OS leading to results in former soviet bloc countries - to be their king and don´t like being treated as equals

Combrains Hp.Etzold at t-online.de
Sun Feb 18 03:00:59 PST 2001


Dear György, Michael, Harrison, Elwin and all the others commenting on the
Hungarian experience,

Györgys comments and the responses of the OS-community excited me a lot. I
want to add some personal experiences from Poland - like Hungary a new
democracy. Nevertheless the country has got a popular ex-communist President
and a successful ex-communist party, which has extremely good chances to
regain power in the coming parliamentary elections.
Born and grown up in Stuttgart/ West-Germany I picked up Polish as a
teenager. Many Poles believe I missed out on basic education, as my talk
sounds Polish, but my spelling is a mess. Speaking and understanding the
language is the major reason why I did some workshops and Open Spaces for
German multinationals in Poland.

Basically I met two types of German expat ceos overthere. The one´s are the
command and control freaks. They are often wondering about their bad fortune
as their Polish employees do a lot behind the scenes to make sure that their
bosses plans don´t work out.
The others are of a more cooperative nature and want their Polish managers
and employees to participate. Recently the ceo of a chemistry multinational
in Warsaw told me his story. His Polish employees told him apparently, that
they want him to be their king and don´t like being treated as equals just
having different jobs and responsibilities. Is this some sort of the
"freedom shock" Harrison is talking about?

But freedom is the precondition for economic success. A friend of mine from
Technical University Berlin does a Ph.D. study about German companies in the
former Soviet Union and countries from the soviet block. He found some
evidence for this: The more cooperative the leadership, the more successful
their businesses are.

For me Open Space has a huge potential in countries, which have emerged from
dictatorship and are in the process of freeing themselves. György, if you
want to approach German multinationals in your country, please let me know,
so we can share experiences, where to find the relevant who is who.

Many Poles I know believe freedom means driving a BMW, Audi, ChryslerDaimler
... to deal with each other on the basis of partnership and equality is
still a very strange notion. That´s a pity, but it´s also a challenge to
convince them of freedom and OS, not by making discounts but with words and
emotions. To convince prospective clients of OS and its value I am telling
success stories a la : OS leading to results, e.g. Harrison´s experience
with AT&T, which needed a quick concept for the new exhibition hall at the
Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Is anybody aware of European success stories? Where do I dig them out?

I am grateful for any idea. Greetings from Berlin and the carneval  - Hape







Hape Etzold

Combrains Idea-Conferencing
Brigitten 4, D-12247 Berlin
T +49 30 771 21 50
F +49 30 771 908 70
info at combrains.de
www.combrains.de

"Neue Lösungen und neue Märkte aus der Intelligenz und dem Wissen in der
Organisation"

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