The primary goals of the BMWK Manager Training Programme “Fit for Partnership with Germany”, which Carl Duisberg Centren run on behalf of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), is to train management skills and establish business contacts with companies in Germany. After years and years of experience, what used to be everyday business suddenly became a completely new challenge in 2020, the year we faced Covid-19.
From August to October, the first program with managers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan took place in a completely new, virtual set-up.
The program features a whole host of training programs, including leadership, business planning and change management, all of which were implemented in a virtual environment; moreover, virtual visits to medium-sized German companies were organized for the participants. Of course, it goes without saying that we had to come up with new concepts in a very short time and many organisational and technical hurdles had to be overcome.
It was also a special challenge for the managers who participated in the programme. They were participating during Corona and political turmoil in their respective countries and, at the same time, had to work full time in their jobs. Thanks to the assiduous efforts of the participants and the colleagues from the Carl Duisberg Centren, the program was completed better than initially expected.
In the presence of a representative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), the managers achieved particularly impressive results which exceeded our expectations by far. Regardless of the virtual format of the programme, with participants sitting at screens in countries far apart from each other, it was amazing to see an excellent team spirit develop within the group.