Session Four

The main topic for the day was CHANGE. At the start of the lesson we went through the different drivers of world change. Such changes come in two ways:

-          Evolutionary

-          Revolutionary / Disruptive

Evolutionary changes are incremental changes that happen over time. They tend to just improve existing technologies, services or products according to customer’s needs.

I was especially interested in revolutionary changes. This change is also known as disruptive innovation, which was a term introduced by Clay Christensen. The whole idea is to basically overturn the existing dominant technology, market, product or service. However this doesn’t happen overnight. According to Christensen, “many innovations are often inferior in most respects to established products, but succeed because they possess some attribute that is valued by a new customer segment–or possess an attribute existing customers did not even realize they valued”.

I came across a graph which seemed to increase my understanding of a disruptive change.

We also went through the different ways in which people react to changes.

-          Reaction One: An eagle

o   They have a bird’s eye view of what is happening and they react accordingly to the changes.

-          Reaction Two: Ostrich

o   They recognize the fact that there are changes happening. Provide their opinion on what is going to change, what should be done etc but never do anything.

-          Reaction Three: Dodo

o   This are the “blur” group whole completely fails to recognize that there is even a change. Thus, failing to take any appropriate action.

During the discussion prof mentioned to us about adaptability, flexibility and specialization. I feel that we can be and should be specialized in what we do but within that field/discipline we should have enough flexibility to change according and be willing gain the new knowledge/lessons that change brings to us.

We then moved on to part two of the lesson in which we had an intense discussion on management and leadership and its differences. Prof mentioned that as times are changing to a more knowledge based economy, leaders/managers can’t treat their subordinates as “donkeys”. They can’t just shout or order their team members to give their best. There will be no motivation for these employees to give their best ideas or put in their best effort. Eventually it will be loss of knowledge for the leader/manager and company.

We got to view video about how anyone can be a leader. But the difference is that they must have the courage and in a lot of cases they must be thick skinned enough to be different from the rest. One point prof that stayed me till now is that another important person who helps that one person to be a leader is his first follower. And that makes so much sense. If you have at least one person who truly believes in something/someone it definitely does make you think what is so special about that thing/person that attracts anyone. From here the interest starts.

The presentation that interested me most was the one on a CIO’s role in a company. A CIO can no longer just be someone who knows a lot about IT. But he or she must be also aware on how these technologies can work well together with their business processes to further enhance their productivity, efficiency etc.

I rate this session a 9/10 as it really kept me interested and motivated me to do more research on my own.

“Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.”

Bruce Barton

BUT we must keep in mind that:

“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.”
Ellen Glasgow