Managerial innovation: to each his own model

Choosing the management model that best suits your organization can be a complex challenge… In this article, we share tips to help you find the ideal management model that aligns with your company’s needs and culture.

L’anagerial innovation is a key element in enabling companies to remain competitive and attractive in a rapidly changing world. By gradually introducing new individual and collective operating modes, it enables organizations to meet today’s challenges.

These challenges vary from company to company, depending on their size and sector of activity, but generally speaking, they correspond to five major trends…

According to NUMA’s Key Competencies 2026 Study (primary source), managers are facing an unprecedented intensification of the context: sustainable economic pressure, generative AI, cross-functional organizations, hybridization of work. The traditional “command & control” model no longer enables organizations to adapt quickly.

Companies that fail to rethink their management model run the risk of seeing their employee commitment and attractiveness deteriorate.

5 trends in managerial innovation

Fostering creativity and innovation

The aim is to foster the conditions conducive to the emergence of continuous innovation throughout the company, for example by introducing a “test & learn” culture.

In 2026, the manager is no longer simply a collector of ideas: he or she becomes an ecosystem orchestrator, able to make several initiatives cohabit in parallel and connect human expertise withAI capabilities.

Developing commitment and a sense of belonging

As employee involvement is paramount, we work on Meaning, the feeling of belonging, adherence to strong values, promoting well-being…

These challenges are directly linked to the major issues facing HR departments today, as they seek to reconcile attractiveness and retention in a tense talent market.

Encouraging autonomy and empowerment

Employee autonomy and empowerment are key elements. To achieve this, we seek to foster trust, dialogue and involvement on the part of everyone. We’re also looking to strengthen informal, ongoing skills development andsupport for change in the face of new practices (data, AI…).

Stimulate collaboration and collective intelligence

Managing complexity is a major challenge. Promoting collaborative work and exchanges makes it easier to grasp, and therefore faster to progress.

Facilitating agility and uncertainty management

In a world of perpetual change, the company adapts its processes to be able to react, evolve and continue to act even when the context remains uncertain.

New managerial practices

Some of the most common new managerial practices include :

• The manager-coach: a more listening posture, based on trust rather than control.
• Promoting the right to make mistakes and learning from failures.
• Involving employees in setting their own objectives and in reporting procedures.
• The possibility of free management of time and even vacations.
• Feedback, retrospectives and sharing communities.
• The integration of emotions using, for example, a “mood chart”.
• Setting up a feedback platform.
• Expanding executive committees to include more diverse profiles
• Training in collective intelligence facilitation…

Some companies are going one step further and adopting operating modes that differ more radically from traditional models… These transformations require us toavoid the classic mistakes that cause change projects to fail, to ensure their lasting adoption.

In an ever-changing professional world, employee commitment has become a major issue for companies. Find out in our dedicated article, 3 innovations to implement in your company.

Alan, the company that found its management model

Through the testimony ofAnna KEROULLÉBrand and Content at Alan, find out how this organization has thought out its approach to stimulating employee commitment.

“ Alan proposes an uncommon model, rooted in a commitment to trust and empowerment. At Alan, we don’t have managers as such, which means that everyone is in charge of their own objectives, their own implementation, and their own results. When we arrive, we’re assigned a coach whose main task is our professional development and integration into the company, not necessarily someone from the same profession.

Empowerment is at the heart of the way we operate: the person facing a situation is judged to be in the best position to make the right decision. He or she can draw on his or her business community, and solicit the opinions of project stakeholders. The decision-making process is thus simplified: the person dealing with a subject opens up his or her questions for debate, but needs neither a vote nor consensus to reach a decision.
Of course, everyone is encouraged to keep abreast of what’s going on, and to have their say on a wide range of subjects. This enables the decision-maker to benefit from as much feedback and experience as possible, and to enrich his or her point of view by considering the issues at stake.

What surprised me the most when I arrived at Alan’s was the culture of the written word. All decisions are explained, and all exchanges are formalized in writing. We have a saying: “If it isn’t written down, it didn’t exist”. This may seem very demanding, but it serves a dual purpose:

• The first is transparency, by avoiding backroom discussions. Transparency is a very important issue for us, and we are committed to making everything public (including salaries);
• The second is to increase the skills of juniors, who can easily understand how decisions are made.

We’re well aware that this particular way of working isn’t for everyone.
We recruit highly autonomous people who must also be able to put everything in writing, and therefore be able to explain and articulate their thoughts, but also to operate in an asynchronous mode.

Working at Alan also requires the ability to break away from traditional models of success, as we can’t be valued for the size of the team or the budget we’re given!

This way of working, though unusual, seems to me to offer an interesting and topical reflection on the relationship with work, and on what happiness at work means for everyone. Far from a single model of success, Alan suggests that everyone should find the model that suits them, and have a personal experience of how to be happy at work.

Although this model has been in place since Alan was founded, it is by no means dogmatic, and we are well aware that it may evolve over time. Very well suited to our current operations, it will evolve if, in the future, our needs and challenges lead us to believe that another model is more appropriate. “

Anna Keroullé, Brand and content – Alan

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Towards a managerial innovation approach

For each organization, the real challenge is to find its own model. Some will prefer to opt for a radical departure from past practices, while others will evolve more gradually. The important thing is to adopt a global and coherent approach to theadoption of new management models.

To do this, the organization must define its own managerial model directly linked to its development strategy. This implies thinking about the postures and practices (individual and collective) needed within the company to support this strategy, and designing a managerial model. that will encourage their emergence.

This model will be communicated all the more easily if it is concretely embodied, for example by the introduction of a management charter. It can then be broken down into skills, and managers can be supported in developing them, whether through training or more specific coaching.

Tracking measures, such as barometers, can be set up to monitor and evaluate the transformation.

Key steps to building your management model :

• Diagnosis: assess current management practices, identify strengths and areas of friction

• Define: formalize the target model in line with the organization’s strategy and values

• Embody: translate the model into concrete behaviors, for example through a managerial charter.

• Training and tools: developing managers’ skills through targeted training and coaching

• Measure: set up barometers and indicators to track progress over time

• Adjust: accept that the model evolves according to needs and learning.

Conclusion

As with any transformation,change management support plays a crucial role. It is essential to involve managers by presenting them with a clear, understandable and motivating vision of change, to encourage their collective commitment, to develop links between them, and also to train and equip them to face these challenges.

In 2026,managerial innovation is no longer an option reserved for pioneering organizations. It is a condition of competitiveness. Organizations that embrace it are not seeking to copy an existing model: they are building their own, gradually, by aligning their managerial practices with their culture, strategy and human challenges. In this sense, theemployee-centric approach is a powerful guiding principle: placing the employee at the heart of managerial decisions creates the conditions for lasting commitment.

SQORUS, , a Council specialized in digital transformation, also supports your organizations’ human challenges: change management, new ways of working, new ways of managing… If you are interested in this topic, please contact us to discuss it.

FAQ – Managerial innovation