Why organisational change is inevitable?

Ok. I’m back and I am going to share with you my second update.

For everyone’s information, I’ve attended a 3-day class on Leading Organisational Change (“LOC”) module from March 16 – 18, 2009 (LOC -14) at the ULC as part of the UEM-MBL program. In the short 3 days, I’ve met some new faces within the UEM Group family that I’ve never met before. Indeed, they were just awesome and it’s been a great honor to be in their group and to be able to work with them. The teamwork was just great and the level of competitiveness amongst the group when it comes to class assignments was so intense at times… I remember that I had to skip the coffee breaks just to make sure that we complete our class presentation on time. But needless to say, it worth the sacrifices.

Over the 3 days, I learnt about change and the change management issues surrounding an organization. Topics covered are:-

1) Understanding the need for change;
2) Dealing with resistance to change;
3) Leading change initiatives;
4) Creating a change-management plan; and
5) Learning from change.

Speaking of change management, I think it is now one of the most important disciplines of today’s business environment. As the forces of external factors continuously evolve around us, businesses must keep ahead of the pace or be left behind. I know that change within organizations has always been around, but the pace of change has somehow become more prominent in the last few decades. During the LOC program, we were introduced with numerous factors that force organizations to change; these include external factors like global economic downturn, changing in political landscape (more apparent in Malaysia now after the general election), global competition and technological advances, or internal factors like changing in the need for expansion drive, the need to increase profitability (as in the case of UEM Group), or change in senior management. Regulation, in particular, is the most influential. With the stroke of a pen, you can change a whole industry’s nature and many companies facing difficulties to adapt. One classic case is the long unresolved issues on the establishment of the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA) and how the local car manufacturers are the direct “victims” of the threat of AFTA. The whole scenario and the playing field have changed overnight. They know that they have to come out with their own remedies to change in order to face AFTA as they know that nobody can escape from liberalization of car industry.

In a nutshell, change is inevitable in today business, so organizations that can handle change have a competitive advantage over their competitors. I found out from the 3-day program that the life expectancy of an organisation will be fast declining if they are not ready to change. That was very surprising. I was taught that corporations were immortal and humans were mortal. I know I was wrong.

Therefore, change management is seen as a permanent business function to improve efficiency and keep organizations adaptable to the competitive world. However, in realizing successful change in today's competitive environment, it requires thoughtful systematic and effective planning so as to provide a structured approach to change that allows organizations to discover change opportunities and better manage change initiatives.

I will be back with more insights on change..

I'm now a BLOGGER...

Hello all!!

Welcome to my blog. Wow…I can’t believe I can utter that. To be perfectly honest, if it’s not part of the UEM-MBL program requirement, I wouldn’t even bother, let alone, know how to create a BLOG. Good thing I got the assistance from my dear friend who is a blogger herself. Now this is something very new and exciting to me. I AM NOW A BLOGGER!!!

In the next postings, I’ll be sharing my thoughts and experiences on the subject of change (I know folks, it’s a very dry subject…) and how it had altered my perspective of the word “change”, both on corporate sense and personal.

For a start, I want to share with you on some of the wisdom words on change by these very prominent people throughout the history of mankind.

In 513 B.C., Heraclitus of Greece observed “There is nothing permanent except change.” And in the 16th century, Niccolo Machiavelli stated in his political treatise, The Prince, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

Moving along, the father of evolution, Sir Charles Darwin said that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” and Mahatma Gandhi once said “We must become the change we want to see”.

In a more recent years, our very own “King of Pop” i.e. Michael Jackson had also made contribution to the subject matter of change. No… not the change in façade appearance or the transformation of his skin color - he apparently suffered from a medical condition called vitiligo which apparently can only be treated by making the entire skin white - but in one of my all time favorite song called “The man in the mirror” way back in the 80’s.

Parts of his lyrics about change go like this:

I'm Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .

I'm Starting With the Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change…

Indeed it’s very meaningful lyrics to me when it comes to the subject matter of change. After all, how many beautiful songs you can recall that talk about change. Hence, I took ownership of the title of the song as my blog title.

Change is constant in our lives, though most of us couldn't care less about it. The sun rises, and then sets in. It is hot sunny one day, thunderstorm the next. We wake in the morning, move from home to work then return home and go to bed. We go through the stages of birth through death and multiple other changes as we pass through our lives. Most of the time, we never realize that change is occurring and that we are reacting to it.

As such, I’m a true believer that change must start with the Man standing in front of the mirror himself. It must start with you... not anyone else.

Till we meet again..