Label Congress Examines Management Changes

Today's 'good' manager is more a team captain than an autocrat and has to view his colleagues more as a bed of roses than a thorny problem.

Those are the arguments to be advanced by two German management specialists at FINAT's World Congress in Berlin (Germany) when the organisation takes a look at management change trends in the self-adhesive label industry.

The congress will be held on May 31 and June 1.

For an industry that has more than its fair share of companies that were started and driven by the determination of a dynamic one-man-band, the challenges of increasing globalisation and technical change demand an increasing orchestration of management talents within a company, said the organisation.

Frank Schomburg, co-founder and owner of Nextpractice , a Bremen (German) corporate consultancy, believes the new environment in label printing demands a willingness to change and envelop all the knowledge and skills within a company.

He commented: "The intelligence of single leaders is no longer sufficient.

Whilst decisions still have to be taken 'top-down', solutions have to be developed 'bottom-up' and without this common understanding of the challenges, or the accessibility, transparency of information and the active involvement of the people concerned, the company's results will remain well below its potential." Prof Dr Jorg Knoblauch, an author of various management books, believes his '33 roses' programme can convert employees in to co-entrepreneurs.

He explained: "As much as a company needs satisfied customers, it also needs satisfied employees.

Establishing a company culture based on partnership and common values gives its managers the key to successfully converting their company in to a learning organisation able to stimulate its employees in taking their own responsibility and help to create a sense of 'ownership' within the workforce.".

Back to top