When we think of the management of a business, the image that often comes to mind is that of a master manager of his decisions, rational, armed with figures and extensive analyzes. However, behind each strategic decision, each management choice, each movement on the market, there is an invisible part that deeply influences: our unconscious.
The unconscious is not only a field of fantasies or repressed experiences. It is a driving force, very often overlooked, which structures our behaviors and our perceptions. And when it comes to directing an organization, this force can turn out to be capital, even decisive. This is all the challenge of a psychoanalytic approach applied to business, an approach that lights up the psychic backstage of companies and their leaders.
Behind rationality, the weight of unconscious patterns
We often imagine that business decisions are purely rational, based on data analyzes, economic forecasts, or strategic plans. However, neuroscience and psychoanalysis converge to remind you that most of our mental activity is done outside of our conscience.
In psychology, the “unconscious” designates all the psychic processes that escape our immediate consciousness but influence our thoughts, emotions and behaviors. In a leader, this can result in apparently rational choices, but which are actually guided by desires, fears or repressed conflicts.
For example, an entrepreneur who refuses to delegate or surround himself with competent experts can unconsciously replay an infantile scenario of abandonment or betrayal. This unconscious fear then conditions its way of controlling the business, sometimes to the detriment of growth.
Transfer: when the figures of the past haunt this entrepreneurial present
A fundamental concept of psychoanalysis, the transfer, illustrates well the way in which the unconscious acts in the world of business. The transfer designates projection on another person – often a superior, a collaborator, a partner – of feelings or expectations originally linked to important figures of childhood (parents, brothers and sisters, teachers).
In a company, a boss can unconsciously consider his commercial director as a paternal figure – with all that that implies loyalty, conflicts or rivalries. Or a manager can perceive an employee as a child to protect or punish.
These unconscious dynamics model human relationships and decision -making. They can generate recurring conflicts, resistance to change or, conversely, excessive enthusiasm, without anyone really understanding why.
Organizational fantasies: the mirror of the collective unconscious
Beyond individuals, psychoanalysis is also interested in the collective unconscious of an organization. Each company develops its own “organizational fantasies”: these shared unconscious representations which define what is acceptable, desirable or prohibited.
These fantasies determine corporate culture, its rituals, its taboos, and even its strategies. For example, a company can unconsciously cultivate a fantasy of omnipotence, which pushes excessive risk or a refusal to admit errors. Or on the contrary, a fantasy of persecution can lead to paranoid management, with excessive control and distrust of outside.
These unconscious representations, although invisible, deeply structure collective behavior, communication methods, and even innovations.
The unconscious, source of innovations but also of blockages
The unconscious is not only a brake or a danger. It is also a reservoir of creativity, intuition, and innovations. Many discoveries or brilliant ideas emerge from associations of unconscious ideas, dreams or fragmentary thoughts.
For a leader, knowing how to listen to himself, cultivating intuition, accepting ambiguity and doubt is also to let this unconscious part speak. But this requires a work of self -knowledge, often difficult, because the unconscious is expressed by diverted ways – dreams, slips, missed acts, psychosomatic symptoms.
On the other hand, when he remains ignored or repressed, he can generate blockages, resistance to change, incoherent decisions (even self -destructive).
How to reveal and integrate the unconscious into governance?
The challenge is therefore not to deny or fight the unconscious, but to recognize it and integrate it into the decision -making processes. Several tracks open for this:
1/ Coaching and psychoanalytic supervision
Using coaches or supervisors trained in psychoanalysis allows leaders to better understand their unconscious resistance, their pathological repetitions, or their projections. This opens the way to more lucid, more flexible leadership.
2/ Analysis of interpersonal relationships
Observe with a psychoanalytic look at group dynamics – for example in a meeting or during conflicts – can help to identify transfers, unconscious power games, and thus act to defuse them.
3/ Conscious corporate culture
Promoting a corporate culture that values speech, transparency, and questioning can help bring out the unspoken and unconscious fears, thus avoiding that they do not manifest themselves pathogenic.
Towards a more human and lucid company
Psychoanalysis applied to business is not a fashion or a miracle method. It offers a deep and subtle look at the human behind the businessman, on the unconscious behind the strategy. Better understanding the unconscious mechanisms, it is to be able to act with more accuracy, to avoid repetitive errors and to build a more human, resilient and innovative organization.
