DAILY NEWS

06 october 1992

POLISH EXECUTIVE STUDY MANAGMENT

By Terry Kanakri

Simi Valley - A group of Polish business executives has arrived in Simi Valley, anxious to learn more about free enterprise and the American system of business,
Visiting the United States for first time, group members said they wish to learn how to make business more productive and effcient, as Poland adapts to a free market economy following decades of communist ryle.
"You started hundreds of years ago" said Leszek Szumelda, president of Polish distribution company. "In Poland, we have to do it on two or three years` time".
Szumelda is one of 16 Polish executives of state - and privately - owned business who arrived at a Simi Valley hotel Saturday for a two-week stay to attend seminars and make contact with American business.
The executives are being hosted by Thousand Oaks - based International Association for Managerial and Organizational Psychosynthesis, non - profit group founded in 1982 to improve managerial skills.
John Cullen, the founder of the group, said he hopes the Polish executives will have a new sense of business direction when they return to Poland in aboyt two weeks.
"They`ve been trained to follow orders. Decisions wre always made from the top. That created a lack of initiative, a lack of individual responsibility, a lack of decision-making" said Cullen, a retired business psychology professor at Californian Lutheran University.
"So we`re providing them with an opportunity to turn that around so they can have more individual initiative a sense of independece, creativity and personal growth, which ultimately help their economy."
Kludzienko Nalecz who works for Polish group that helped organoze the trip, said the delegation expects to learn much about business efficiency and improved productivity and marketing.
"The main purposse is for Polish managers to get to know the system of the USA, the organization" he said. "We`re interested in the basic tools of the American managers that are used in their work".
Anna Pieslak general director of Polish entertanment company, said a Polish business are facting two major challenges: overcoming burnedsome governement regulations, and getting the Polish people used to the compettetive free-market system.
"There are a lot of people who can`t understand the old system" she said. "They wanted the old system to come back. They were used to state giving them everything for nothing".
Most Poles do not want a return to communosm, however, Pieslak said
"We hated the old system" she said "You couldn`t say what you wanted. We didn`t have the freedom.