Summary of Visit to Bulgaria, May 29 to June 9, 2017

Yvonne Randle and Eric Flamholtz visited Bulgaria for two weeks to make presentations, conduct seminars and workshops, and meet people at the invitation of Forteam (our affiliate in Bulgaria) and the Bulgarian Association for Management Development and Entrepreneurship ("BAMDE").

 

Presentations Sponsored by Forteam and Others

Ivailo Illiev, CEO of Forteam (our affiliate in Bulgaria) sponsored and organized a series of events in Sophia and Varna, as described below.

 

Media Day

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On May 30, they facilitated a "Media Day" sponsored by Bloomberg and an Investor Group in Sophia, Bulgaria.  There were about 150 participants including entrepreneurs and others.  This program involved:

  • A presentation by Eric Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle on the topic of "How to create sustainably profitable company: drivers of financial success at different stages of the organizational development,"
  • A panel discussion of successful entrepreneurs and Eric. Flamholtz,  Moderated by a TV anchor from Bloomberg TV Bulgaria, and 
  • A workshop titled "Tools for creating a sustainably successful organization."

A description (in Bulgarian) of the event can be found on Bloomberg's website here: http://www.bloombergtv.bg/novini/2017-05-30/zashto-90-ot-novite-kompanii-se-provalyat-do-5g

A video of this session can be found on Investor.BG's website here: http://www.investor.bg/bloomberg-tv/461/a/prof-erik-flamholc-za-uspeha-na-starbucks-i-wal-mart-240638/

Workshop: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations

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On June 1, Yvonne and Eric together with Ivailo illiev, CEO of Forteam (our affiliate in Bulgaria), facilitated a workshop on the theme of "Building Sustainably Successful Organizations." Participants received a copy of a newly published Bulgarian edition of Flamholtz and Randle's widely read and acclaimed book, Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations (Wiley, 2016). A copy of the program description can be seen here.

Workshop: Corporate Culture
On June 2, Yvonne and Eric together with Ivailo Illiev, facilitated a workshop on the theme of "Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Competitive Advantage." Participants received a copy of a newly published Bulgarian edition of Flamholtz and Randle's book of the same title, originally published by Stanford University Press (2016).  A copy of the program description can be seen here.

 

Presentations Sponsored by Bulgarian Association for Management Development and Entrepreneurship

The Bulgarian Association for Management Development and Entrepreneurship ("BAMDE") also invited Eric Flamholtz, Yvonne Randle, Ivailo Illiev (Bulgaria), and Dariusz Brzezinski (our affiliate in Poland) to make a series of presentation at the 8th Annual Meeting of this international group of academics (Professors and Deans).

On June 8, Eric Flamholtz presented a Keynote "Creating a Global Management Revolution."  This presentation criticized a number of formerly popular management "gurus," who work has proven to be invalid.  Flamholtz pointed out that their failure to employ rigorous methods of empirical research was the fundamental flaw common to each of them. He also observed that these methods lacked demonstrated successful applications.  He then presented Management Systems frameworks and methods which has been based upon Published empirical research and demonstrated successful applications. An abstract can be read here.

On June 9, Eric moderated a session in which Yvonne Randle (USA), Ivailo Illiev (Bulgaria), and Dariusz Brzezinski (Poland) presented research and demonstrated successful applications. Dariusz Brzezinski presented research jointly conducted with Eric Flamholtz and sponsored by the Polish Agency of Enterprise Development.  Ivailo Illiev presented an unsuccessful applications jointly conducted with Eric Flamholtz in Bulgaria, and discussed the reasons for the limited success, notably the business owner's failure to sustain the initially successful application.  Yvonne Randle presented a highly successful leadership development application in the USA.