Euroasian Jewish News

EAJC Congress College Chairman, EAJC Vice President Yuri Raskin and RFC Bank President Andrei Nechayev

EAJC Congress College Discusses Traditional and Alternative Management

On the 31st of March, the plenary meeting of the business club "Congress College" (a project under Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) aegist) took place in Moscow. The topic of the meetings was "Directive and Alternative Management: A Change in Approaches to Administration in State, Non-Profit, and Commercial Structures."

The meeting was opened by Congress College Chairman, EAJC Vice President Yuri Raskin, who made a short announcement of the club's short-term working plans and named the topic of the meeting. According to Raskin, the choice of topic for discussion was made because it is sometimes difficult both to realize the potential of modern technology and to truly use all the possibilities of the human factor in the boundaries presented by traditional approached. The President of the Congress College proposed to discuss alternatives to traditional directive management, and to disuss the possibilities of an effective symbiosis of different approaches to management.

The main report was given by the President of the "SCORE" Consulting Group Yuri Rubtsov. He presented a counter to the management of "control and coercion" in the form of an effective way to optimize the activity of any structure, a management “based on human nature.” According to the speaker, a realization of this approach to establishing control, “replacing control with motivational approaches” gives a colossal positive effect.

His report provoked a lively discussion, in which completely opposite views were stated on what is the most effective way of management in Russia – from following the Japanese model of the “family-corporation” to building a rigid authoritarian vertical. First, theoretical questions, without which it would have been impossible to go on to practical experience, were discussed, such as whether a universal theory of management exists, the peculiarities of the directive and alternative methods of management, psychological aspects of “new ideas,” and so on. The “professor members” of the group – Dr. Nataliya Belenko, Dr. Arkady Prigozhin, and Dr. Sergei Myasoyedov – shined in this part of the discussion. The most “technological” opinions on the processes of management were given by the Head of the Institute of Alternative Management Grigoriy Fidelman and Yuri Raskin, who has been moderating this round table.

President of the “Russian Financial Corporation” bank Andrei Nechayev gave examples of solving difficult management programs from his experience as the Russian Minister of Economics in 1992-93. The other members of the business community who joined the discussion divided themselves into two camps of adherents of different management styles.
The topic turned out to be so important that the chairman of the business club had to give additional time for discussion. When summarizing the results of the meeting, Yuri Raskin noted that, “Even though the proposed approaches differ, in practice, as a rule, a symbiosis of different approached turns out to be the most effective. It is a question of proportions, and here the most important thing is the experience, intuition, and professionalism of the manager.”

After the end of the working part of the meeting, the discussion continued in a lively way during the traditional Congress College reception.