Week 4 - Riding the Wave of Change - Change Drivers, Leadership & Management

This week we learnt the about catching the wave of change at the right time and riding it with success. Prof Shahi showed us various Drivers of World Change that have shaped and continue to shape this planet’s destiny:

1. Evolution – the eternal process of incremental adaptation of species through millennia has transformed organisms on this planet into their current forms
2. Global Warming – the overheating of planet Earth due to the emission of Greenhouse gases is causing climate change and rising sea-levels – one of the biggest challenges facing humanity
3. Disease (The power of Germs) – including  the plague, SARS and Bird Flu epidemics which have killed millions of people
4. Scientific Discovery and Technology Innovation – the numerous breakthroughs that have dramatically transformed our lives and civilisations in terms of efficiency, standard of living, etc.
5. Business Innovation – entrepreneurship and private enterprise have created great wealth in our economies
6. Competition – businesses have continuously improved their products, processes, systems, prices, etc.
7. Social, Demographic, Ideological  and Cultural – through mass media and migration, we have been exposed to and influenced by various cultures; especially Western culture has had a great impact on our attitudes and outlooks
8. Globalization – the opening of new markets and the elimination of barriers to the movement of human, intellectual and financial capital
9. Changing Expectations and Tastes with Changing Times – due to humans’ unlimited wants and ability to rapidly take technologies and developments for granted

Adapted from: BioBusiness in Asia (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004). Gurinder Shahi

Subsequently, we learnt about Change Management and Change Leadership. First and foremost comes the Realization of Change. Prof Shahi described three realisation attitudes players could adopt:

1. Eagle Attitude – proactive; fast to act, with a bird’s eye view of the change and understanding of the greater good. Also has a “Rising Star” attitude with an open mind.
2. Ostrich Attitude -  passive; recognises the change, may even talk about it or make “wise” predictions,  but chooses to do nothing
3. Dodo Attitude – ignorant and inactive; fails to recognise the change and hence fails to adapt

A Change Leader is a visionary who has an idea, finds a solution, creates a paradigm and starts an entity by putting together a management team. Whereas, a Change Manager is a functionary who works to put the Leader’s ideas into practice by organising resources and implementing the Leader’s framework. Ideally, the Leader should back off and allow the Manager to continue with the management of the firm because not all leaders have the skills needed to manage an entity.

In recent, exponential times, it has become vital for firms to substitute the Traditional Model for Strategic Implementation with the Modern Model. The Traditional Model relies on periodical “freezing” and reviewing of business’ direction whereas the Modern Model is about continuously monitoring and tweaking the firms’ processes to keep in line with changing times.

I found Prof Shahi’s Pessimism-Time curve intriguing as it beautifully illustrated the hurdles a Proactive Change Leader had to overcome to successfully attain his/her goal: Uninformed Optimism > Informed Pessimism > Informed Realism > Completion. It was interesting to see that this applied to personal relationships as well! It highlighted that a Leader needed informed grit and perseverance till the very end in order to succeed. Prof placed emphasis on the need for a leader to always think differently, be curious, be unreasonable and never be satisfied even when society pushes you down.

Personally, I feel that it is also important for a leader to stop persevering sometimes and have the ability to abandon ideas he feels will not be feasible or viable in the long run and to devote his time and energy on those that matter. Steve Jobs is known for rejecting far more innovations than he has ever accepted. He had the ability to foresee which innovations would be the most worthwhile for Apple to progress with. I guess this is why the iPhone and iPad have caused disruptive changes in the smartphone and tablet markets respectively. Likewise, people in an endangered relationship should assess their situation and decide to end the relationship if they feel that it is not in the greater good to continue instead of persevering and losing out on other, potentially better, relationships. Of course, this is super subjective!

I look forward to learning about and having discussions on how Technology has transformed Medicine and Medical Science.  

I’d rate this session a 9/10.

Shaak