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The collective: a leader's last blind spot
Nine people around a table. Nine solid careers, carefully recruited, each one excellent in their own discipline. And yet the meeting drags on, and the decision slips to the next committee. The chief executive leaves the room with an intuition they cannot quite put into words.
The scene is commonplace. It even has an order of magnitude. In France, 8% of employees describe themselves as engaged at work — against 12% across Europe and 20% worldwide. These figures come from Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, published last April on the basis of data collected throughout 2025¹ ².
Leaders know this figure. It often strikes them as remote. It becomes less so when a strategic project stalls, when a post-acquisition integration bogs down, when an executive committee no longer decides.
What if the cause lay neither in the strategy nor in the skills, but in the collective dynamic itself?
How can we put objective measures on something that has, until now, been a matter of managerial intuition?
That is the purpose of the partnership between VISCONTI Partners and map & match.
A team is not the sum of its members. It has its habits, its rituals, its zones of silence. It decides in a certain way. It avoids certain subjects. That identity creates value — or wears it down.
Organisations measure a great deal. Personality tests shed light on the individual. Employee surveys take the temperature. Away days work on relationships. One question, however, goes uninstrumented: is my team's dynamic aligned with my strategic priorities?
The most frequently quoted figure in strategy consulting circles this blind spot. Seven out of ten change programmes fail to achieve their objectives, McKinsey wrote in 2015, blaming employee resistance and a lack of management support³. The firm publishes neither method nor sample, and the estimate has been contested ever since. Let us hold on to what it points to rather than to its precision: when a transformation fails, it is almost never the technical side that gave way.
What escapes measurement becomes a risk. What becomes visible becomes a lever.
Map & match is a French SaaS platform based in Neuilly-sur-Seine⁴. Its promise stands out in the assessment landscape: measuring what people enjoy doing.
An employee arrives with two suitcases. Their technical skills. Their behavioural aptitudes. Map & match opens a third.
The company calls its contents Energy Skills™: the activities from which a person draws pleasure and energy within their role⁴. The distinction may seem slight. Its white paper draws it out — one can be competent without enjoying the work, or enjoy an activity one has yet to master⁵. Competence tells you what someone can do today. Appetite tells you what they will still be doing in eighteen months' time.
Twenty minutes of questionnaire, split into two ten-minute sessions. An algorithm then consolidates the individual profiles at team level⁴.
The model does not come from management theory. Chantal Gensse observed how living systems and social systems function, and drew from that five functions any sustainable system must fulfil: Initiate, Accomplish, Enrich, Steer, Connect⁵.
Each breaks down into four operational talents. Twenty in all: Strategist, Decision-maker, Creative, Coach, Finisher, Mediator, Explorer, Coordinator⁵. Simple words for a difficult task — naming what each person brings, without ranking.
The collective map is read on three levels, as map & match defines them⁵:
The company sums up its intention: these maps are not one more diagnosis, they open a space for dialogue and decision⁵. In other words, they do not go into a drawer. They go onto the table.
VISCONTI Partners supports leaders of large companies, mid-caps, SMEs, scale-ups, family businesses and public-sector organisations. One conviction runs through all these contexts: a company's performance rests on the quality of its leadership team.
Map & match does not alter that conviction. It equips it.
A coach quickly senses what is jamming inside an executive committee. Getting the collective to name it themselves is another matter.
The map shifts the conversation. It is no longer about people, but about functions. Nobody is "too much" of this or "not enough" of that. The team simply looks at where its energy goes — and where it does not.
Drifa Choulet, founder of the consultancy Le Premier Jour, describes a twofold effect: each person feels recognised in their singularity, while at the same time gauging their contribution to the collective⁵.
On one side, the collective's appetites: strengths, potential, fragilities, areas of risk. On the other, the company's priorities: growth, transformation, innovation⁵.
The team then stops merely "getting along well". It locates itself. The finding passes judgement on no one, but it commits: recruit, redistribute roles, or revisit the timetable of the ambition.
Leadership coaching remains our foundation. Around it sit executive committee coaching, board coaching, the Assessment Centre and the development of Chiefs of Staff.
One principle at every level: connecting people to strategy, with methods rather than impressions.
Map & match identifies five situations in which this reading pays off⁵:
One thing these five moments share: time is expensive in each of them. Misunderstanding is more expensive still.
The figures published by map & match are compelling: engagement up by 30% through improved Great Place to Work ratios, 30% of time gained in getting project teams moving, staff turnover cut by two thirds, and 75% fewer recruitment errors⁵.
Let us be clear about this. These data come from the company itself, not from an independent study. They describe field observations, not a controlled protocol. We cite them as signals, not as proof.
Fathallah Charef, HR Director of Colisée France, describes years spent searching for a tool capable of measuring what he calls "operational pleasure": knowing whether an employee genuinely takes pleasure in what they do day to day⁵.
Map & match says as much without hedging: the tool alone produces nothing. Results emerge when a structured support process takes hold of it to adjust roles, smooth cooperation and anticipate fragilities⁵.
That is precisely where this partnership finds its meaning.
What is a map of collective dynamics? A visual representation of a team's appetites: its natural strengths, its under-used potential and its areas of fragility, set against its objectives⁵.
How do Energy Skills™ differ from soft skills? Soft skills describe behaviours. Energy Skills™ designate the activities in which a person finds pleasure and energy, regardless of their level of mastery⁴ ⁵.
How long does the diagnosis take? Two ten-minute online questionnaires per participant⁴. The collective debrief then takes place within a workshop or a leadership away day.
Which organisations is this designed for? Executive committees and project teams, particularly during transformation, rapid growth or post-merger integration⁵.
Transformations are accelerating. Engagement is not keeping pace: Gallup documents this year after year¹ ².
A collective is only a hazard for as long as it remains illegible. Alignment, engagement, performance: three words no away day can decree. They are built on a shared finding.
Map & match provides the finding. VISCONTI works on what comes next.
Would you like to explore the dynamic of your leadership team? Let's talk.
Visconti Partners presents its advice, inspiration, and case studies to help you unlock your potential and that of your business.
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