Go on, admit you made a mistake

It's not often we hear anyone admit they made a mistake, is it? And similarly it's probably just as seldom any of us own up to being in the wrong or having failed.

Admitting to either is...well, just not "cool" is it?

More than that it's downright embarrassing and defines us as ........GASP.....losers.

Everyday life usually teaches us to cover up our errors in so far as we can.

On the Net - well there's the security of hiding behind the anonymity of the keyboard which encourages far too many of us to say things we (hopefully) ordinarily wouldn't say face-to-face, refusing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe sometimes we might be wrong, let alone apologise.

In politics - forget it. "Attack really is the best means of defence".  And even if they know their policies are going belly up, or they've failed to carry out electoral promises, politicians simply change their tune reinventing the "truth" to fit the circumstances.

All right so occasionally there's a "mea culpa" such as former French president Nicolas Sarkozy at the beginning of his failed re-election campaign (says it all, doesn't it) or more recently the UK's deputy prime minister (what's that?) Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg "apologising" ad nauseam at the party's conference.

But they're the exceptions rather than the rule.

And in business of course it's the complete antithesis of a company's raison d'être - to be successful.

But here's something of a (not-so) novel idea. We can all learn from our mistakes.

That's the premise behind a one-day conference being held in Paris on Tuesday,

All right so the symposium is aimed at what the organisers Failcon, say are "technology entrepreneurs, investors, developers and designers" and is supposed to encourage  participants to "stop being afraid of failure and start embracing it."

That's surely more than spurious self-motivational claptrap and something from which we could all benefit by applying it what ever we do in all aspects of our lives.

So go on - admit your mistakes, own up to having failed, or apologise for being at fault...unless of course - like me - you're perfect.


Sarkozy se justifie du "casse toi pauvre con" et... par lemondefr

French lorry driver wins lottery, saves company and employs his former boss

What would you do if you won the lottery? Buy a house? A new car? A boat?

Splash out on a dream holiday perhaps? Or squirrel the money away and continue life as usual?

Or would you have a good, long think about things and after you had finished "shopping", buy the company you worked for?

That's what one former lorry driver in his fifties from northwestern France did after he hit the jackpot.

Screenshot from La Française des Jeux commercial

"Alexandre", the man who prefers to "guard his anonymity" as the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien puts it, won €10 million in the French Loto last September.

When the road haulage company for which he worked was threatened with liquidation, he stepped in and bought it, becoming the new CEO and therefore the boss of his former boss.

Into the bargain he also saved the jobs of more than a dozen employees.

"I had the means to invest and save jobs, and it's a world I know well. In fact it has been my life," he said

"That's not something you can give up from one day to another."

His decision was not a rash one based on sentimentality.

He only took over the assets of the company as well as a portfolio of clients and a dozen lorries, and not the liabilities or debts.

"If I see we're losing too much money, then I'll quit," he warns.

But for now he wants to "develop business and create more jobs."

As well as an apparent "nose for business" he also threw in a little retail therapy for good measure, buying a couple of houses and a 4X4.

That was the extent of his spending spree though, as he has also taken on an investment advisor and continues to play the Loto "just in case".

La Française des Jeux, the operator of the Loto, told Agence France Presse that as far as it knew this was the first time a winner had bought the company for which he or she had previously worked.

Alexandre was one of two men from the same part of France who had separate wins in two different lotteries last September.

The other man, also in his fifties and a lorry driver, picked up €15 million in the pan-European lottery EuroMillions.

Once a lorry driver, always a lorry driver - albeit a wealthy one.

EDF's Henri Proglio - the man with a Fat Cat salary

....and two jobs

It might only have been worth a one-liner in the middle of the broadcast on TF1's prime time news on Tuesday, but confirmation that Henri Proglio, the recently-appointed big cheese at the French utility giant, Electricité de France (EDF) would in fact be receiving a double salary, has nonetheless created the expected polemic here in France.

Nominated as president of the company last November, Proglio was officially named CEO on Wednesday and with the job comes a modest annual salary of €1.6.

But that isn't the only monthly income the 60-year-old will be able to enjoy because he'll be retaining a position in his previous company, the French multinational Veolia as chairman of the board for which he'll rake in another €450,000 annually.

Yes that's right. The man will be earning a cool €2 million a year because "He has two responsibilities and, therefore two salaries," as the minister of the budget Eric Woerth explains.

"And in reality, the sum of salaries is equal to what he earned before, so he (Proglio) hasn't actually had an increase in income," Woerth maintains.

The argument put forward by both Woerth and his government colleague, the finance minister Christine Lagarde, to justify why the government supports the double salary, and that Proglio is worth every cent he's going to be paid runs along the lines of stressing that it's not really that much money when you make a direct comparison with other countries.

"The salary is well behind that being paid to those in German, Italian or British-owned rivals," says Lagarde.

"And when you look at the earnings of those heading companies quoted on the CAC 40 it only puts him in 18th or 19th place."

But wait, what did Lagarde say back in November when Proglio was nominated for the job?

Ah yes something very much along the lines of there being "no question of overlapping of remuneration and therefore he would receive a single salary."

While government ministers have defended the double salary, perhaps the last word on the subject (for the moment) should be left to Aurélie Filippetti, the national secretary of the opposition Socialist party, who probably sums up best what many of those who don't agree with the move have been expressing.

"The combination of mandates, whether in politics or business, is definitely a very bad tradition in France," she says.

"Mr. Proglio presides over the destinies of two groups with a total of nearly 500,000 employees and combined sales of more than €100 billion," she continues.

And when it comes to the claim that the "best" need to be rewarded for the jobs they're doing, Filippetti doesn't mince her words.

"We can no longer bear to hear this completely fallacious reasoning," she says.

"What exists is actually a very exclusive club of privileged people who designate each other to positions of power as though they were playing musical chairs just like the Ancien régime."