Giving up a gold-plated pension to grow tomatoes
Château de Menthon-Saint-Bernard Castle’s Garden, France @Chateaudementhon
“Trust your instincts, free yourself up from the fear by practicing your passion.
”
Hugues Devries was a senior executive with a clear path to corporate glory at Somfy, a thriving 1.3-billion euro industrial company. But as he closed in on the big Five-O, he felt a sense of unease. Something was awry, something was missing. And so he abandoned his C-suite quest to become a small-scale farmer, tiling the soil of a thousand-year-old castle on a hilltop overlooking Lake Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region of France.
An engineer by training (Polytechnique School of Lausanne, EPFL), Hugues talked to us about his life as an executive, and what inspired him to take the plunge into permaculture.
1 - You transitioned from running a business unit to a permaculture farm with only interns. What possessed you?
At Somfy I had major responsibilities. I managed a large team, and the unit generating the largest revenue stream for the company. It was a great job. But at the same time, I came to realize that I needed a change.
Questions had been gathering in the back of my mind, but it was my wife who brought them into the light of day. One evening, coming back from a typical 12-hour workday plus two hours commuting, my wife asked me: "Do you see yourself staying in the company for a long time ?” . “No, of course not” I answered spontaneously, surprising myself. "Well then, what are you waiting for ?", she said.
My wife’s clairvoyant question was the trigger. I was almost 50 years old, and no longer felt the same level of enthusiasm and excitement I had always known in business. I kept thinking about my father who had died barely two years after he retired, he never had the opportunity to enjoy what he had had most deeply loved in his life.
Somfy is very innovative and successful, and fair with its employees. But I was starting to lose interest in the recurring cycles of decisions, actions, processes. I was investing 60 hours every week into my work and began to feel constrained, stuck. I realized that I was not fully aligned with a single-minded focus on revenue and quantitative growth. I began to think about the cost - human, environmental - stemming from such an approach.
Once these doubts were in the open, I asked myself questions that accelerated my transition:
Is my work aligned with my talents and deeper yearnings ?
Are the tasks I undertake enervating rather than energizing ?
If I were to set aside the question of resources and time, what would be my dream goal?
In day-to-day work, am I in tune with my own values, or stretching to accommodate those of the company ?
Do my actions positively impact the planet ?
In day-to-day work, am I in tune with my own values, or stretching to accommodate those of the company ?
Hugues Devries
To this last question, the honest answer was ënoí. In different companies, I have overseen, for example, millions of products manufactured in China that were sent first to France and then shipped again to Japanese clients, all because of locked-in logistics.
Containers crisscrossing the ocean for 12 weeks instead of being shipped directly from China to Japan was environmentally unjustifiable. Bottom line: I was tired of permanently reinventing, year in and year out, new products to boost the consumption throttling the planet with pollution.
At the same time, I realized that I was no longer truly in phase with myself, or in tune with my own nature, energy and enthusiasm. Even my sense of time diverged. On the job, there is constant pressure to show results, to produce, to be in movement. It began to feel wrong ñ draining rather than fulfilling, alienating rather than humanizing.
2 - In deciding to quit your job, how did you assess risks and rewards?
Before I could contemplate the pros and cons of such a momentous decision, I had to ask myself two key questions: Can I trust my instincts? Do I have the talent to succeed?
Only if I have confidence in my instincts, I decided, could I free myself from fear and follow my passion. It was, if you like, a leap of faith. As for talent, as soon as I understood that it was a subjective notion, it faded away as a preoccupation. What really counted was knowing what I want to do, and hard work.
These insights allowed me to accept that - like Nature - society is not inherently aggressive or threatening, but rather offers opportunities to grow. I focused on my new permaculture activity and how it made me feel: balanced, connected to myself. That was enough to set me on a new path ñ talent and expertise would come later.
Because I was happy, positive and imbued with my vision, I knew I would quickly find the right people and partners along the way.
3 - Is your family supportive of your choice?
A radical life change is a family choice. If there is doubt that is not addressed head on, it can grow and spread like a cancer. For a step like this, you need your family behind you, to push you, even.
My wife and I discussed the potential consequences. She fully supported my decision, and made it clear she had no expectations on revenue during the first few years. From a psychological standpoint, having consistent support from family and friends is crucial. Switching status from someone with power, resources and security in a large company to being alone in a field with your hand literally in the mud is daunting.
Were you ready to launch a business with minimal resources, and for the decline in status ñ at least a certain kind of status ñ that comes with reducing expenses to a minimum?
It was too difficult to do a business plan on a concept which was not fully articulated. Nor did I have a long-term financing strategy. My resources were indeed limited, but I met wonderful and generous people such as Pierre-Henri and Maurice de Menthon, who offered to let me run the Menthon Saint Bernard Chateau’s Gardens and grow my executive training program there.
