Page 212 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

practical case study 195
PRACTICAL CASE STUDY

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AT FUJI PHOTO FILM B.V.
Fuji Photo Film B.V. Tilburg—the Netherlands—is a large production company, with about
1,500 employees, that develops, produces and distributes photosensitive products: colour
paper, colour negative film and presensitised plates. Fuji Tilburg’s mission is to increase
the market share of these three product groups on the European market and to become the
overall profitable leading European brand. The slogan of the organisation is ‘Going to the
top as a creative team’.
Considering this development Fuji wants to it seems to be necessary (among other things)
to implement a different leadership style within the organisation. This demands a different
profile with other or additional competencies of the managers in all managerial layers of
the organisation. Consequently, the issue of ‘leadership development’ has been integrated
in the HR policy in order to develop a management profile that fits the future organisa-
tional developments and to give management potentials an impulse in their development to
manager according to the desired profile.
In order to do so, the top of the organisation firstly defined a new management pro-
file. Instead of a content-related, task-oriented approach of leadership and its associated
hierarchical structure, the organisation wants to change to the concept of coaching and self-
steering. This eventually resulted in the description of the ‘result-oriented people manager’.
This means that the managers need to move beyond their traditional focus on functional
excellence towards the coach in a supporting role, who is able to provide visibility (of cus-
tomer, company objectives and employees) and recognition and has the ability to remove
barriers to progress.
First of all the entire Management Team took part in a development centre to make
an analysis of their competencies on general management skills and to realise a personal
development or coaching plan.
Next step in the plan of approach is conducting a strengths and weaknesses analysis for
section management (the layer just below MT-level) on the current functioning concerning
the defined competencies in “section managers-profile” and the potential to develop in the
desired direction. The tools that are used are the assessment/development centre method
and the 360-degree feedback instrument. These should eventually lead to an ‘individual
development plan’ for each manager. In practice both methods are being used, dependent
on the preference of higher management of the particular group of (section) managers. In
Japan the 360-degree feedback method has become quite common, which is the reason why
these particular department managers have chosen for this method. The outcome, i.e. the
realisation of development plans, was the most important issue for the organisation.
Most of the managers take part in a development centre in which they are confronted with
a number of complex problems, which share analogue characteristics with daily managerial
practice (but which are not the same because of the fact that, otherwise, knowledge and
experience can influence the measurement). It became obvious that the managers mostly
possessed general, theoretical knowledge on management and management techniques but
in many instances lacked the appropriate skills to reach desired goals. High potentials
showed both sides. This means that they had strong intellectual capabilities (analytical
qualities) and content-related knowledge/skills, being good professionals (mostly in a tech-
nical field). Besides this they also had higher scores on (strategic) vision, management
control and coaching competencies (motivating others).
In the first place, the result of the development centre gives an insight into one’s own
strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, one receives concrete guidelines to develop
according to one’s individual development plan, taking into account one’s ambitions, knowl-
edge and skills. In practice coaching-on-the-job, intervision, training or job-rotation are
being used to stimulate development.
A small group of managers (within the same department) follows the 360-degree feed-
back method in which they ask a number of persons in their own environment to assess