Lesson 4

This week, we are looking at drivers of change, change management and change leadership. The only constant in life is change which is the primary concept taught in the Chinese ancient text the Yi Jing (Book of Changes).

Organisations can stay only if they are able to adapt to changes. There area 3 ways to deal with change:
1. Proactive: To anticipate changes and drive change in the environment

2. Reactive: To respond and try to adapt to change that has happen

3. Resistant: To deny the change and remain in the status quo

Needless to say dealing with change in the 1st way is the best. However, this is often difficult for many to accomplish. There are even many that would deal with certain changes in the 3rd way. For example, cloud computing, there are many pros to it such as huge costs savings and stable software with little disruptions. In my view, it represent the future of Information Technology (IT) solutions. However there are still quite a number of organisations that do not believe in this innovation citing security concerns.

Change management

We are living in exponential times, change is happening all around us at rapid pace. Traditionally there will be 5 or 10 year plans to direct the organisation. However this is no longer feasible in the current landscape, organisations have to constantly review and revise their plans.

In addition the labour force is also changing. Organisations have to be lean to be responsive to change. Contract and temporary staff now accounts for a significant part of an organisations' employees. Employees are also being sent for training more frequently than before.

Other than having a structure that is responsive to change, an organisation needs to implement the right policies. The way the organisation manages change will greatly affect how the employees behave. The following articles gives you a good idea of what an organisation should do in change management:
http://www.solhaam.org/articles/directing.html

1. Forecast
This process is rather similar to most management strategies out there already, such as using SWAT analysis, evaluate opportunities, plan and set targets. However, organisations have to pay close attention on how the environment is changing and not just what the organisation want to see happen. Organisations have to keep an open mind to ideas so as to the organisation is able to innovate and grow. The organisation will then be able to chart out what the organisation would do in the coming new environment.

2. Implementation
This is step that is different and is the most important. If implemented wrongly there will not be people to realise and drive the change. Therefore the key is to get the people of the organisation to want to change, not just the top management.

The style of management is rather different to the hierarchical style but the management process is still similar to any management process. Managers have to get his team to own the change, by getting his team to look at what they can change to contribute to meet the direction. The teams will set targets together. Lastly as in any management process, there must be measurements to evaluate the implementation of the change.

3. Evaluation
On the overview, the top management have to set general measurements to determine the success of the change. The evaluation process like in any management process will help to review any other measures to take.

Conclusion
With more of the world moving to a knowledge based economy (KBE), organisations have to change the old management style from the Industrial Era and look to tapping talents in the team to stay dynamic. To be successful, organisations have to keep an open mind, continually challenging itself and dealing with the ever changing environment.

Overall, I would rate this lesson a 7 out of 10. The KBE was covered in Secondary school already. Maybe it was the presentations, where there was not as much interesting topics to talk about. Nevertheless the readings did provide some interesting perspectives on where the world will be going in the coming  future.