Fujitsu Case Story - Innovation in Learning

By Jeremy Hill, managing director of Mannaz in London

Innovative learning at multiple levels
This case demonstrates innovative learning in real time at multiple organisational levels which makes the case particularly relevant:

Firstly, the case demonstrates how highly focused 1 day interventions can create immediate impact in managers’ performance.

Secondly, the case demonstrates how a company wide management development initiative for 2.200 managers can have a demonstrable effect upon the way in which an entire organisation relates to each other internally and to clients externally. Almost all employees were involved in the initiative directly or indirectly.

Thirdly, the case demonstrates how multinational development initiatives can be implemented to address directly both global and local issues. The programme was implemented in 13 different countries in Europe in local languages, at times simultaneously.

Fourthly, the learning methodologies were innovative and included a 100% tailored solution with content and processes based on three different approaches; Interactive role play sessions, experiential workshops, and fun based learning interventions.

Innovative learning at multiple levels

Fujitsu Services
Fujitsu Services is a company which provides Technology solutions to both the private and public sector and is part of the Fujitsu Group, a Global 500 organisation: Headquartered in London it is the European-centred IT services arm of the Fujitsu Group. In Europe it employs some 21,000 people and operates in more than 20 countries. It designs, builds and operates IT systems & services for customers in multiple industry sectors and government markets.

Fujitsu Group - Global Presence

Fujitsu Services: European delivery presence

The title of the Leadership Development Initiative
The Title of the Leadership Development Initiative is the Fujitsu Management Academy, a “virtual corporate Academy” for all people managers within Fujitsu Services across Europe, a total management population of some 2200 people, at all levels in 13 different European countries.

The desire to provide an Academy solution was as a result of some detailed research and feedback within the business which identified a number of business critical areas for development; primarily the people management skills of their people managers.

Although Fujitsu Services is a top 3 global player in its chosen markets, its history in the UK can be traced back to 1968 with the formation of ICL, which survived financial difficulties in the early 80s and again in the 90s to become the European centred services arm of the Fujitsu Group today. Within Europe, Fujitsu Services has grown both organically and through selective acquisition. As a direct consequence this organisational backdrop, with historically multiple business cultures and an increasingly a single European market was also a key driver for strengthening the Fujitsu brand and culture, to ensure consistency of delivery across geographical boundaries.

There is a widespread recognition within the IT Industry as a whole that as the sector matures, the quality of employees, as reflected in the relationships with customers and internally within business units, is a key strategic differentiator. With some of the public sector domains, external accreditation of managerial best practice and training & development is a pre-requisite for doing business with them.

A linked objective was to raise the IiP (Investors in People - which is an officially recognized evaluation) external rating of Fujitsu Services. In order to calibrate organisational shift and improvements as a result of the Academy roll-out to the management population some specific empirical impact measures were agreed, linked to an existing Employee Opinion Survey survey and the use of a specific 360 tool around leadership performance.

The measurement metrics agreed up front were around an Improved Management Capability - 5% Improvement in the EOS score “my manager’s people management skills are…” over the duration of the programme as well as Improved competence of our managers in “soft-skills” - an improvement of the average score on 360 degree feedback by 5% (survey conducted after the first module and repeated at the end of the third module).

Description of the co-design process and overall design framework
Because of the size and diversity of the ultimate target audience ranging from first line managers early in their professional careers to seasoned leaders with significant corporate experience, it was necessary from the client perspective, to select providers who were:

• able to design and offer different but linkable solutions across the learning spectrum – a “best of breed” approach
• willing and able to co-operate over an extended period (some 2-3 years in total) to provide the optimum service
• possessed proven geographical reach and sufficient resources to run a significant number of modules in a short time duration and maintain consistent quality throughout
• prepared to undergo a lengthy procurement process

At an individual learning level there was also a corporate recognition from the initial conception of the academy, that because of the limited “touch” time with participants, their different nationalities and language capabilities; the modules would have to be constructed around robust frameworks that had been rigorously designed and thoroughly tested before being rolled out to a wider audience.

