because we know that what we plant together can grow into possibilities none of us could imagine alone.
So no, changing the paradigm is not about being nice. It is a strategic necessity.
In a complex, interconnected world where the unexpected is the norm, playing to crush others means losing before the game even begins.
What if we turned business into fertile ground for collective intelligence? What if trust were no longer the exception, but the lever? What if victory were not solitary, but contagious?
Because the real game of business is the one where we win together. And where we want to play again.
The TEDxSaclay ticket office is open for the conference on June 28, 2025, at Châteauform'.