11/17/2009 9:12:00 AM Change isn't always for the best The Biker's Diary
By Dr. Jan Meyer
One of the big stories this week in the media has been a 20th anniversary celebration. Many news outlets asked people to remember where they were on Nov. 9, 1989. That's the day the Berlin Wall came down.
I have to admit that if I had been asked, I would have had to stop and think. After all, it wasn't like the day that World War II was over, or when JFK was shot, or 9/11. So, while I haven't dug out my old passport from that era, I know I was indeed in Eastern Europe, just not in Berlin. I was in parts of then-Yugoslavia, and I didn't get much outside news since it was still censored. And, the whole change in those countries was not an event, like the wall coming down, but a process. It didn't happen in a day.
The people with whom I was then working in other parts of Eastern Europe were certainly getting ready for change; that's why I was there. There were a few people here and there who hoped the change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy would indeed occur; they wanted to be ready when it happened. This wasn't easy, because it meant having to stand up and be counted, and in the past that had led to being ostracized at best and at worst, people just plain disappearing after they had openly shown dissent.
When I first started going to Eastern Europe in the mid '80s, I was asked to make speeches to groups about what management is, since it was a forbidden word and concept under communism. One of the questions I posed in my early presentations, after "What does management do?" was "What are the characteristics and skills of a good manager?" Included in my list was that management must be honest, and trusted. More than once, someone would approach me after the presentation and say with incredulousness, "Honest? We have always been told that you have to 'be careful.'" That is not surprising, since someone was always watching for dissidents, and people were never sure who that someone would turn out to be.
Under the centrally-planned economy, each enterprise (not company because like "management," "company" too was a forbidden word) had a director as its leader, supposedly elected by the workers. This was an illusion, because the single candidate in each election was assigned by the central communist party. It wasn't a choice; it was an ultimatum. I was privileged to be there for the first meeting of the Slovenian Management Association, an important day in their process of change, because now they could actually say management, and company, out loud.
Everyone made the same salary, whatever the responsibilities or training required. This meant the doctor and dentist made the same as the cleaning staff. This led to a common saying, "We pretend we work and the government pretends it pays us." The working hours were centrally determined. Productivity was an unnecessary concept, as was motivation. There were no supervisors anyway, and no one could tell anyone else what to do since everyone was equal.
One day a work colleague and I were out taking a walk for a break. We walked past a park, which was very unkempt, and he said "See that? It's a public park. It belongs to everyone. Therefore it is everyone's responsibility. So it looks like that, because what belongs to everyone belongs to no one. What is everybody's responsibility is no one's responsibility."
This same colleague described the mindset of people under a centrally-planned economy. People learn not to make decisions. He said that is because "Anything that is not allowed is forbidden, and almost everything is forbidden." So there was no room for decision-making. That was what I started to call The Old Way. What I said could be The New Way is that, "Everything that is not forbidden is allowed, and little is forbidden, therefore there is a lot that is allowed." Under The New Way, people could learn to make decisions. And they have.
That particular trip of mine in November and December of 1989, which coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall, was the first time that companies were being allowed to plan their own future, without outside interference. This was a huge change, since for more than 40 years, they had guaranteed jobs, production quotas and prescribed rules, all of which came from the central government. There had been no room for individual responsibility, creativity or decision-making. Now my role was to help them plan their change, to campaign - and win - their management positions in a company that has gone on to be very successful.
When I started thinking about that time, and what I was doing then, I remembered a video I had made after a few years' experience working with the new management teams. I included companies in Croatia and Slovenia which were on the leading edge of change. Now, 20 years later, I can recall the unique things those companies had in common: excitement, optimism, and commitment.
One couple who was interviewed this week in a newscast had for some reason been at the Wall shortly after that memorable day, and had brought home two big pieces of concrete from the wreckage as mementos. They had thrown them out at some time when they were cutting back on possessions; they wondered in what dump those two very valuable pieces of concrete were buried.
Russian friends had given me a small piece of the wall, and while it didn't get thrown out, it doesn't occupy a spot of importance in the house. But it is a good reminder that things can change for the better, an important thing to remember when it seems we are unthinkingly moving toward what they rejected back then.
