Dr. Frank H. Bledjian may deny it, but the truth is he is the man who for almost 20 years expanded and managed successfully the business of the Dutch milk cooperative Friesland Coberco Dairy Foods in the Greek market. The brand "Nounou" is a market leader in Greece and Friesland Hellas a dynamic and human company by all means. Thanks to Frank Bledjian' s willingness, Friesland Hellas now espouses a management style that depends on shared values and voluntary commitment.
Q: August 1st you have reached the official retirement age of 65 and thus your employment with FCDF came to an end. How long have you worked for Friesland Hellas?
A: I started with CCF in February 1982, so more than 21 years.
Q: Looking back all these years, Dr. Bledjian, what are the prevailing experiences / memories / feelings?
A: I am glad you ask for the prevailing memories and not for some recent, unfortunate and, after all, unimportant experiences. Yes, I have excellent memories of many creative and successful years, which gave me and my colleagues in Friesland, both in The Netherlands and in Greece, a deep and fulfilling satisfaction for the undisputable success of CCF, FDF, FFD and now FCDF in Greece. These Dutch and Greek colleagues shared with me the successes, as well as the dominance of our brand, "Nounou", in the Greek market. Some of these colleagues became friends and it is a special pleasure for me to meet them again and again, in Leeuwarden, Amsterdam or/and Athens.
Q: Looking back to all these years working for a Dutch company is there something you would like to comment about your Dutch colleagues and their culture?
A: I do not know if I am qualified to answer this question. I will try. As a Greek by birth, of Armenian origin, who went to an American school in Greece, who studied and worked in Germany for 17 years and worked for an American company 5 years in Surrey, England, I was obviously exposed to several cultures before I met the Dutch. In our globalized world today, I strongly believe that people of different nationality, when they have a similar education, life style, work, interests and values, are much more alike than people of the same nationality and probably from the same town, who differ in the aforementioned parameters. In a nutshell: I met many Dutch men and women who were familiar to me, like neighbors and old friends, and others who were "all Greek to me". I experience the same thing every day in Athens, particularly in the traffic, where I meet people you think they come from Texas.
Q: Is there something more specific that you could highlight?
A: Yes, I think I could mention certain qualities I admired in The Netherlands. A general low key/understatement approach; egalitarian and democratic values in many aspects of everyday life; developed sensitivities for the weak in the society (I will never forget that first strong impression at our CCF office in Leeuwarden, where the first two car parks and a special elevator were reserved for two of our disabled colleagues; then came the car of the CEO and of the Board members); more mutual trust in the relationship between citizen and state. Nowhere have I seen more people paying so willingly their taxes and without complaints.
Q: How do you feel about the Dutch way of doing things, especially in the management area?
A: You find Dutchmen from almost all good universities of the world having the most different business experiences. Therefore, I really don’t think there is a Dutch way of doing things, also not in the management area. A Dutchman who studied in the US and worked with a top consulting or an oil firm, most probably has a different management style than a marketing man who studied at Nigenrode and worked for P&G, C&P, Mars or Heineken. And both may be different from another Dutchman who is an engineer and worked in a factory manufacturing wooden windows.
However, Dutch management philosophy is evolving fast and in some ways moving counter to current trends. The traditional collective approach, reflecting the Dutch democratic instinct that teamwork is preferable to individual initiative, is now being progressively supplanted by eenkoppig management (single-headed management). People are, sometimes reluctantly, starting to accept the role of the entrepreneur and to reward entrepreneurial behaviour. This evolution owes a lot to the development of an excellent management educational curriculum by Rotterdam` s Erasmus University. Other significant initiatives in the business field include Nijenrode University (originally known as NOIB) and, more recently, NIMBAS in Utrecht.
Q: Dr. Bledjian, looking back at your academic background and your so different but very successful experiences with Exxon, AEG-Telefunken and FCDF, is there something you would like to say that could be useful for your company, for FCDF?
A: Yes, there is. Bearing in mind that I wish the very best for the company that gave me satisfaction and a good life for 21 years, I think improvements are necessary in certain areas, if we wish to catch up with the top-5 international players in Dairy and Food. I think the following questions must be answered:
*Leadership: do we have "inspired" or even "inspiring" leaders, or do we have many "status quo administrators"?
*Management Style: do we have a democratic decision making process, with emphasis on the aforementioned entrepreneurial spirit, or has our company developed an authoritarian, not to say autocratic, structure, that favors conformity and thus is unable to protect itself from major misjudgments?
*Motivation: what is our company` s record in treating senior people with past proven record of success? I am not referring only to our colleagues from Noord Nederland and Coberco, but to our own CCF/FDF/FFD people. And how does this company manner affect the motivation of our employees? Are our first and second line managers motivated to excel in the markets and bring the best results for FCDF, or do they feel that they are not participants at major company decisions?
These topics must be surveyed by a reputable and totally independent research firm. The Board of Management, or preferably the Supervisory Board, must guarantee absolute confidentiality, in order to encourage the first and second line managers to speak up and give their opinions and recommendations for a more successful and a more effective FCDF. I offer these observations only as "working hypotheses" to my company and I sincerely wish that they would all be not verified, but falsified. Then, I know that our company is on the right track. Executive and Supervisory Board must seek and get that confirmation from the results of this survey. Otherwise, that is in case of a negative outcome, they must implement immediate corrective actions.
Q: Are you sure that the European managers can successfully answer to the challenges of the 21st century?
A: I am sure that some European managers will take the challenges and succeed, while some will fail. Managers need to be on the cutting edge of change. You cannot simply maintain the status quo, because somebody is always coming from your own or another country with another more attractive product, or consumer taste change. If you do not adapt fast, you remain vulnerable. This is true for every business, including food and dairy. In particular, authoritarian managers run an additional risk here: success often breeds self-confidence in such an overdose, that it becomes arrogance. They start to believe they are invulnerable. The situation about which we have all frequently read in the international business news, not only creates "yes men" around you, but it reduces the level of constructive criticism and - what is more important in the context - discourages ideas of change. And before these managers know it, the world changes and they cannot act, but only react.
Again, I want to stress that I strongly wish to see our company prospering also in the 21st century.
Q: When are you planning to go to The Netherlands again?
A: I was in May in Leeuwarden and Amsterdam and met with my ex-colleagues and friends and I am sure that these contacts will be kept for a long time, because there are relations with pleasant memories of good work and good friendly cooperation; memories of life.
- Thank you Dr. Bledjian
- Thank you.
By: N. Peter Kramer
