BKUN Newsletter: Croatian Business Leaders Think Global

Croatian Business Leaders Think Global
Systems Thinking Model Launched in New Management/Leadership School

In a country as small as Croatia (population only 4.5 million), a major national impact can be expected from a school that will educate 50,000 over the next ten years, including a special program for 500 of the country's current and future business leaders. Add to the picture a plan to base the new school on systems thinking, and to apply that holistic approach even within a business world that is more usually associated with power and profit, and the potential for example setting becomes international.

This innovative educational model is currently being launched by the Croatian Managers' Association (CROMA), a voluntary, independent, nongovernmental group of the country's 3,000 leading CEOs and entrepreneurs. To date, CROMA has both developed Croatia's management sector and set up management associations in four other countries in the region. The new CROMA Business Academy is a cooperative venture involving leading business and systems experts not only within Croatia but also worldwide.

The roster of notables committed to the project ranges from key management experts such as Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer of MIT and Velimir Srica locally, to business success stories such as Rinaldo Brutaco, president of the World Business Academy, and Richard Teerlink, retired CEO of Harley Davidson, as well as a top global expert in designing learning processes, Toke Moller, and the best-selling author Margaret Wheatley.

Official start-up was in May, though some programs were set in motion earlier. A two-year leadership/management course of study that is the equivalent of an executive MBA program will start September 1. The main campus is located in Zagreb, with longer seminars and modules to be held on the Croatian coast. Initially, the student population will be drawn from Croatia's business sector. Eventually, plans are to encompass various sectors in a multinational school.

A primary goal of the school is nothing short of widespread social, organizational, and personal change, with the Academy students becoming catalysts. Among the facets that set the school apart:

• Methodologies to be used are all highly progressive, interactive, and known for break-through results, including Open Space Technology, World Café Conversations, and Appreciative Inquiry.

• The learning style, based on collective intelligence, is the opposite of a traditionally sedentary classroom model that taps into the intelligence of just one teacher. Systems thinking takes into consideration dynamically complex relationships — whether the entirety of an organization or community or of a single person’s rational mind, subconscious, emotions, and spiritual life.

• Teachers are being drawn from a pool of the world's top educators, with the World Business Academy partnering to guarantee the quality of the content.

• Systems principles will be integral not only to the classroom but also to the management of the entire school, including its financial viability. While CROMA has been championing the feasibility phase, the Academy will be an autonomous legal institution that is financially self-sustainable, committed to maintaining affordability, and expecting to be profitable every year from the outset.

The school's organizers see this place and this moment as an ideal ground for instituting so forward-looking and complex a plan. Because Croatia is a country essentially starting over after its communist/socialist past, it faces clear-cut choices of either copying the market-oriented and social systems of the West or creating a new system of its own. The hope is that what begins at the educational level will evolve also to create a more harmonious society at large.

To know more about this initiative, contact Ante Glavas (ante.glavas@zg.htnet.hr). Ante Glavas is a participant in the Call-of-the-Time Dialogues.


Summer 2003 \| Issue 1, Volume 1 \| Back to the main BKUN site
• Introduction News Stories: Message from Dadi Janki Sister, Catch This Dime President of India Inaugurates Newest BK Retreat Centre Croatian Business Leaders Think Global BK Participation in COMESA World Social Forum in Brazil Commission on the Status of Women UNESCO Workshop on Righting Racism United Nations/Civil Society Relations World Summit on the Information Society BK Portraits— Third Eye	Croatian Business Leaders Think Global Systems Thinking Model Launched in New Management/Leadership School In a country as small as Croatia (population only 4.5 million), a major national impact can be expected from a school that will educate 50,000 over the next ten years, including a special program for 500 of the country's current and future business leaders. Add to the picture a plan to base the new school on systems thinking, and to apply that holistic approach even within a business world that is more usually associated with power and profit, and the potential for example setting becomes international. This innovative educational model is currently being launched by the Croatian Managers' Association (CROMA), a voluntary, independent, nongovernmental group of the country's 3,000 leading CEOs and entrepreneurs. To date, CROMA has both developed Croatia's management sector and set up management associations in four other countries in the region. The new CROMA Business Academy is a cooperative venture involving leading business and systems experts not only within Croatia but also worldwide. The roster of notables committed to the project ranges from key management experts such as Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer of MIT and Velimir Srica locally, to business success stories such as Rinaldo Brutaco, president of the World Business Academy, and Richard Teerlink, retired CEO of Harley Davidson, as well as a top global expert in designing learning processes, Toke Moller, and the best-selling author Margaret Wheatley. Official start-up was in May, though some programs were set in motion earlier. A two-year leadership/management course of study that is the equivalent of an executive MBA program will start September 1. The main campus is located in Zagreb, with longer seminars and modules to be held on the Croatian coast. Initially, the student population will be drawn from Croatia's business sector. Eventually, plans are to encompass various sectors in a multinational school. A primary goal of the school is nothing short of widespread social, organizational, and personal change, with the Academy students becoming catalysts. Among the facets that set the school apart: • Methodologies to be used are all highly progressive, interactive, and known for break-through results, including Open Space Technology, World Café Conversations, and Appreciative Inquiry. • The learning style, based on collective intelligence, is the opposite of a traditionally sedentary classroom model that taps into the intelligence of just one teacher. Systems thinking takes into consideration dynamically complex relationships — whether the entirety of an organization or community or of a single person’s rational mind, subconscious, emotions, and spiritual life. • Teachers are being drawn from a pool of the world's top educators, with the World Business Academy partnering to guarantee the quality of the content. • Systems principles will be integral not only to the classroom but also to the management of the entire school, including its financial viability. While CROMA has been championing the feasibility phase, the Academy will be an autonomous legal institution that is financially self-sustainable, committed to maintaining affordability, and expecting to be profitable every year from the outset. The school's organizers see this place and this moment as an ideal ground for instituting so forward-looking and complex a plan. Because Croatia is a country essentially starting over after its communist/socialist past, it faces clear-cut choices of either copying the market-oriented and social systems of the West or creating a new system of its own. The hope is that what begins at the educational level will evolve also to create a more harmonious society at large. To know more about this initiative, contact Ante Glavas (ante.glavas@zg.htnet.hr). Ante Glavas is a participant in the Call-of-the-Time Dialogues.