Menthon Saint Bernard Castle’s Garden
You do need to layout a solid spending plan, and to accept the reality of deeply reduced expenses. I sold different goods, which were not compatible with my new-found connection with Nature.
In terms of keeps expenses down, there were also benefits that came from no longer spending 14 hours a day in an office or a car. I was at home a lot more and could take care of the kids every evening until my wife came back from work. We no longer needed to pay for a helper at home.
4 - Did you have a back-up plan?
I was realistic about a back-up plan, knowing that it would be nearly impossible to return to the corporate world after I had turned 50. We had my wife’s income and our savings, but I truly believe that opportunities will come if you are open-minded. That said, as an engineer, I wanted everything as planned and structured as possible - and in writing.
5 - You conduct executive training in the castle’s garden. How do permaculture principles apply to corporate life?
The goal in permaculture - inspired by Nature - is to set up a living system that is productive, sustainable and resilient. It’s harder than it sounds. Here are some of the basic principles, rules and techniques, and how that might be relevant in a corporate setting.
1. SET A GOAL - Start by setting yourself a goal. In my case, it was creating a garden that could provide enough vegetables year-round to feed several families.
In business: Define the objective, both in quality and scope. As an example, if you want to bring more digital leads to the sales people and need to transform your marketing team into a digital marketing team with no prior digital experience.
2. OBSERVE - A healthy natural ecosystem is in balance. When attempting to recreate that equilibrium, we have to identify boundaries in terms of what species should be included, and in what proportion. That requires dispassionate and careful observation.
Nettles may appear as a non productive plant and shall be removed as a bad grass. On the contrary, nettles must be kept as they reveal, as bio indicator, that there is some metal in the soil (Cu - Copper, Zn Zink, Ld - Lead, Cd - Cadium) as well as nitrogen and furtermore, there original mission is to correct this soil by digesting metals or polution in general. Plants have to be chosen depending on the composition of the soil to grow. Stinging nettles can also be used as a good compost activator between the plants.
In business : Adopting a systems - or eco-system - approach, assessing the role of different actors in the functioning of your marketing team as an example.
Look at the best practices in various industries in terms of organization depending on their digital maturity (white papers, network, books etc.).
Observe the skill sets in each individual in your team which could be at work in the transformed team.
Listen deeply : Even if some people keep complaining, voice fears and don’t seem to have the perfect skill sets to fit into the new dream digital team, don’t make the error of releasing them if they don’t go on their own. Find what they signal which sometimes is also about what they are good at. As an example, a very detailed oriented person complaining that things are not done properly, following the right processes among a less organized creative team could be the perfect person who would square everything between the marketing team and the purchasing or accounting departements to follow up on specific processes. This person may not directly work on the lead and marketing campaign creations but would put in practice some of her beliefs, find her role and become the perfect interface between other division within the company as her important purpose.
3. EXPERIMENT - Even an experienced gardener isn’t going to get it right all the time. There is necessarily a process of trial-and-error, and experimentation of where to put which plant, at which season of the year etc.
In business : Devise a way to test ideas and solutions on a small scale that will not jeopardize the functioning of the company as a whole. Like a growth hacking team, let your management know that you are going to do many A/B tests simultaneously. Even if some will fail, it is part of the game and you will learn and grow quicker.
In business, don’t make the error of releasing people who seem to have irrelevant skill sets, like bad grass in nature. What they signal often reveals a lot about your teams’ context. Leverage what they are good at to bring value to the group.
Hughes Devries
When I initiated my garden, for example, I faced a major difficulty in the composition of the soil, which did not contain enough bacteria and other living creatures, such as worms.
Rather than look in a book, I looked in Nature. Just a few hundred meters from the garden at the edge of a forest, a similar soil was full of nutrients and good bacteria. I enriched my soil with some compost and silage, and - with a little trial and error - found the right mixture. Nature takes over from there.
That same basic approach can be applied to all problems, disease, an infestation of slugs, etc. but the overarching reality is that, in a healthy and complete ecosystem, there is a role for every living element. Many of them are invisible to the naked eye.
6 - You have three children but still find time to help others grow outside of your work. How do you manage that?
My instinct to help people by listening used to be limited by the disconnect between my work
and my personal life. But now that my values with my job are in alignment, I have developed
this capacity – and the patience needed for empathetic listening – further.
I have about 40 interns. Some of them were frankly lost, and I spent time with them to help
them gain or regain confidence, to find their way. They generally worked six to eight weeks.
It is, of course, enriching for me as well.
7 - What quotation or motto most inspires you and why ?
“Trust your instincts, free yourself up from the fear by practicing your passion.”
When I started the adventure, I had a lot of doubts and fears but by I was doing what truly energized me. Fully aligned with my values, fully commited and passionate, I was defined by my actions. I was building trust days after days like a child learning to walk for the first time naturally without fear. Young people are usually very active and don’t have any fear towards life. Practising my passion has transformed my way of looking at life, like a much younger mind strengthened by the wisdom accumulated by years of experience.