What was envisaged from the high level plan, was that 360 tools would be an integral part of the programme, so that all participants would have direct and meaningful feedback as part of both modules 2 & 3, thereby encouraging them to subsequently work on areas that were identified by their managers, peers and subordinates as meriting attention.

The notion of a journey, with a series of pauses for reflection and learning, is embedded in both the design plan and the delivery. In effect Fujitsu Services is holding up mirrors to people managers as well as providing directional flags. The 360 process in itself required significant logistical planning and execution, so that participants who attended the leadership module had in effect completed the 360 prior to arriving, as the reports formed and integral part of the module. In all more than 8,000 pieces of feedback contributed to these individual leadership reports.

Two aspects have undoubtedly been major contributors to the successful delivery and demonstrable impact of the FMA:

Firstly, upfront design & preparation: this was without doubt the cornerstone for successful creation of meaningful 1day learning interventions.

As an organisation, the culture of Fujitsu Services is evolving, however from initial meetings and conversations with leaders and managers from a wide cross-section of the business, it was evident that a balance had to be struck between theory and application.

The words “pragmatic” and “hands-on” peppered the various dialogues and it was therefore clear that to be both relevant and immediately useful, the modules had to be focused. Two or three take-aways for every single participant were required for each of the over-arching themes of, “straight-talking & genuine listening”, “Leadership” and “Team development”.

The business was making a significant investment of time and resource and wanted to see a shift in behaviors and attitude to people management. To arrive at this level of robustness, stakeholders from Fujitsu allowed significant access to managers in the months preceding each module.

These same stakeholders provided: a continuous feedback loop on content, participants for pilots and valuable reflections, which were incorporated at different stages of the design process. By listening attentively to what the business itself was collectively articulating, relevance and business impact was ensured.

Secondly, collaborative project management between providers and Fujitsu Services: It is only in looking back on the project with the benefit of two years hindsight, that the scale and complexity of launching and delivering such a high profile programme can be fully appreciated.

Several man years (design & delivery combined) have been dedicated to it so far and there is still another calendar year to run of the initial remit. This has been an example of the sum being greater than the parts, since it is unlikely that one organisation alone would have been as successful as the combination of resources.

From the initial negotiation phase there was agreement, that to provide a red thread linking the component parts of the programme, a member of each provider involved would form part of the overall project management team together with the client. This group operated throughout mainly, as a virtual team via e-mail, weekly conference calls and the web to ensure the operational phase for each module worked optimally.

Simplicity of design combined with the organisational complexity

Innovatory elements of the FMA programme
On of the key features of this programme is both its size and scale contrasted with the relatively short time duration of each module with managers in local countries – was it possible to have real lasting impact at the end of 3 x 1 day modules? Interestingly rather than focusing effort on particular hierarchical segments within the management population, the initial remit was for all people managers to participate, whatever their level. More than 2200 managers were to experience each module during a 6-9 month timeframe.

One of the consequent challenges was the design and learning methodologies had to be as right as possible to capture the attention and fully engage the audience each and every time a module was run, very often simultaneously in multiple countries in local languages.

Many organisational development initiatives are designed and delivered to specific segments within management hierarchies, whereas Fujitsu Services chose more of a “big bang” approach to try to move the entire business forward in an aligned way. Up to a total of 30 facilitators were being utilised throughout the operational phases.

The original broad design was articulated by the Fujitsu Services people development head as a way of picking up some of the key OD issues that had been revealed by internal surveys, previous development initiatives and managers themselves.

However the detailed design of each module was the responsibility of the selected partners (FMA1 & 2 by Mannaz and FMA3 by Oxygen Learning) in close consultation with the client and each other. A steering committee headed by the Group HR Director was responsible for sign off on design.
This approach had the advantage of being able to recommend re-design where necessary and minor refinements after each module had been piloted several times.

