Drivers of World Change; Change Management and Change Leadership

Drivers of World Change; Change Management and Change Leadership

He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.  - Harold Wilson

The first part of lesson 4 was on drivers of world change. The lesson was really interesting and I especially liked the part about germs being a big driver of world change. Before the class the subject of germs as a driver of world change did not even occur to me. Prof mentioned the various epidemics such as SARS and H1N1 and also the black plague. He also explained the link between the plague and religion which served to support epidemics as a driver of world change. Prof also mentioned the 3 ways to make a change, which are:

a.         Make it happen

b.         Respond when it happens

c.         Be “surprised” when it happens

A is basically the one in the forefront of change and is the proponent of change. B is the one who sees and acknowledges the change, and goes about to embracing this change. C is just one who is pretty much ignorant of the changes. I would think most of us fall under the category of B whereby we see the change and try to adapt and find out how to benefit from the change. A makes up a small handful of leaders who think out of the box and are open to new ideas (rising star falling star model?)

We touched on information and communication technology whereby someone pointed out that could an increase in the ease of acquiring information be used in the spreading of terrorism. They can do this by providing a source of extremist ideas that might influence the naïve people reading it. One suggestion to eradicate terrorism was to educate the people who are susceptible to being influenced by these ideas. I believe that this is a valid however I would like to also point out that not all terrorists are uneducated with a narrow vision of what the rest of the world is like. It is true that the uneducated are more easily influenced but there are many cases of terrorists who had a more than average share of education. http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/20/the-educated-muslim-terrorist/ - the article is quite interesting and is a good read. 

For the second part of the lesson we talked about Change management and Change leadership. The difference to put it simply I believe is that a leader is one who has foresight and puts forth new ideas. The manager is the one who gets down to it and implements the idea. A manager is more of a nuts and bolts kind of guy as opposed to the leader. On the other hand, a Manager can be a good Leader and a Leader must also have a “managing” trait. One of the presentations was on the roles of a CIO in our changing world. Some of the responsibilities CIO’s have to take on are

 1) Ensuring the "IT house is in order."

 2) Leveraging the CIO's unique position to create business value.

 3) Becoming an expert on your industry's value chain and competitive dynamics.

 4) Influencing your CEO to create the proper climate for change.

I believe this goes to show that jobs in our ever changing world will not have a set of roles and responsibilities cast in stone as one always needs to be able to adapt and improve his repertoire of skills. Leaders and good managers will be able to do just that and by having an open mind and responding to that change it will put you in good stead.

In conclusion the lesson was quite informative although there was not as much discussion as in week 3, however I think previous lessons were more interesting and engaging. I give the lesson 7/10.