The Edith Piaf School of Management Consulting

By B.J. Richards

Anyone familiar with Source’s reports knows we love an analogy, and when writing this year’s France consulting market report, I was delighted to come to the realization that the French market of 2014 might well be summed up as an Edith Piaf kind of market – that is to say a tale of heartbreak and survival worthy of France’s all-time greatest chanteuse.

Now, I’ve been a fan of Edith’s for some time – and not just her music but the woman herself.  As the kind of mild-mannered nerd who spends her days happily writing lengthy reports about the management consulting industry, I’ve never been able to resist a little vicarious adventure through the antics of the bad girl musician.  In college, I raged to the angry guitar and paint-peeling vocals of Courtney Love.  A decade ago, I thrilled to the doomed decadence of Amy Winehouse.  And now, as I ease into the pleasures of midlife and have come to enjoy . . . . let’s say “milder” fare, I find myself drawn to Edith.

While Edith’s music may be on the mild side, she certainly was not. Edith lived hard and fast.  There’s a lot of mystery surrounding her life, but suffice to say she may have grown up in her grandmother’s brothel; may have spent several years blind as a child; and may have been miraculously healed after the ladies in granny’s employ took up a collection to send her on a religious pilgrimage.  Not in dispute is that in the early days of her singing career, she was a suspect in the mob murder of her manager/lover.  Later romances didn’t turn out much better, including her scandalous affair with the married boxing champ who died in a plane crash on his way to see her.  Then there’s the divorces, the accusations she got too cozy with the Nazis of occupied France (she later said she was spying for the Resistance), and the solace she found in enthusiastic substance abuse – a nasty habit that likely contributed to her untimely demise at the age of 47.  Edith was living a rock-and-roll life before most people had even heard of rock-and-roll.

But here’s the really great thing about Edith – she’s far more than just her hard luck story.  Hers is, in fact, a story of triumph over adversity.  Despite her decidedly humble beginnings, despite everything she went through, Edith never let her personal tragedies get in the way of her ambition.  In fact, she used her struggles as inspiration for her greatest works.  In her signature songs – Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and La Vie en Rose -- she sings of letting go of the past, looking at the imperfect world through rose colored glasses, and knowing love after loss.  Her entire catalog is filled semi-autobiographical works about moving beyond heartache to find happiness again.  Edith, despite everything, emerges as victorious.

So what does any of this have to do with the French consulting market?  Well, as you might have noticed, the French economy has been going through some tough times of its own.  Badly battered by the economic crisis, growth remains slow, investment low, and unemployment high.  While there are signs things may be improving a bit, it’s certainly nobody’s idea of a robust market, and there’s little reason to believe it will be anytime soon.

And yet, French consulting clients remain surprisingly optimistic.  Though it would certainly be easy for them to give up – or at least timidly sit on the side lines, waiting for better times to materialize -- they tell us they’re planning to take on an impressively ambitious schedule of projects this year and will be hiring loads of consultants to help.  And when we asked them what, specifically, is on their 2014 agenda, their 3^rd most popular answer was exploiting growth opportunities.  Given France’s 0.2% GDP growth last year, you may be forgiven for asking what growth opportunities, and frankly, that’s not an easy question to answer.  But whatever they are, France’s businesses are determined to find them and make the most of them.  This is a market that’s decided it’s done with struggling, that’s saying “it is what it is – now let’s get on with it.”  It’s a market that refuses to be haunted by the past and is determined to rise above hard times to make a beautiful future.  This, I think, is a market Edith would appreciate.

So, is it more than coincidence that both France’s favorite diva and its business community share this courageous spirit?  Is this determination to leave the awful past behind in order to seek a glorious future an inherently French trait?  Does that make Marianne my new goddess of hard living?  Does anyone know how she handles a guitar?

See here for more information about our report on the French consulting market.