Blog Entry #4

Overview / Summary

Drivers of World Change – During this session, we defined the role and function of a driver of world change, which was simply something that forces the world to change. We went on to explore some examples of drivers and categorize them. For example, under environmental drivers, we talked about the impact of germs and environmental change on society. Other types of drivers of change included competition, globalization and business innovation.

Change Management / Leadership – We defined the difference between managing change and leading change.  How one is reactive and the other is proactive.  We discussed possible reasons for resistance to change and some possible solutions for these. We also discussed the two models of change – The first being the freeze-unfreeze-refreeze model and the second being the modern model with continuous monitoring and constant renewal.

Interesting Ideas & Observations

Charles Robert Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.” In the reading ‘Directing and Managing Change’, a simple analogy is given which I feel is quite relevant here. A man is walking in a jungle and sees a tiger. He climbs a tree and survives. A change happens, the man assesses it and acts accordingly. How does the man survive? He adapts to the jungle. When SARS hit us, we were able to assess the situation and adapt. For example, we quarantined the sick and developed a treatment for the disease. We survived the SARS outbreak because we adapted. Thus adapting is vital to our survival.

George Bernard Shaw goes a step further and states that it is not enough to adapt, we need to cause the change. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – Is it, therefore, good to be unreasonable? I agree that when we have a vision, we should not let it be destroyed by the constraints and limitations of the world. And definitely this persistence has led to progress in many areas of our society. But is this not the attitude that has led to our environment’s current dire state? Our persistence to adapt the world to our needs, by replacing Earth’s forests with lumber mills and by setting up factories which pollute her air, has led to environmental issues such as global warming. Hence I feel that leaders of change have the responsibility of being aware of the negative effects of their ideas / inventions. If the costs outweigh the benefits, maybe we should reconsider if our idea is really for the good of mankind.

This brings me to one of the readings, ‘Zambia-The Construction Industry’. Zambia is suffering from stagflation (high inflation, low GDP). The article proposes a few approaches that the construction industry can adopt to alleviate this problem, such as building core competencies and flexibility, using knowledge for competitive advantage, training and development of staff, customer satisfaction and innovation. My opinion is that improving knowledge and training of staff are the two key areas that need to be done. Zambia needs to gain knowledge in the construction industry to be competitive. But to do this, they first need to learn from other countries (either send people abroad for training or hire experts from abroad to come and train their workers). Following this, they can then innovate and come up with their own technologies. I feel that they also need to adopt a less rigid mindset, as mentioned in the article, and be open to change.

The 12 pillars of competitiveness – I feel that the system is quite an effective method of comparison as most of the factors of competitiveness of a country have been included and I do feel that introducing such an index for countries would encourage countries to be competitive in all aspects and this should breed efficiency and greater productivity. However, I still feel that such an index might have a negative effect on poorer countries low on the index, as companies may be reluctant to invest in them, hence affecting their future economic and social prospects.

MNCs VS NGOs? or MNCs + NGOs – This different perspective brought up during one of the individual oral presentations was rather though-provoking. I personally feel that it is possible for MNCs and NGOs to work hand-in-hand. NGOs need to show the MNCs that their cause need not be at the expense of the MNCs’ profit maximization objective. For example, most NGOs are pressuring MNCs to go green. Instead of being destructive by holding protests and riots, they should try and convince the non-green companies that if they go green, their pool of customers will be higher, since more customers are inclined to buy their green products.

Traditional Model for change VS Modern Model – As mentioned in my overview, two models were discussed during the second half of the session. The freeze-unfreeze-refreeze would be effective if change is a discrete event. But in reality, change is constant. We have to be flexible and hence the modern model, which adopts a continuous approach, is definitely more effective. I agree with Prof that when adopting this approach, there needs to be a good form of change management, otherwise the whole process would be chaotic. The reading, ‘Directing and Managing Change’, introduces a rather systematic approach for managing change. It is divided into the deciding policy and the implementing policy. Under the deciding policy, the management states the aims and its present position, evaluates opportunities, reviews strengths and weaknesses and then derive alternative strategies. Following this, the best strategy is decided upon. The management then prepares a quantified and precisely timed forward plan to implement the change.

Herding Cats – I found this reading extremely interesting. The crux of the article suggests that an effective way to implement change programs is to make employees feel involved in the process. This will provide them with the motivation, skills and knowledge required to adopt the new systems and procedures. I strongly agree with the article. Humans only resist change when it makes them feel out of control. They will definitely be more open if they felt involved, understanding and accepting the reasons for change and most importantly having a say in the process. Managers need to understand that, as mentioned in the article, ‘the human element is the most critical ingredient to technological success.’

Moderation of information in WEB 2.0 – We had a debate about this. I personally feel that some form of moderation is required for the verification of information on WEB 2.0.  Otherwise extreme and contentious comments made on the internet, especially on sensitive race and religion issues, could lead to the occurrence of riots. But Prof raised an interesting counter-point, who would be responsible for moderating? So I guess it falls on the users to post comments responsibly and I do agree that eliminating anonymity would reduce misinformation and such extreme comments, as people are held accountable for what they post. Readers can also check the reliability of the sources of information.

Key Takeaways

There are essentially 3 ways to cope with change

-       Make it happen

-       Respond when it happens

-       Be surprised when it happens

I feel that this probably sums up what the whole session is about. There are 3 ways in which we can interact with change. Take the leadership role and make change happen, take the manager role and adapt when it happens, or take the follower’s role and be surprised when it happens. From the video clip that Prof showed us, we could see that it takes a lot of courage to be a leader, to do something different from the crowd. But I feel that to lead the change is essentially the best way to deal with change. Hence we should always strive to be leaders of change and not merely managers. We should definitely not be ‘laggards’ whom are caught unaware and unprepared when change happens. The reading, ‘Directing and Managing Change’, also suggests that an effective way of overcoming problems set by change is to forecast what is likely to happen, plan ahead and act accordingly. For example, we observe that the population of the planet is increasing steadily. Most likely, this will cause the shortage of food to increase in the future. Hence we need to act accordingly to deal with this potential problem.

Humans resist change when they feel ‘out of control.’ As a manager, we should make them feel more involved in the change process.

Can small companies with great leaders and management still succeed? – The question of insufficient resource and funding hampering ideas was brought up during one of the individual oral presentations. Prof quoted Leon Kaiser, “I choose to live outside my budget.” If we have a vision, we should not let the lack of funds or resources limit that vision. Instead, we should persist and look for ways to solve these problems.

Areas for further discussion

Will MDG goals succeed if they adopt Ghosn’s cross- functional approach? – I feel that it is definitely possible but may be difficult. It is on a much larger scale as compared to ‘Nissan’ that Ghosn successfully revived. Anyway this issue could have been discussed further.

Ratings

9/10 – Although there were many readings in preparation for this class, I felt that the discussions were thought provoking and some of the contributions given by Prof and other students were indeed enlightening.