User Voices on Executive Diagnosis

Major Food Manufacturer – President (3,500 employees; 7 Directors + 10 Executive Officers)

The primary reason we decided to fully implement the 5D Profile Diagnosis as an executive aptitude diagnosis was that, amid fierce competition and rapid change, we were facing a critical management decision: “To whom should we entrust creation and transformation?” Like many companies, our selection and assignment of executives had largely relied on past achievements, impressions, and the experiential intuition of top management.
However, we came to realize that, going forward, identifying those who can genuinely drive business growth and transformation and assigning them based on more scientific and objective grounds would directly determine our competitiveness. The pace of change leaves no room for delay. Decisions such as business downsizing or withdrawal must sometimes be made with the utmost resolve.

That is why we adopted an executive aptitude diagnosis grounded in scientific evidence from personality psychology and social psychology.
This diagnosis does not stop at surface-level traits; it quantifies and visualizes—from multiple angles—capabilities demanded in modern management, such as creativity, transformation-driving power, innovation ability, the Competition-Oriented Type, Transformational Leadership, decision-making characteristics, and leadership characteristics. In particular, for areas like Inclusive Leadership Ability, Creative Problem-Solving Ability, and “transformation-driving power,” the system judges—against our current business phase and future corporate vision—who can perform best where, offering value not achievable with other tools.

A major value of this diagnosis is that the scientific evidence for “why this executive is best suited for this role” is made visible in the form of a diagnostic report and shared within the executive meeting.
For example, in a founding phase, leaders with bold vision and creativity are required. It is not easy to find an executive of the Future-Oriented Type. Likewise, in a growth phase, organization-building and risk control are essential; in a stable phase, overall optimization and balance; and in a decline/transformation phase, the ability to break existing frameworks and make decisive calls becomes crucial. Even when appointing a leader for a new business, it is essential to analyze not only the responsible executive but also the team members to ensure a high-performing team selection. In practice, based on the diagnosis, we compiled each executive’s “Creativity Score,” “Transformation-Driving Score,” “Innovation Aptitude,” and more, and we were able to clearly identify the most suitable executives by organization, business, and growth phase.

This process carried tremendous persuasive power in our management deliberations. Not only the executive in question but also the president, vice president, and other top leaders could engage in a fair and essential exchange of views using a new yardstick of objective diagnostic data, rather than relying solely on intuition and experience.
Especially on the weighty themes of creation and transformation, the quality of discussion rose dramatically—not just about each executive’s strengths and issues, but also about which leadership type the company needs now and who is best suited to lead transformation.

Where we once evaluated people largely by feel, the diagnosis clarified—in explicit language—what to look at and how to evaluate, and it served as formal material for executive meetings as well. By putting aside past success formulas and gaining a scientific decision tool, our dialogue on future creation and our attitude toward investing in people evolved significantly.
In particular, aspects once vague—such as each executive’s suitability for different growth stages and differences in leadership type during peacetime versus crisis—were concretely presented through reports and data, dramatically sharpening our managerial perspective on talent evaluation.

Moreover, these diagnostic results proved powerful not only for the executive’s own buy-in but also for internal consensus-building and fulfilling our explanatory responsibility to employees. For instance, when explaining why a particular executive was appointed to lead a new business or transformation project, having the diagnostic evidence as clear material made it much easier to gain company-wide understanding and agreement. In fact, the president and vice president rated it highly, saying the results felt completely natural. Because the results largely aligned with conventional intuition and track records, trust in and adoption of the diagnosis accelerated rapidly.

Overall, the executive aptitude diagnosis has delivered substantial outcomes as a management method that elevates our decision axis on the critical theme of creation and transformation to an evidence-based level. Decisions about “people” in management are never simple, but we have established a mechanism that balances objectivity with conviction—an asset of great value for our sustained growth ahead.