Session 4

The lesson started about what we have learnt, or rather, what we have dwelled in for these past weeks. We recalled the Maslov state of self-actualization, the 3 barometers of measuring development; literacy rate; GDP per capita; life expectancy. We also remembered other forms of measurement of development, such as happiness, and things that are really integrated into the social fabric, such as crime and alcoholism rates.

We then discussed the drivers of world change. We noted many drivers of world change, such as technology, climate change, governance etc. The one that stood out was germs and diseases. Prof elaborated that it was this that was responsible for the dark ages (some others call it the middle ages), and the renaissance for the Europeans.

The eastern Roman Empire, in the 600s, brought back a disease, now called the bubonic plague. It came from the fleas of rats. With so many people dying, people started to live in isolated communities. The best scientists of that time were consulted, but they could do nothing about it. Science lost credibility, and there was a breakdown of society.

For about 600 years, Europe lived in these ages. Their age of enlightenment came after this. The renaissance period as it was called was due to help from the people of the Middle East. These people developed methods to prevent the spread of the plague. Europe hence opened its eyes once again and embraced science and development. The dark ages were over.

A modern retrospect to the events that happened then would be the Spanish flu, which killed millions worldwide. However with increasing globalization, we can share knowledge and technology with much more ease. Hence, this would prevent a second dark age. Closer to our times, we have had scares such as the H1n1 flu, and the 2003 SARS epidemic.

It is fascinating to learn that things naked to the eye are the fundamental reasons to what happened throughout man’s history. It makes me wonder then, are we really the masters of this world as we claim to be? Are we masters of our fate, or is there a higher calling.

I think that we should include more of these historical discussions during lesson. I find it really stimulating, as these discussions include stories, and the lessons within in. But that is just a thought.

We dwelled of course into the other drivers of world change. We discussed some drivers of change, that the idea itself was too minute to create a change. However when everyone embraced it, a movement formed and ultimately when joined by others, becomes a big change.

One such example would be the example of a social idea – communism. Not to digress, I totally agree that social ideas are one of the fundamental factors of change. Indeed change is mostly talked about what we can observe, however an idea is just as much able to materialize if we embrace it. Hence once communities embrace a social ideal, be it communism or capitalism, we can see that it affects everything else that the community will do. It will affect how the community spread of wealth will be. It affects what jobs the people in that community will do. It even decides how people will feel, for those who dislike equality and want to succeed, a feeling of stifling. For those who cannot afford the competition, being equal with everyone else would be better. Indeed I cannot agree more that the mere idea of a social ideal is indeed a very powerful driver of change within communities.

Other drivers of change include demographic change, where a change of mindset would be indulged in. People from the countryside move to cities to find higher paying jobs. Rather than farming, they would want better education so that they can be equipped with the skills to move up the food chain, rather than maintaining the status quo, and continue being country bumpkins.

Commercial innovation too is a massive driver of change in the world today. With new highly value added products being introduced into the market, people are finding their lives getting easier and easier. Now, with the internet, we can purchase items of halfway around the world with a click of a button, and not just that, we can even do it while we are outside of our comfort zones, using our phones.

With commercial innovation, comes the need for keeping costs low with many people wanting to jump onto the bandwagon and sell similar products. Hence competition arises. This too is a massive driver of change. With competition, corporations are always finding cheaper places for manufacture, more efficient machines etc. Hence, the whole demographic nature of production changes. With globalization, the ease of setting up factories and employing people who are satisfied with lower wages, due to their economy are ever present. Hence this changes other countries economies too. Therefore indeed, commercial innovation and competition are massive drivers of change too.

One cannot neglect however that these are not the only drivers of change that are so impactful around the world we live in. For example, environmental factors too are just as powerful in moulding surroundings, causing havoc to our chain processes. Changing expectations too are a driver of change. Demands for wants, and immediate services are now ever more accessible compared to a couple of decades ago, where life was a lot slower paced. People were not caught up in he rat race, and they did not demand immediate services. These drivers, though not apparent, are subtly changing the way we live our lives.

The presentations were really interactive. There was much debate for the first presentation where the topic was the premis of CO2 not being the main cause for global warming. It generated a very lively debate, however the conclusion was that it was never in the first place assumed for CO2 to be the cause of global warming in the first place. The second presentation was about new technologies coming up. The focus was on two new technologies, the universal translation, and the T-ray.

The former is as what its name states. It translates any language in the world. There was again much discussion about its applications. How 90% accuracy is not enough in the medical field etc. The T-ray is an x-ray without the harmfulness of it. Its application was not discussed thoroughly however, but nonetheless, bravo to Szecindyo the presenter!

We had our break afterwards.

In the second session we discussed about change management and change leadership. This is a topic I would think that would be pretty close to my heart. Being preassigned into the course of Leadership and Teambuilding I am currently undergoing, it is necessary to apply what I have read up on leadership and management into the course. So discussing this during a different course, presented to me a different outline on change management and leadership. However as what I have noticed, the concepts stay the same.

What stuck me as a superb familiarity was that of the pessimism time curve. Indeed many of us start of a project with optimism, the feeling of how we are going to be successful and how our project will take the world by change. Then we realize that the job would have a lot of pitfalls. I myself have experienced this when I started my instrument rental company. I had to lower my expectations for success, but nonetheless, with changed expectations, one will not brood too much about failure. Luckily for me, this project is still surviving, and doing pretty ok, hence, the informed realism stage.

Completion for me would be like the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to experience it yet, but hopefully, I’ll get there someday! Kudos to this slide! Life is full of ups and downs, and we must tune ourselves to constantly change our focus to fit circumstances, or we would only fail!

A leader is one with a dream, a vision. A manager is the one who manages. Essentially, taking care of the nitty gritties. For any successful team, or in this case, we were discussing about corporations moving through with times, like a tree, a change management must be flexible otherwise if they stay ridgit, in the wind they will be broken upon. However flexibility provides the adaptability for this change. Hence again, remember Darwin’s quote, only the one that is the most adaptable will survive. It’s the same for species, the same for people, the same for organizations.

One thing that I learnt in the lesson was about making plans. We must be able to formulate plans that are flexible and reactive to change. If we were to follow the traditional concept of implementing changes with a deadline, and freeze ourselves to present circumstances, we would be voiding ourselves to the rest of the world, and not be able to react to the circumstances when it does not go our way. Also when we make our plans, we must factor in anticipations for the future. That is why, reports like what Professor asked us to read are for that reason.

The experts predict what will happen, see from current trends, what to expect for the future. For different experts, different measures. Some are experts in drivers of change, hence they see from the current situation, what is going to affect and create change. As managers and leaders, we must have a vision and a plan how to reach the end destination taking into account these changes.

This lesson was an interesting one for me, as it dwelled into a topic that is quite dear to my heart. Information flow was good, however I think we should actually dwell more into the mechanics, rather than just an overview which was what I felt was this week’s lesson. 8/10!