Interview with Laurent Siebert, senior VP internal audit at Schneider and participant in EVE.

EVE program: Hello Laurent. You are the head of Schneider's global internal audit. In concrete terms, what is your mission?

Laurent Siebert: Hello. The main mission of the department I lead is to ensure that processes are efficient and risks are well measured throughout the Schneider Group. This means auditing entities, auditing major acquisitions, auditing processes and conducting cross-functional audits to ensure that the group's strategy is properly deployed anywhere in the world. These are very global missions, which affect all professions, in all countries, at all levels.

EVE Program: You rely on a remarkably diverse team to carry out this mission...

Laurent Siebert: Yes, but for this work, the team is fundamental. And the choice of diversity is not insignificant. I recruit on four diversity axes.

The second axis is nationality: in a team of 16 people, I have 12 different nationalities, because a multicultural environment is very important in our mission, which is fundamentally international. The first axis is the balance between women and men. I almost reach 50/50.

The third axis is education and diplomas: my collaborators come from the best universities in their countries, but they have a variety of backgrounds, I have engineers, lawyers, people from major business schools but also literary students.

The fourth axis is the diversity of career paths: 1/3 of my team comes from within, from all types of positions, global supply chain, marketing; 1/4 comes from strategy and the others come from external recruitments. It's clearly diverse profiles that I'm looking for.

A fifth area of diversity emerges in our audit recruitment: generational diversity. Traditionally, auditing is reserved for people aged 30-35, but today I try to integrate seniors into the team to also bring another perspective, other ways of doing things, a step back... But it is true that the nature of the job does not make it easy to recruit people between the ages of 35 and 45, because with more than half of the year spent on the move, it is a job that is not compatible with a balanced family life. But it must also be said that you don't spend your entire career in auditing, it's a career springboard.

EVE Program: Do you see your department as a talent incubator?

Laurent Siebert: Exactly. Schneider's global audit identifies and trains the group's future leaders. For a long time, the image of the audit was summed up as a team of young wolves totally devoted to their mission, working from early morning to night, sometimes lacking hindsight, in an approach described by some as quasi-military. Today, it is a practical school of leadership, we are looking for people who have a global vision, who know how to react to stress, who have a sense of the professions, who are attentive and who will be able to spread good management practices...

This is also the reason why I want to ensure that, even if a family life is difficult for the auditors, during this period of their career, they have a private life and that they know how to reconcile it with professional life. I am very attached to the atmosphere of the service and I encourage listeners to take moments of relaxation, even when they are on assignment, here or abroad. I'll show you, we have a very festive photo gallery of the team's off moments. We are far from the caricature of the austere and individualistic, carnivorous and humorless listener! (Editor's note: after visiting Laurent Siebert's department and meeting the members of his team, we confirm that a very friendly atmosphere reigns in the team and that the different listeners who were introduced to us did indeed have a human, friendly, open and... Laughing!).

EVE Program: How do these very diverse and very mixed teams work together?  

Laurent Siebert: I systematically choose to put everyone where they are not expected, to mix roles, to take everyone out of their comfort zone. I take everyone out of their field of expertise, out of their " box ": it reinforces creativity (those who are not experts in a subject ask the right questions, sometimes naïve questions, but questions that are very relevant), mutual aid and team spirit.

This way of doing things creates a positive emulation that transcends the personalities, all of whom are already very brilliant, and allows them to surpass themselves even more.

EVE Program: Is this where you reveal the leaders in them?

The " Platinum rules " of Schneider's internal audit

Laurent Siebert: Yes. To increase their leadership, we also put a lot of emphasis on communication. I want to teach my employees how to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, with the outside world and with each other.

We have " platinum rules " and among them one that is very important to me: " feedback is a gift".  It's a real cultural change and it's an effort for everyone, too, but it's essential. We debrief every day and we train two weeks a year in " leadership and communication " seminars with classic workshops such as coaching or 360°, but also more unexpected workshops, like last year, theater classes that were very successful, despite some initial apprehensions.

I also decided to offer private coaching to certain members of the team, in particular to solve questions of self-confidence, which are, unfortunately, more frequent among female employees.

EVE Program: You participated in the last EVE seminar, in Evian, in December 2012. Did you find new inspiration to develop women's self-confidence and leadership? 

Laurent Siebert: Yes, I shared with my team different things learned at EVE. First, the intervention of Joanna Barsh, from McKinsey. This " Ask what you want!" which is the leitmotif of his speech, is very simple but very promising. Immediately after talking about this plenary session with my team, an employee came to meet me and said, " I never dared to say it, but I want to change, I want to move towards solutions." I was able to contact the head of solutions, who was obviously delighted to come across this profile.

I also shared with my teams the testimony of Franck Riboud. I find very important what he says about freedom as a leader's temperament: it is freedom that helps to take risks, to dare to surpass oneself.  Leadership is indeed a state of mind.

EVE Program: How do you spot this " state of mind " in a future leader?

Laurent Siebert: When I talk to someone, during a recruitment for example, I pay attention to the way the person organizes their own life, how they talk about their teams, how they express themselves about themselves and others... I'm looking for a certain humility, in self-confidence. I also want people who have a capacity for conviction and real qualities of understanding. These are not gifts, they are values.

I have sometimes said, after an interview, " Okay, he has a good CV, he is strong, he answers questions well. But I don't think the team doesn't want to work with him!"   It's important, for example, that a leader also has a sense of humor, an ability to relax, and it's important that he or she knows how to integrate, who has a " good comrade " spirit... These are things that can be felt.

EVE Program: You say that you " feel " these things. Does this mean that you leave a lot of room for intuition in your management?

Laurent Siebert: Yes, intuition is not only feminine! (laughs) It's good to be able to let that quality speak when you're a man. I also make a lot of room for talking, for exchange. This too may be seen as a traditionally feminine quality. But things are changing! (laughs).

For me, three qualities are essential in management and they are three human qualities: listening, respect and a spirit of mutual aid.