When little improvements can make huge changes
Reading a book can literally change your life. That is the case of Mathias Le Scaon, supply-chain expert and the French equivalent to American Jim Carey’s famous “Yes Man”.
Mathias was at a sort of crossroad in life working a good job for Clarins in France. But he found himself copying some of his colleagues approach to helping each other – or rather the lack of helping, and he didn’t like that.
The Book that rocked Mathias Le Scaon’s world
When he read the book “How to make friends and influence people” that changed. The core message of the book was to never criticize, condemn or complain, and to genuinely try to help others without expecting anything in return – to say YES whenever people reached out.
A simple yet profound change in behaviour that transformed Mathias’ future in many ways.
Today he’s been self-employed since 2020 and his company , Zensimu, is doing pretty well, his daughter is 2 and he recently moved to Denmark with his Danish girlfriend.
And this week he was the center of attention at Community Breakfast with the size of a crowd that had never been bigger.
Perhaps the message of the book really does work because Mathias Le Scaon had definitely sent out some positive vibes to attract all those people!
Thinking about it we have to admit – we do think he’s quite likeable too 🙂
The Professional Transformation – and a Beer Game
A book can only do so much and the real change started back in 2015. With his background in industrial engineering, Mathias was living working as an E-Commerce supply-chain manager at Clarins in Paris.
As a side project he decided to learn to code web apps and chose the Beer Game as a model because he knew the board game from University.
Contrary to what the name implies, the Beer Game is not about getting drunk but an actual teaching tool to understand the complexity of supply in both companies and universities.
However, the name was chosen to make the game more relatable and fun for employees and students using it to learn the principles of supply-chain.
What Mathias did was to make a digital and better version. And he put it up on Google – for free!
True to the principle of not expecting anything in return.
But perhaps also a little bit because he had to test it before he could charge money…..
That quickly changed as the Beer Game ranked high on Google and got more and more users.
So while Mathias became more recognised at Clarins for his new positive approach to work, he went parttime to focus on his own project and eventually went all in and left the safe world at Clarins in 2020.
And we must not forget that he also found time to do voluntary work – and met his Danish love and mother of his child. The rest is history, as they say <3
You still have to work hard despite having a positive attitude
…but reality still knocks on the door despite how positive anyone is….
Today Mathias’ users and customers count both universities and big companies such as Pfizer, Colgate and Airbus. However, to keep them and get new users, being the nice guy isn’t enough. Hard work is! And luckily Mathias Le Scaon is that kind of guy.
One tool is to continuously refine his product based on feedback from users. He is very focused on the importance of listening to feedback and implementing changes to create a better user experience, and it has become a cornerstone in his work.
It’s safe to say that Mathias doesn’t rest on his laurels professionally, constantly improving his product but also working on a new one – the LEAN Game. A tool to identify the value for the customer and remove everything that the customer doesn’t need.
What is there to learn?
Mathias’ story is a testament to how a positive approach can lead to incredible opportunities and success. As he says “The lesson for me is just try to help others selflessly, it will come back and improve your own life”.
Who know if that’s the actual case and if it would work for everybody but fact is that something happened to Mathias Le Scaon when he read that book and decided to change his mindset: He got more recognition at work, it opened his world, led him to his girlfriend and gave him a steady income! Oh yes – Mathias has cracked the code to a happy life! And he’s right here for all of us to learn from that.
Fint Mathias in the Café Area
Check out his website and the Beer game here: https://zensimu.com/