Passion, That's What We Need in Croatia

• Course Title: Management of Human Capacity Development Programs 2007, Group Training
• Implementing Partner: Career Research Laboratory,SFC Research Institute & Faculty of Policy Management,Keio University
• Organizer: Tokyo International Center (JICA TOKYO)

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Our organization, which is a Croatian NGO, has been providing programs in the area of human resource development and organizational development to the government agencies, private companies, and NGOs. I, myself, work as a consultant and a trainer for these programs, including organizing and conducting workshops with clients. In the past decade, the Croatian society has been dynamically changed. However, some people still retain the old values and approaches in their organizations; some have passive attitudes toward the situational change. Lack of recognition about the importance of human capital is fundamental obstacle to the human and organizational capacity development in the Croatian society.

Participating in the JICA training program gave me an opportunity to compare the Japanese strategies for human resources development / management with ones in Croatia. In the training program, what impressed me the most was how Japanese companies nurture the organizational culture, including how to motivate employees and communication between supervisors and subordinate staff. It was a special honor and rare opportunity for me to be able to harvest the knowledge of the top lecturers from Ueno and Sanno University and business leaders from Nissan, Toyota, Fujitsu, Japan management association, Taira group and others and to have the opportunity to enjoy having practice in those world famous companies.

The words of Mr. Taira, the director of Taira Corporation, really fascinated me: "Good relationship comes from the heart, not the mind," "Managers have to polish their hearts, be humble, respect others, and be a role model," and "You have to change yourself first, if you want others to change."

Passion, that's what we need in Croatia. Throughout the training program, I became convinced that we had been heading for the right direction. Our organization puts an emphasis on value system, in addition to skills development in human and organizational development / management. I would like to incorporate what I learnt in Japan into our strategies of projects in which our organization is currently engaged.