Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-11
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Nathalie Tessier, Teacher-Researcher, ESDES – UCLy (Lyon Catholic University)
Participative management methods might just be an illusion? They would facilitate employees’ adherence to decisions already made upstream by the company. Beware of being sucked into these collaborative moments; you will likely be asked to catch up on the remaining workload.
“These companies that have adopted participative management and are thriving”title the mediaBusiness Guide. “Participative management: how to unlock the potential of your teams?” asksla Voix du Nord … The press echoes the participatory and collaborative management methods in French companies which seem to be successful.
The principle? Actively involve all employees. The formats range from simple meetings dedicated to creativity to seminars designed to generate new ideas using tools that promote interactivity and collective intelligence.
Behind an apparent participatory democracy in everyone’s decision-making, wouldn’t these mechanisms actually serve to ensure employee adherence to the company’s projects, often decided upstream? What about the employees who do not take part? Would participative management not become a device of “freely given submission,” a notion introduced byJonathan Freedman and Scott FraserIn 1966, they pointed out that individuals may feel that they are acting freely, while in fact they have been placed under an implicit constraint or influence.
TheriskA: a “managerial disenchantment.”
France, a poor student in management
France would be a “bad student” in managerial practices among its European neighbors, according to what seems to be revealed by areport of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs(Igas) published in 2024. The following points emerge from it:
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a style considered too hierarchical and vertical;
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a fairly low level of employee autonomy;
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a feeling of insufficient recognition and a management training that is very (even too) academic and largely insufficient;
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the absence of a culture based on social dialogue and on an adversarial principle.
However,78% of professionalsthink that their company promotes collaborative work. In another more recent study,70% of employees and 83% of managersdeclare themselves committed to their companies’ projects.
A model far from new
This participatory model is far from being new. It was already described in the 1950s bysocial sciences researcher Chris Argyris. Employee participation was seen as a way to motivate collaborators.
Employee participation formats were multiple in the 1970s and 1980s:
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thequality circlesrepresented by groups of employees meeting to improve quality, costs, etc.;
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the semi-autonomous groups that will think more deeply and continuously about the production process;
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consultation meetings to encourage the expression of viewpoints and to prevent or manage conflicts;
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expression groups where employees speak out about working conditions, health risks;
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themanagement by valuesrepresented by the development of charters or business projects.
Also to read:
To escape kakistocracy – management by the unskilled – all it takes is to confront incompetence!
During the 1980s, acritical literatureemerges. This model does not really constitute a model of work organization; it is more about tinkering aroundparticipatory practices, without its effectiveness being truly tested.
Perverse effects of participatory practices
It seems that today there is a growth in these institutionalized collective rituals. These workshops or seminars can be led by consultants and last ahalf a day or even a whole day. If they are poorly supervised and too frequent, this kind of managerial practices can have adverse effects.
Moral evaluation of loyalty to the company
The first risk is to judge employees based on their participation in these rituals, rather than on objective accomplishments recorded in their job description. Engagement in these meetings becomes an implicit indicator of the employee’s alignment with the company’s values. For those who do not participate: stigmatization, since the employee would be considered “not motivated” or “not corporate.”
Work overload and loss of time
Participation in these collective meetings can constitute ainvisible and hidden cost. The employee, who can hardly opt out for fear of not being “corporate,” ends up having to catch up on their workload, in other words, working more. The more meetings there are, the less concentration and quality of work there is. This increases fatigue, vulnerability, and can, in the long term, be a source of psychosocial risks (PSRs).
Legitimize the work of managers
A third risk is using participation as a tool to justify the role, or even the status, of manager. Wouldn’t the latter still be producing visible management insofar as he leads the teams of collaborators, coordinates actions, and contributes, thanks to these meetings, to mobilizing the teams? These practices, far from developing performance, seem to infantilize them; that is thekakistocracyor the reign of the incompetent.
Freely given consent
Previously highlighted in theengagement theoriesand illustrated in the book by psychologists Joule and BeauvoisLittle Treatise on Manipulation for the Use of Honest People, one last perverse effect could be to make employees believe that they would become co-responsible for the decisions made. However, the underlying managers’ view is no longer of participation, but a procedure of social validation of predefined choices.
Too much participation kills participation
Should companies for that reason abandon their “collective” practices? Could non-participation in these collaborative practices be used to argue decisions taken to justify professional inadequacy?
Participation, to be effective, must be genuine, useful, voluntary, and value-creating. It requires certain ground rules: creating a collective, establishing negotiation spaces, setting clear intentions, or proposing a transparent framework for the decision-making process. At the same time, it is essential to train employees in appropriate relational and emotional skills in order to facilitate or coordinate collective action.
Participation should neither become systematic nor mandatory, respecting the time and intelligence of employees. On the contrary, it could be accompanied by concrete actions:
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follow the collaborators’ proposals;
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free up working time for these collective moments;
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allocate a dedicated budget, set up pilot teams;
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launch an experimental project.
If applicable, the risk is to give employees false hopes of changes. There are many effective practices and tools for managing participatory meetings, but above all, it’s a state of mind. Too much participation kills participation.
Nathalie Tessier is a member of IP&M (Institute of Psychoanalysis & Management)
–ref. If you participate in collaborative workshops, don’t get carried away, decisions may already have been made –https://theconversation.com/if-you-participate-in-collaborative-workshops-don’t-get-too-excited-decisions-may-already-have-been-made-278701