Czechoslovak Managers Get a Crash Course in Capitalism

Nine Czechoslovak managers schooled in Marxism and trained in Soviet-style central planning have come here for a crash course in capitalism.

After attending a recent lecture at Georgetown University on “Managing for Profits,” Jan Masak, 42, director of the postal department for the Czechoslovak Republic, said he and other visiting managers began the program with “a very strong belief in the free market.”

But they have come to realize, he said, that “there may be some stones on this way . . . that, in addition to the invisible hand, there may be an invisible foot, which can kick us.”

The program for the managers was developed after Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, during a visit here in February, 1990, asked Georgetown University to help his country make the transition to a market-oriented economy.

Georgetown professors then began working with professors at Charles University in Prague to devise a course to help educate the Czechoslovak managers, who are expected to make the decisions necessary to stimulate and expand their country’s economy.

The professors, including Georgetown’s John Garrity and Colin Campbell, settled on a three-month program that began in early May with classroom instruction in Czechoslovakia. More than 40 managers from across Czechoslovakia were selected to participate in that first phase.

Nine of the managers then were chosen to come to Georgetown last month for more classroom work and for monthlong internships with U.S. businesses.

Besides attending lectures, the managers have been participating in mock situations aimed at teaching them about the free market. After a recent morning lecture, the Czechoslovaks participated in a management simulation workshop in which they operated a make-believe glass manufacturing company with 4,000 workers and $200 million in annual sales.

As part of that exercise, they were required to tackle dozens of management issues, such as whether to close a losing plant and how to deal with environmental problems at another plant.