Jean-Baptiste does not say that he does logistics or management at MSF. He says he does MSF. A distinction that changes everything about loyalty.
Jean-Baptiste has performed just about every role Médecins Sans Frontières has to offer. Logistician, project coordinator, fundraiser, executive assistant, mission manager. Very different functions, in very different countries, on very different issues.
And yet, when I ask him what he does for a living, he answers without hesitation: “My job is Médecins Sans Frontières.”
Not the logistics. Not the management. Not humanitarian work in general.
MSF.
This answer, at first glance, might seem anecdotal. She is not.
The confusion between function and belonging
In most organizations, work is structured around functions. We are sales director, project manager, HR manager. We practice a job that we could, in theory, practice elsewhere with the same tools, the same methods, the same results.
This logic is consistent. It allows the mobility professional, comparison between markets, promotion of transferable skills.
It also has a limit: it defines professional commitment by what one knows how to do, rather than by what one contributes to.
Jean-Baptiste operates on a different logic. “It’s not an interchangeable job that we would do in the same way elsewhere. It’s a commitment, an investment.”
He didn’t end up in a position. He found himself in a project. And this distinction has structured all of his professional choices for more than twenty years at MSF.
What this changes over time
The difference between “practicing a profession” and “belonging to a project” is not rhetorical. It is functional.
A professional defined by his function seeks to optimize his relationship between skills and remuneration. He compares offers, evaluates proposals, arbitrates between opportunities. It is rational, legitimate, effective in the short term.
A professional defined by his belonging to a project reasons differently. The question is not “does this mission match my profile?” but “does this mission advance something that matters to me?” The two questions do not produce the same decisions, nor the same trajectories.
Jean-Baptiste illustrates this concretely. Between two field missions with MSF, he agreed to work on fundraising, “to understand where the money came from.” Then as a management assistant, to understand how the top of the organization works. Functions that he had not asked for, that he had not imagined, but that he accepted because they nourished his understanding of the overall project.
This type of internal mobility, accepted by conviction rather than suffered by default, is rare. It presupposes confidence in the organization and a form of professional humility that the labor market encourages little.
The project as a loyalty factor
The question of talent retention is central for organizations. We generally respond with tangible elements: remuneration, flexibility, development prospects, various benefits.
These levers work. To a certain extent.
What the example of Jean-Baptiste at MSF highlights is that there is another register of loyaltydeeper and more lasting: adherence to a project that goes beyond the position occupied.
MSF is not a particularly well-paying organization. It is subject to permanent budgetary constraints, difficult working contexts, and high ethical and operational pressure. And yet, it generates long trajectories, deep commitments, voluntary internal reconversions.
Because it’s about something that people join, not just a position they hold.
The question organizations avoid
Most organizations know how to define their business. They know how to explain what they do, how they do it, and who they do it for.
They are less comfortable with another question: why it matters.
This question is not a communication question. This is a fundamental question. And this is precisely what MSF responds to with a clarity that few organizations achieve.
Jean-Baptiste does not say that he works for humanitarian aid in general. He says that he works for MSF, with its specific principles, its assumed operational choices, its own way of thinking about medical action in a crisis context. This precision is not a detail. This is the heart of the commitment.
Organizations that want to build this type of loyalty do not need to copy MSF. They need to find their own answer to the question of why. An answer precise enough so that people who identify with it really commit to it, and honest enough so that those who don’t identify with it don’t get confused.
What this means for recruitment
Jean-Baptiste was recruited by MSF on a bet. Young, without professional experience, but with a clear desire to be part of the organization for the long term.
“Recruiting someone is expensive for an NGO,” he says. “There is always this idea of a long-term reciprocal commitment.”
This logic deserves to be more integrated into the practices of recruitment ordinary. Not to ignore skills, but to ask, in addition to skills, the question of alignment with the project.
Someone who understands and sincerely relates to why the organization exists will learn the technical skills they lack. Someone who masters all the technical skills without buying into the project will leave as soon as a better offer comes along.
The distinction between the two is not always visible in an interview. It often becomes so in the first weeks.
Jean-Baptiste knows it. MSF bet it. Twenty years later, they were both right.
