TWC Lesson 4

Overview/ Summary

Lesson 4 was about the Drivers of world change and Change management and leadership. We touched on the different drivers of world change such as environment, social, technology and scientific drivers. We also talked about how competition may be a driver for more innovation, changing society in future. In the second part of the lesson, we had a presentation about change management and leadership where we were given 3 essential options for change:

1: Make it happen (proactive approach)
2: React when it happens
3: Wonder what happened

Each option determines the proactiveness of a person in initiating change in their lives as well as that of others. We ended with a discussion on what constitutes a visionary and what constitutes a leader.

Interesting Observations

There are quite a number of drivers of world change today- environment, economy, society, culture. I feel that they are all closely interrelated because of the process of Globalisation and the drive for competition. Globalisation itself is a very important factor for world change because essentially, all developments in a country stem from financial liberalisation which usually means an increase in affluence in society. This would bring about change in the society and culture (tending towards westernisation) and the developments of the city would then affect the environment. There are always two sides to the coin. Globalisation is a double-edged sword. Although it brings about economic benefits to a country like Zambia, it may also lead to a threat to local players. As reading 4 acknowledges, international players have become a serious threat to the local contractors, thus raising the bar for local contractors to move towards international credibility to be considered reputable. Nevertheless, looking from the POV of a rising star, countries should adapt and keep up with such development in order to better themselves and bring about progress in their country. After all, it is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent, it is the one most adaptable to change.

“Be the change you want to see in the world”—Mahatma Gandhi

Personally, I am not an advocate of change, I’d much rather things stay simple with little variation if possible. But I know that change is constant in our world and the only option we have (if we were to survive) is to constantly change in our thinking and actions. It is interesting to note that change may not only be created in a group/ organisation, individuals themselves are actually imperative to change. Here, we understand about the role of leaders where their one vision and desire to do something actually changes the world. Take any CEO of a big company, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, they all had one vision for the company in mind and they were daring enough to take the risk of doing that particular business in a different way. And as the saying goes, only those who dare to take risks will be able to achieve greatly.
It is definitely not enough for the leaders themselves to engage in their vision. This vision has to be communicated to employees who are ultimately the ones who “make things happen”. According to the reading on Human Change Management : Herding Cats, about 75% of all organizational change programs fail, largely because employees feel left out of the process and end up lacking the motivation, skills and knowledge to adopt new systems and procedures. This brings us to the point about how change management is important is any organisation. Good management will impart new ideas and skills to the employees only through good communication and a strong leadership. Evidenced by the example of Continental Airlines where Greg Brenneman and his team introduced a host of measures to improve company performance (effectively communicating his idea across). A one-size-fits-all solution won’t work because there are individual’s needs and wants. The management has to recognise this. “Human behavior can be pushed and pulled in the right direction with an effective combination of incentives and disincentives.”

Issues for discussion

The key drivers for world change are a major challenge to achieveing sustainable development today as most of the time, initiating change uses up more resources and efforts to move towards sustainable development might in the end be all talk and no action, or our actions might not be significant enough.
Should we just let things be the way they are since our efforts might not really make a difference in the end?

Ratings for this lesson:
7/10