Industrial time is not human time. While your engineers and sales executives live in a society of instant gratification, your contracts span decades. This time lag creates a "motivation desert" where excellence erodes and your best talent risks succumbing to the lure of sectors offering more immediate rewards. Keeping the internal flame burning over a cycle of 3, 5, or 10 years is not a management challenge, it is a challenge for corporate culture. If you do not reinvent the way your teams perceive success between two major signings, you risk winning tomorrow's contract with an army of exhausted mercenaries, or worse, losing it through simple intellectual fatigue.
The analogy is often overused, but in the shipbuilding industry, armament, or major infrastructure programs, it is literal: your teams are running a marathon at sprinting pace. Imagine a marathon runner being told that the finish line has just been moved 10 kilometers further away, or that the result of their race will only be known in three years' time. This is everyday life for pre-sales, R&D, and program management teams in B2G (Business to Government) cycles.
The risk? It's not just a drop in productivity. It's the loss of your company's "substantive core": the critical know-how that evaporates when a senior engineer, tired of waiting for ministerial arbitration, leaves for a startup where he will see his code deployed in 48 hours.
If your corporate culture is solely focused on signing contracts, you are creating a bipolar organization. On the one hand, there is the euphoria of success; on the other, years of industrial postpartum depression.
The human brain runs on dopamine. Every small victory (a customer email, an order, a sale) triggers a spike in satisfaction. In short cycles, these spikes are frequent. In heavy industry, the dopamine "hit" comes only once every few years. In the meantime? Cortisol (stress) sets in, fueled by the uncertainty of political decisions and the cumbersome nature of administrative processes.
Without regular victories, teams withdraw into themselves. R&D blames pre-sales for the lack of visibility, pre-sales blames management for the lack of resources. Dialogue breaks down because the common goal has become a distant abstraction.
To maintain commitment, attention must be shifted from the object (the contract) to the purpose (the mission).
You don't spend four years working on a combat system just to "sign the export contract." You work to ensure the technological superiority and safety of the forces engaged in the field. This isn't semantics, it's combat psychology.
Concrete example : At a leading aerospace company, teams celebrate not only the achievement of an administrative milestone, but also the impact that the future aircraft will have on the country's strategic autonomy. The vision must be lofty enough to remain visible, even when things are not going well.
Since the contract is too far away, create intermediate goals that trigger the same pride as a sale:
Disruptive innovation: Celebrating a patent as if it were revenue.
Technical validation : A successful sea or wind tunnel test must be celebrated with an internal "ceremony."
Influence: Seeing one's arguments included in a parliamentary report or expert study.
| Lens Type | Time Horizon | Effect on the team |
| Major Contract | 3–7 years old | Relief / Financial survival |
| Technical Milestone | 6–12 months | Sense of competence / Pride |
| Sprint Innovation | 1–3 months | Creativity / Daily commitment |
Keeping the flame alive is a matter of internal structure. This is where your employer brand and corporate culture cease to be marketing concepts and become production assets.
A long-term leader must be a storyteller. They must remind us where we come from (our heritage) and where we are going (the future), so that the present, even if monotonous, has a place in history. Without a narrative, everyday life is nothing more than filling out Excel spreadsheets.
The lulls between two major calls for tenders are opportunities in disguise. This is the time to:
Train intensively: Improve your skills to be ready for the next battle.
Experiment: Set aside time for projects outside your usual scope that keep your mind sharp.
Strengthening the sense of belonging: Events, knowledge transfer between seniors and juniors, mentoring.
In long-term industries, your greatest risk is not competition, it is the attrition of your own workforce.
Contract management is a short-term strategy applied to a long-term profession. It is a fundamental error in strategic casting.
To succeed, you must shift from "Task" management to "Adventure" management. This requires a powerful internal engine capable of generating its own energy even in the absence of external fuel (orders).
Maintaining motivation over three years cannot be achieved by issuing a memo. It requires a deep-rooted cultural structure that we at Autour de l’Image call: The Reactor: Culture & Internal Growth.
Why? Because it is this asset that enables:
Giving meaning: Aligning individual aspirations with the company's mission of sovereignty.
Retaining rare talent: Create an environment where people stay for the intellectual and human project, not for the uncertain prospect of a bonus at the end of their contract.
Shine: A motivated and resilient team is your best selling point during the final negotiation phases.
Let's give your teams a reason to get up in the morning that goes beyond the next bid. Let's build the story of your resilience together.
