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Managment Development at Celanese
The description of the task sounds relatively simple: climb the ladder, step up onto the platform
with both feet, stay there for five seconds and then let yourself fall backwards. Four other
team members who are holding safety ropes attached to Paul’s back will pull them tight,
enabling him to be safely lowered to the ground. Halfway up the ladder, at the latest, Paul realizes
that it will take more than his own courage and skills to reach the top. Much more than that,
there has got to be good communication between him and his colleagues holding the ropes,
as well as trust in the other four who are supposed to catch him if he falls.
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What sounds very much like an episode out of an action TV series is called an “outdoor exercise”
and is one component of the Kick-Off Week to Celanese’s ELF program. ELF stands for Emerging
Leaders Forum and represents one module of the Integrated Leadership Development
Process at Celanese AG. The Emerging Leaders Forum is a development program for junior
managers who have the potential to assume a global leadership position at the company within
the next few years.
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Team participants are consciously chosen according to the ONE company principle: it
is an international group, with members from across the global businesses and functions. The
forum provides a platform, for example, for IT specialists, controlling experts, production and
marketing managers from Europe, the U.S. and Asia to meet - people who probably never dealt
with each other before in a business sense, and are certainly not personally acquainted. Thus,
the Kick-Off Week primarily serves as a teambuilding activity, which means forming a group
that works well together, one which can take full responsibility upon itself for meeting a variety of
challenges in a very goal-oriented manner.
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The first task of all is a thorough team meeting. Approaches
to a solution are developed and discussed.
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Safety comes first. In the event that a participant loses his
balance, he must rely on team colleagues to break his fall.
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An important aspect of the Kick-Off Week is that participants develop an understanding of
their cultural differences and learn to deal with the individual personalities and working styles
of each member. In this way, the group can benefit, for instance, from the production manager’s
knowledge of statics when deciding on the best way to position and stabilize the ladder; it can
also benefit from the analytical skills of a controller in a simulation exercise where a computer
code must be deciphered in 180 seconds. At the end of the day, learning together, giving mutual
support and building confidence in each other enables team members to master the challenges
they have been assigned - each individual as well as the team as a whole.
Apart from the outdoor training exercise, the ELF’s Kick-Off Week focuses on companyspecific
project work. The whole team is given a cross-divisional project assignment developed by
the Celanese Leadership Council, which comprises not only members of the management
board, but also the segment business heads and the heads of Shared Services and Corporate
functions. The project work is scheduled for four months. The ELF participants must complete
this assignment alongside their normal job responsibilities; all global teamwork takes place virtually,
using modern communication technology.
Over the next few months, a joint goal must be reached across fi ve business segments and three
continents: namely, a convincing solution. The project results will be presented to the Leadership
Development Council at a closing event. This will be a major opportunity for all members
of the ELF program to present themselves to the top management of Celanese AG as emerging
leaders of tomorrow.
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The Celanese leadership development process
In an intensive assessment process, Celanese identifies those employees across its global
businesses who demonstrate a high potential for assuming a leadership function within the
company. Dependent on what career phase they are presently in and the degree of management
competence they already possess, potential candidates or “high potentials,” as they are
called, are divided into three groups: Junior Talents, Cross-Border Potentials and Senior
Potentials.
Celanese offers these potential candidates special development modules in addition to
regular management training. The Leadership Development Program is tailored to the
needs of the individual groups of potentials, though interaction with Celanese senior
management is included for all groups.
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Objectives of corporate LD programs
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