Why Clarity Matters More Than Control with Jean-Baptiste Vasseur

In this episode of Transformation in Practice, we speak with Jean-Baptiste Vasseur, founder and CEO of yamaneco, an organisation based in Tokyo that supports companies in designing more human, adaptive, and collaborative ways of working.

Having spent more than twenty years in Japan, Jean-Baptiste brings a unique perspective shaped by his experience inside large, hierarchical organisations, as well as his journey through agile practices, coaching, facilitation, and organisational design. In this conversation, he reflects on clarity of roles, leadership, vulnerability, technology, diversity, and what it really takes to build organisations where people can thrive.

Hi Jean-Baptiste, could you start by introducing yourself and yamaneco?

My name is Jean-Baptiste Vasseur, but since my name is quite long and difficult to pronounce in Japan, most people call me JB. I’ve been living in Japan for a little over twenty years now, and I started my career in Tokyo in a large IT corporation.

At the time, the environment was very top-down. Following orders was the norm. This was also reinforced by Japanese culture, where respecting seniority is very important, and questioning decisions is often discouraged. For a long time, I felt uncomfortable in that environment, but I also thought: “Maybe this is just how work is. Maybe there’s nothing else.”

Through experience, meeting people, and discovering different ways of working, I realised that this discomfort was not strange at all. Other people felt the same, and some were actively trying to do things differently. That realisation was a big turning point for me.

I discovered the agile world, but more importantly what sits behind it: values and principles that put people at the centre, where diversity is seen as a strength, even if it is sometimes difficult to work with.

I wanted to see more organisations like that around me, and that’s what led me to create yamaneco nine years ago.

At the beginning, we focused a lot on Agile and DevOps, which were very strong movements at the time. Over the years, we evolved towards coaching, facilitation, and organisational design. Today, yamaneco is a team of seven people, and we work as external coaches. We like to say that we bring the cat spirit into organisations.

Yamaneco means “mountain cat” in Japanese. We work with people, technology, and fun. These are the ingredients we use to build better organisations, through coaching, facilitation, and engineering.

Why the mountain cat?

I love cats, first of all. I actually have one sitting on my knees right now. But when I was looking for a name for the company, I really wanted something different from the traditional “something consulting” style names.

I wanted a name that would clearly signal that we were taking a different direction. After a bit of brainstorming with my wife, the name yamaneco came up. It stood out immediately, and it felt right.

What are the main challenges organisations are facing today?

There are several recurring challenges that I see.

One of the biggest is the lack of clarity around roles. Many roles are implicit, poorly defined, or overlapping. This creates tension and conflict.

Sometimes people stick to roles that have simply outlived their usefulness, but questioning or redesigning those roles does not feel like an option.

Another major issue is the opacity of information. People spend a lot of time trying to figure out who they need to talk to, how many layers they need to go through, or how to get access to basic tools or systems just to do their job. Communication becomes overly complex, unclear, and extremely time-consuming. This creates a lot of frustration and waste.

A third challenge, which I see very strongly in Japan, is leadership. We see many young leaders being promoted or assigned to management roles, but very little investment is made in helping them understand how to navigate those roles. Becoming a leader is not something you automatically know how to do just because you have been in a company for a long time. It requires a new mindset and new skills, and many organisations underestimate that.

When you talk about “roles”, what do you mean exactly?

Sometimes “job title” might actually be the more accurate word. I personally tend to use the word “role” because at yamaneco we practise Holacracy, and that vocabulary naturally comes up.

In many organisations, structures are redesigned once a year. People are assigned new positions, but they often don’t know what they are actually expected to do, what decisions they can make, or where their responsibility really starts and ends. That lack of clarity creates a lot of insecurity and inefficiency.

Not all companies implement Holacracy. What elements do you find most useful?

One essential idea I often use is recognising that roles can become obsolete, and that this is normal. It’s important not to become emotionally attached to a role.

In Holacracy, there is a very clear separation between the role and the person.

We say “separate the role from the soul”.

In traditional organisations, a job title often becomes someone’s reason to exist. Questioning a role can feel like a personal attack.

But roles are meant to evolve. Sometimes they need to be changed, redefined, or even removed. That doesn’t diminish the person. It simply means the organisation is evolving.

How do you concretely help organisations transform?

