"System D" actually comes from a French phrase. "System D" means "Système Débrouiller" - se débrouiller, which means to get round things. And it really means to avoid systems and procedures. Now, I think what Jack Moss might be getting at here is the fact that the role and the position of a boss in a French company is very different from that in an Anglo-Saxon company. A French boss is much more distant from his employees than in Britain. He or she is appointed because they are already experts; they have authority and the ability to take initiative and to implement things of their own accord. They use teams or groups only as support.

In Britain we tend to share power more than in France, in that groups will share power and responsibility. This is why we have more meetings, why we are good team players, why bosses try not to be too far distanced from their employees. In France power is given to the individual who has the most competence, very often the best education and training and also experience. And it's that person's responsibility to take the full accountability and to take the decisions. So they don't cultivate teams.

The first thing you do as a British boss is to go in, gather all your people together in a meeting and say "Listen, I'm the boss but I don't know what's going on. You know more than me. I rely on you to help me to do this job and we'll all pull together and I'm sure we'll make a great team". And that is just not in the French mentality because they'd say "Well, why is he the boss then if we have to tell him what to do?"

• In France you'll have fewer staff meetings, but more one-on-one with the boss.
• Each team member carries the responsibility for a certain part of the project but it's in the hands of the boss to unite all the different aspects of the team.