Week 4- Drivers of world change / Change management and leadership

The week's session started with the video of "Who moved my cheese". Though simple and rather cartoon-ish,  the video serves to remind us of the principle that change is the only constant in life. Although the world is full of uncertainties (like the maze in the video), the winner is the one who is willing to venture out of the comfort zone to adapt to the changes occurring in our world today.

I remember that in my very first blog entry I asked the question whether world change would create a demand for new technology to be created. In this lesson we explored what are the drivers of world change and what could we do to adapt to those changes. When changes occur, we need to direct it as well as manage the change.

As the world progresses through history, there would be certain drivers that would cause world change. In my opinion, here are a few key takeaways:

Globalisation- As our world becomes more interconnected, businesses that used to do well might face competition from other companies all over the world. The key is to constantly innovate and think about the future needs of our society to stay in the game. As corporations now have access to cheap labour, an individual has to constantly upgrade the skills he has to remain relevant in the workforce.

Resources and energy- An increase in worldwide consumption patterns is leading towards a large amount of finite resources and energy being consumed. This change calls for technological innovation to develop new and sustainable energy sources for the world.

Multipolar system- The world is now seeing a shift of economic power and country growth from the east to the west. China and India and en route to becoming the world's leading economies. There might be a shift of power to these countries and other countries might be more willing to emulate their political systems. 

Change can also be classified into two main categories. Evolutionary or Revolutionary.

Evolution becomes Revolution

Evolutionary changes to me, are gradual changes over time that we can adapt to easily due to their gradual nature. Revolutionary changes as defined by prof; are disruptive changes that are irreversible in our expected future. Disruptive changes can make or break an organisation. Those that survive are able to adapt to that change.

Tiffany then talked about global change in her presentation, including environmental factors like global warming and rising sea levels. This might lead to high food prices due to a low supply of food. In our world today, it is important to have an increased amount of participation by the government and regulatory bodies to help curb the effects of climate change.

Huipin talked about mass media being a driver of world change. I thought that it was a refreshing perspective relevant to our society today. Mass media empowers the masses and there is less censorship with mass media. She shared about how an individual could take on a corporation via the video below. Dave Carroll's guitar was damaged due to careless baggage handling on a United Airlines flight. There was no settlement that was agreed to by the airline and in response, Dave wrote this song and posted it online. Talk about being creative!

We then discussed about being a leader in our world today. As mentioned in class, a leader creates the framework, while a manager ensures that the framework is achieved. I think that in our world today, managers can become leaders and vice versa.


We were introduced to another interesting analogy today. Organisations can be eagles and view things from a birds eye view. Looking towards the needs of the future, they are flying high compared to the others. An ostrich refuses to recognise change and sinks its head into the ground to remain in oblivion. A dodo refuses to adapt to change and it is not before long before it becomes extinct.


One key takeaway is that we should embrace change and not avoid it. Change allows us to better ourselves and have new experiences that we have never had before. As quoted by Abraham Lincoln, " The best way to predict the future is to create it!"


Yao Zong talked about how Microsoft failed to streamline the performance and innovation department which led to them being less adaptable to change, unlike Apple whose management were constantly kept in the loop. Kenneth also talked about Germany's plan to embrace change by moving away from nuclear energy and towards more sustainable energy sources, even though much time and infrastructure have already been dedicated towards nuclear energy.


I felt that we could have discussed more about how companies manage and direct change. It would be interesting to know how the concepts of change management and leadership are applied in the corporate world today. I would rate this lesson a 7/10. 


Lenard