We work in several ways. Often, we are brought in as an external agile coach, but what we do goes far beyond agile practices.

A large part of our work is leadership coaching. We help leaders reflect on their role, their behaviours, their values, and the signals they send to their teams. It’s about building leadership at all levels of the organisation.

We also design and facilitate workshops. I personally love workshops that start with something very simple. For example, a client might say: “I have one day. Help us work on decision-making.” From there, we take the time to understand what is really happening in the organisation and design an experience people will remember.

Finally, we love technology and engineering. Some of us come from technical backgrounds, and sometimes we even work alongside clients as an engineering team. It’s a way to spread new ways of thinking and collaborating from the inside.

If a leader wanted to build a more autonomous organisation, where would you start?

I would start with a question: Why do you want to build a more autonomous organisation? What is your story?

We explore personal values, personal vision, and then work on turning that into a story that resonates emotionally with people. We don’t move people with logic alone. We move them with emotions.

Being vulnerable, being human, including the imperfect parts, is essential. That’s how leaders truly inspire others.

What mindset shifts are most necessary to support this transformation?

One big shift is moving away from the pressure to be perfect. Many organisations operate with a fixed mindset: things need to be done right the first time, and failure is not acceptable.

A growth mindset recognises that improvement comes through practice. You may not be good at something today, but you can become better over time.

Another shift is moving from a problem-solver mindset to a coaching mindset. Leaders often feel they need to be the hero who provides answers. While this feels good for the leader, it often disempowers others.

Helping people think for themselves, rather than solving problems for them, creates much stronger organisations.

How do you balance vulnerability with performance and results?

This is a real challenge. I’ve seen organisations swing too far too fast. They move from control to empowerment overnight, without adjusting expectations.

I call this the “green trap”. Leaders sometimes feel they can no longer set strong expectations or make bold statements.

But empowerment does not mean the absence of direction.

On the contrary, clarity on goals, expectations, and priorities is essential. Leaders must remain confident and explicit about where the organisation is going.

What role does technology play in anchoring new behaviours?

Technology shapes behaviour. Tools influence how people think, collaborate, and make decisions.

If you use rigid tools that limit interaction, you limit thinking. If you use tools that allow real-time collaboration, visualisation, and experimentation, you enable new behaviours.

For example, facilitating a meeting with PowerPoint will never create the same level of participation as using a collaborative whiteboard. Empowerment requires tools that support exploration and collective intelligence.

Can you share a concrete example of impact?

One example comes from a team leader who wanted to improve his team’s execution capability during a rare face-to-face meeting.

Instead of jumping straight into problem-solving, we made invisible dynamics visible. We used physical movement to show how people felt about the topic, without speaking. Then we used Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.

By speaking through the “red hat”, representing emotions, people felt safe expressing strong feelings they would normally suppress. One participant later said: “This is a magic hat. It makes difficult conversations easier.”

That kind of safety and playfulness unlocks honest conversations that are otherwise impossible.

What advice would you give to leaders who want to evolve their organisation?

Seek help.

Seeking help is not a weakness, it’s a strength. Having a coach helps leaders clarify their vision, values, and behaviours, and align them with how they show up every day.

And invest in developing the same interpersonal skills across the organisation. That’s what truly changes the game.

What questions are you still exploring today?

Diversity remains a big one for me.

It’s hard to truly value diversity. It’s much easier to standardise and ask everyone to fit into the same mould. But that kills creativity.

At yamaneco, we have people who love ambiguity and exploration, and others who simply love getting things done. Balancing those different energies is incredibly difficult, but essential.

We don’t have all the answers. But after nine years, we have learned from many mistakes, and we continue to explore.

Any final thoughts?

I’m very curious about organisations in France. I’ve never worked there professionally, and I sometimes wonder how I could reconnect with my home country and maybe bring the yamaneco spirit there one day.

That’s something that’s on my mind right now.

Conclusion

Throughout this conversation, Jean-Baptiste Vasseur reminds us that organisational transformation is less about applying a model and more about cultivating clarity, humanity, and awareness. 

From redefining roles and leadership postures to choosing tools that shape healthier behaviours, his experience with yamaneco shows that meaningful change emerges when people feel safe to explore, learn, and contribute in their own way. 

Building organisations that can adapt to complexity is an ongoing journey, one that requires courage, curiosity, and a deep respect for both individual differences and collective purpose.