For module 1: the key learning process was role plays designed after extensive interviews with managers around the different types of performance management situations that people managers were confronted by e.g. (demanding customer, variable performance, high performer with an attitude, ducking accountability, not stepping up to responsibilities) linked to the experience and hierarchical level of the participants. Five sets of role plays were created for three different leadership/management levels. This meant that the situations which the different levels of managers were asked to re-create, were sufficiently close enough to their day to day issues and challenges, that they became wholly realistic and meaningful.

For module 2: a more direct experiential methodology was utilised together with theory around the leader’s role as he or she progresses within the organisation, linked back to the realities of the Fujitsu Services’ business context. The emphasis was on “real play” as a pose to role-play. Whilst 360 tools are not innovative per se, this was the first time that Fujitsu Services had deployed them on such a scale and it was decided to utilise Mannaz’ business psychology capability to support the participants in exploring the 360 results as an opener to the module. Whilst the 360 tool was developed in-house, the hosting and execution of its roll-out was with a third party – Track Surveys. In a sense the FMA process was mirroring Fujitsu Services’ own business practice on large projects of separating out the elements of design, build and operate to different parties; the “glue” for the module being provided by the core project management team.

For module 3: the focus shifted to team development and utilised a different provider (Oxygen Learning) with a different facilitation style. A second diagnostic tool, this time for assessing team capacity utilisation has been developed in house to provide leaders and managers with another type of feedback. It looks at four dimensions: Performance, Alignment, Reputation and Relationships and scores the team leaders at all levels against these “hard” and “soft” measures. The module also uses a management simulation honing in on behaviours.

A multi-dimensional global approach with local flexibility: One of the critical design considerations was that around one third of Fujitsu Services employees are based in continental Europe, with in some cases smaller market positions than in the UK; therefore a balance had to be struck between a push or pull approach to development. Similarly, sensitivity to local language and business culture was also a driver of design and to this end, an elegant solution was arrived at using a dedicated web platform to distribute ideas and refinements amongst the facilitators in real time without compromising the integrity of the original module frameworks.

Content was delivered in local languages and markets by facilitators reflecting the multiple nationalities of Fujitsu Services’ European markets. They were firstly exposed to the programme in the UK and then were able to flex the translated material around country specific contexts.

In particular for the leadership module, local country MDs’ were encouraged to act as ambassadors and role models for the module by introducing it to their local leaders and managers. By having their direct involvement, additional meaning was conveyed to the subject matter and the country managers were able to overlay their specific leadership agendas on to the centralized messages.

Evaluation, outcomes and learning from the Leadership Development Programme
The FMA has been subjected to a continual and rigorous evaluation process, which has covered all aspects of content and the quality of facilitation in the delivery phase, to ensure that consistency and high standards were maintained during the 2 years that it has been running to date. In addition there are linkages to the in-house employee opinion surveys and at behavioural impact level, a re-run of the bespoke 360 tool is planned for all participants once module 3 has been completed.

The key outcomes and reactions to the programme are summarised below:

• Level 1 Kirkpatrick evaluations: more than 250 modules have been delivered to date within the UK and across continental Europe and level 1 evaluations have averaged above 8 out of a possible 10 across all measurement dimensions.
  
  
• Recommendations – as part of the overall tracking and quality evaluations of the modules, all participants are asked whether they would recommend the FMA to their colleagues, to date some 95% of the 2200 managers who have participated have said yes, which is no mean achievement given the size, diversity and geographical dispersion of the population.
  
  
• Anecdotes: whilst not a scientific measure, these do have currency within organisations and can serve to either sustain or drain organisational commitment to learning & development interventions. There have been many positive comments from participants across the organisation and from different countries; as one country manager stated: “The Fujitsu Management Academy has encouraged a “one company culture” and in Holland I have been conscious to emphasize that when we talk about Fujitsu Services that we are one unit, not individual operating countries: we may build teams locally but we are part of a global company”.
  
