TEACH - First Year Program Grand Ecole

All of the students who take part in the Master in Management (MiM) Grande Ecole program at HEC Paris follow the Purpose and Sustainability Track throughout their studies.

The objective is to train to purpose and leadership by experience and humanities and to invite them to reflect personally on their own search of meaning and on how to become a "responsible leader".

Reflecting on questions of purpose requires a movement away from an academic, scholarly logic to a process of authenticity, sharing and responsibility. 

Even before the new first-year students set foot on campus, they met for 4 days of seminar in Chamonix.

They were asked to experiment with the issues of meaning through role-play situations that encouraged them to question themselves (supported by professional coaches), to excel as a team (for example, towards collective action and decision-making exercices with young officers) or to question the mission, the 'raison d'être" of companies (by learning about the purpose of local leaders).

During this seminar, they will explore 3 dimensions of the leadership:

• “Be yourself”: Purposefully lead self – Authenticity axis
• “Be with”: Purposefully lead others – Team leadership axis
• “Be for”: Purposefully lead organizations – Mission axis

Social and environmental issues were also brought to life for the students, especially during their unforgettable experience learning about the retreat of the glacier in Chamonix and hearing insights from leading climatologists.

"The students come out of difficult, studious years of preparatory classes, and we wanted this seminar to be both a breath of fresh air and a way to open up their horizons." Julie Thinès, Academic Director of the Grande Ecole Programs.

After visiting these exceptional places, meaning finds expression in exceptional men and women. A series of conferences is organized given the students the opportunity to meet with inspirational business leaders, who recount how, in all circumstances and despite the conflicting demands of a given economic environment, they have tried to be themselves, to be with their teams and be faithful to their corporate mission. For the first edition in 2019, the students appreciated the sincerity and depth of the testimonials provided, including those from Antoine Frérot (CEO Veolia Environnement), Hubert de Boisredon (CEO Armor), Antoine Lemarchand (CEO Nature et Découvertes), Christopher Guérin (CEO Nexans), and Emery Jacquillat (CEO Camif Matelsom).

Once these questions had been asked, the students chose to explore in greater depth the one that was of particular interest to them. This exercise, informed by the use of the humanities and social sciences, was rooted in the real-life experiences of the companies and their employees, who hosted the students and allowed them to ask questions about their corporate purpose and the meaning of their actions. Since the beginning of the adventure in 2018, around 100 companies were involved in hosting the students. 

These discussions have become high-quality dissertations on subjects as varied as taking vulnerabilities into account or the inversion of hierarchy in companies, the best of which were recognized by Denis Machuel (CEO Sodexo) for the first edition on November 2019. Finally, the students learned about the environmental and social issues that are essential to reinventing a company and harnessing its potential for the common good. A rewarding first year on a program that the students will follow throughout their studies, learning how to bring a human dimension to business.