Effective meeting skills
Group consensus
decisionmaking
Problem
solving techniques
Communication
skills - Active listening & Effective feedback
Interactive
training skills for teaching adults
Participative
leadership skills for middle managers
Employee
ownership business game
Introduction
to financial statements for non-managerial employees
In
development:
Financial
analysis for non-managerial employees
Special
advanced topics including recession, valuation and marketing
Origins
of the OEOC's Work in Russia
The
Center's international work was initiated in 1990, when former Governor Richard
Celeste invited OEOC Director, Dr. John Logue, on a trade mission to Moscow to
explore opportunities for Ohio business. The Soviet hosts, already thinking about
economic reform, had requested a US employee ownership expert. Logue made presentations
at the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) and also learned about the USSR's own
experiments with employee-leased enterprises. A series of reciprocal visits followed
and an exchange agreement was signed between KSU and RAS in 1991.
By
this time, the OEOC's intellectual curiosity had developed into practical aid.
In April 1991, the Center arranged and hosted a two week visit to Ohio employee
owned firms by managers of Mosfurnitura, a Moscow-based furniture producer which
had been leased (and now owned) by its employees. The firm's director was intent
on determining whether employee ownership actually worked, and whether he should
stake his career on it. His conclusion was positive, and Mosfurnitura was purchased
by its employees in 1992 and is 100% employee owned.
From
1992 to 1994, the OEOC hosted three two week study visits to Ohio for twenty Russian
general directors. We were able to follow-up on these visits by testing some of
our Ohio employee ownership training programs in two of the firms -- Kazan Electromechanical
Plant (KEMZ) in the Tatar Republic and Krasny Proletary in Moscow. Russian managers
and workers alike responded enthusiastically to the Center's interactive training
methods. This led to a two-year commitment by a senior member of our staff, Dan
Bell, to relocate to Moscow in 1994 and 1995, for the purpose of building a Russian
employee ownership training capacity -- native trainers and the Russian language
training manuals and workshop materials to support them. Bell was succeeded in
1996 by Olga Y. Klepikova as the OEOC's Moscow Office Director.
Since
1991, OEOC staff have worked in fourteen regions of Russia with about thirty firms.
This work has varied from one day visits to multi-year programs of training and
assistance. The work ranges from introductory presentations for company leadership
on the US experience with structuring employee ownership and participation, to
training steering committees and in-house trainers to develop ownership education
and employee involvement.
The
ownership education programs, introduced in ten Russian firms since 1992, is modeled
on our program at Republic Engineered Steels where we trained 50 peer trainers
to teach their 4500 coworkers about the company's ownership structure, financial
statements, and business plan. To be successful, such programs require the involvement
of non-managerial peer trainers who are supported jointly by both labor and management.
This is coordinated through an ownership education program steering committee,
made up of both worker and management representatives, to oversee the process.
The
employee involvement training, initiated in twelve Russian firms to date, begins
by a presentation and facilitated discussion with company leadership. Next, we
run an interactive workshop for middle managers to enlist their buy-in to the
new style of management. Those who prove more open to this new way of managing
will invite us into their departments to establish and train shop floor teams.
Under
funding from the Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation, the Center developed
a 40 hour training program for non-managerial employees which has been run for
union leaders organized by the American Center for International Labor Solidarity
and for leaders of employee groups challenging the questionable transfer of ownership
of their enterprises. The program includes:
A
business game to introduce participants to the dynamics of ownership in a market
economy;
A workbook
to familiarize employees with Russian company financial statements;
An
interactive company simulation to introduce basic financial analysis techniques
which can help make the numbers more meaningful; and,
Some
practice cases with issues like valuation, dealing with recession, and marketing.
OEOC
Russian Training Modules
Effective
meeting skills (includes trainer manual) Participants discuss past bad experiences
with meetings and participate in an exercise that illustrates a poorly run meeting.
During the exercise, suggestions are made which can help move the meeting along.
Following the "meeting", participants create their own list of ideas
and staff introduce tools like agendas, minutes, flip charts, group roles and
process.
Group
consensus decisionmaking (includes trainer manual) Participants are presented
with the definition of consensus and some key rules for reaching consensus. They
then go through an exercise which illustrates how group decisionmaking often leads
to solutions which are technically better and supported more fully. A discussion
on when consensus does and does not make sense follows.