  
• 360 leadership behaviours tool: This was an integral part of module 2 and was aligned to the business’s desired management behaviours and reputation-building factors. Once the delivery of module 3 is completed the 360 feedback tool will be run again by Track Surveys so that progress comparisons can be made at a micro and macro level.
  
  
• Level 3 Kirkpatrick evaluations – ongoing.
  
  
• At a business level, net profitability has increased in the last few years – and whilst it would be hard to link cause and effect on this dimension, managers generally feel better equipped for their roles and the business challenges they face.
  
  
• Demand for further modules from managers – this has created a strong interest in tailored JIT initiatives and supports our overall perception that this type of structured modular delivery can create a virtuous circle between actual business need and bespoke responses.
  
  
• Press interest – articles have been written for the Sunday Times, Financial Times (business education supplement March 2007) and one or two specialist HR and IT Training publications within the UK.
  
  
• External recognition (Investors in People award of Champion status in Nov 2006). The FMA whilst not being by any means the only development activity, is nevertheless a flagship initiative which has impacted upon approximately 90% of all employees managing others. In awarding Fujitsu Services Champion status, IiP has publicly acknowledged the cumulative efforts that the organization has made over the last few years in developing skills at all levels.

There are three major pieces of learning from both the client and provider perspective: Firstly short, sharp, well thought out interventions closely linked to the business context can make a highly visible and significant impact, provided that sufficient design and preparation time is allowed up front, and that there is adequate organisational and logistical capability to make it happen.
Business leaders require proof statements before committing significant resources to making the necessary investments in leadership and management skills on such a scale – the perennial ROI questions invariably surface. By integrating bespoke 360 and diagnostic tools into programmes, this can be achieved immediately at an individual level and subsequently at organisational level by aggregating quantative data for analysis – the lens can be held very close or at some distance.

Secondly a well executed marketing and communication plan is critical in gaining business support in any major development initiative and can make the difference between acceptance or apathy in the crucial early stages. Early adopters play a key ambassadorial role.

During the first module final design phase and prior to its delivery, a communication “roadshow” involving both delivery partners and members of the People Development team presented the aim, concepts and high level content of the Fujitsu Management Academy to all major business units and the EMEA country managers. This was a crucial exercise in obtaining buy-in from multiple stakeholders and subsequently proved invaluable in securing their individual and collective commitment to make their people managers available for what was essentially a new and as yet unproven project – its very size meant that there was inherent risk for the sponsors. These face to face presentations with Q&A sessions were able to address any potential de-railers.

A third and final observation would be that by taking the approach that Fujitsu Services has done with the FMA, a group level initiative can be spread rapidly and broadly across a whole organisation to complement traditional more in-depth interventions which focus on either elites, identifiable management segments or specific knowledge skills.

This raises the question as to whether the future will bring more of this type of approach to the fore? Should the demise of long residential leadership programmes for selective audiences be anticipated and should the JIT lean, modular and business specific solution be embraced? Or is there room for both?

 

More information
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This case story is a submission by Mannaz on behalf of a consortium solution (in partnership with Oxygen Learning and Track Surveys) for a company wide Leadership and Management development programme within Fujitsu Services named the Fujitsu Management Academy and delivered over 2-3 year time-frame to the organisation’s entire European Management population. This LDP commenced in Sep 2005 and is due for completion by the end of 2007.

 

"Many of our managers are technical experts by nature and in some cases will require people management training to ensure they are effective in these key roles," says Ian Williams, Head of Organisation and People Development at Fujitsu Services. This was the background for the management programme for 2.200 managers based in 13 different countries, delivered in 11 different languages. Read about the programme from both the client and perticipant's perspective in the article:

• The Fujitsu Management Academy - Global approach with local flexibility
  

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