Problem
solving techniques (includes trainer manual) Participants learn techniques like
brainstorming, nominal group technique, root cause analysis, force field analysis
and implementation planning, as they go through a multi-step problem solving model
to identify and solve a real work problem from their workplace.
Communication
skills - Active listening & Effective feedback (includes trainer manual) Participants
go through a short "telephone game" exercise to see how messages get
lost after they are passed on by several people. A discussion of the obstacles
to good listening follows and then a model for active listening is presented.
Participants practice active listening in small groups. Next the elements of effective
feedback are presented, staff model good examples of feedback giving and receiving,
and the group practices.
Interactive
training skills for teaching adults (includes trainer manual). Participants recall
the rules they followed in grade school. They then go through a simulated "class"
and discuss the problems with treating adults like children in training situations.
More appropriate trainee-centered concepts are presented. The group also is introduced
to good discussion facilitation skills like attending, observing, listening and
questioning, and they watch a presentation about making presentations. At the
end, in pairs, they make a brief presentation and lead the group in a discussion.
Participative
leadership skills for middle managers (includes trainer manual) Participants are
divided into work teams. Each team selects a manager who is instructed to use
a management style which is either democratic, pseudo-democratic, autocratic or
laissez-faire. After a 20 minute production shift, the results of the work are
compared and discussed. Next, the group explores the concerns they have about
the introduction of employee involvement at their company -- how they feel it
will make their job more difficult. Having been listened to, the group is then
ready to explore ways in which employee involvement might actually be helpful.
Finally, staff present a model of leadership which targets different styles to
appropriate supervision situations.
Employee
ownership business game (workshop materials in draft form) Participants role play
the board of directors of a pencil company which has been privatized by the employees.
They calculate their sales, expenses and profit and then discuss decisions about
what to do with the money -- raise wages, buy new technology, pay dividends. Based
on their decisions, their stock is valued after each round (representing one business
year). After several rounds, the results of different groups are compared and
discussed and a facilitated discussion draws new learnings about the dynamics
of business in a market economy from the participants.
Introduction
to financial statements for non-managerial employees (workshop materials available,
currently preparing draft of trainer manual) Participants are led by staff through
a workbook as they create the balance sheet and profit and loss statement for
a simple simulated company which makes wooden boxes. Discussion around each line
item compares the case example with examples from participants real company. By
the end of the workshop, the vocabulary and concepts found on these Russian financial
statements are clear.
Financial
analysis for non-managerial employees (workshop materials in draft form) Participants
are led by staff through calculations of financial indicators based on a simulated
financial statement for four years. Trends are considered and questions formulated
to create hypotheses about what is going on with the company. Participants learn
that the numbers do not usually give answers, but help focus attention on the
key financial issues which need to be studied further. A financial analysis worksheet
is filled out and in the end, the staff explain the story behind the numbers.
The
OEOC has also developed a ten unit video-enhanced course on High Performance Organizations.
The course includes much of the training material described above as well as live
footage from Russian and U.S. companies which are putting high performance methods
into practice.
OEOC's
Russian Work Not Limited to Training . . .
Center
staff have participated in numerous conferences and workshops organized by national
and regional organizations since 1991. Thousands of company personnel, government
officials and trade union leaders have learned of the successful US employee ownership
experience from OEOC staff. Most visits have also involved newspaper or television
interviews.
We
have prepared a variety of materials in Russian on employee ownership, including
a translation of our handbook on ESOPs (Bringing Your Employees into the Business,
Daniel Bell, Kent Popular Press, 1988, Russian translation published in 1995)
and publication of a book highlighting several Russian enterprises which privatized
through employee ownership early on (Transforming Russian Enterprises, Edited
by John Logue, Sergey Plekhanov, John Simmons, Greenwood Press, 1995, Russian
translation published in 1997), and written a dozen or more articles that have
appeared in Russian journals and papers.
Russians
working closely with the State Duma and regional Dumas in Tver, Kaluga and Ryazan
have sought our input on drafting proposals for legislation which would support
the development of employee ownership.
Since
1998, the Center has partnered with Kent State University's Graduate School of
Management and KSU's New Media Services to facilitate a growing exchange of researchers
with Russian state universities in Tver, Volgograd and Voronezh.
Under
subcontract with the World Bank Institute since 2000 and in partnership with Participation
Associates, OEOC staff have been developing and implementing a program to expose
Russian enterprises to international high performance practices and assist them
in integrating these practices into their own operations.
For more information on the OEOC's Russian Programs contact:
