Can’t remember if I attended any management lecture,
Can’t remember if I attended any management lecture, conference or meeting where it wasn’t said, ‘change is the only constant.’ Bored to death is the concept of accepting that change is inevitable. I would therefore to avoid the obvious will concentrate on how to drive and manage change for this piece.
The leftover of history are reservoirs to the fountain of thought for managing change. All great change begins with incredible enthusiasm and affection and it invariably ends in the rut of routine and monotony. This journey from accepting change as reality to recognizing the need for it to be driven is at the heart of change management. The era of global competitiveness ushers the need for discovering newer methods to drive change.
In the context of business management change is an overarching concept. It includes amongst many facets to devise ways for stronger growth through new, innovative processes and practices. It requires reengineering of vision.
It is most unfortunate that reengineering in management has come to be stereotyped as a great measure for cutting cost or to simply achieve economies of scale. Nay, it is to challenge the validity of thought- dismantling of accepted way of thinking to a newer, fresh thinking without the baggage of the past. J. F. Kennedy had remarked that the humanity is bogged down by the past and present to the peril and disadvantage of the future. ‘Change’ is a going forward concept. No one can change the past. It is done and buried in the casket of time. The only way forward for ‘change’ is in the future.
In times of crises, organisation, yell for ‘change’. And this demand for change fortunately or otherwise begins with managing or changing the face of available human resources. No growing business ever lays off its employees; if anything a growing business/institutions; absorbs more human hands than are required- leading then to right-size, down-size and all those lofty concepts of deception. Change is driven by acquiring knowledge of how to do more or achieve higher productivity with fewer people. Don’t trigger lay off, drive change through re-tooling, re-training and refocusing. This however is not to suggest that an institution should help people, who are just not required.
A participative manager drives changes by challenging to do away and retire colleagues make them either part timers or else help them set up a corollary business that will help mutually the employee and the institution. The need to think about change must be compelling and not a response to the fad about reinventing business. The signals to drive change can be observed if the organisation becomes bureaucratic, responds slowly to market demands or even worse, if it has become too expensive to operate. All ‘change’ must be motivated by client preference and client satisfaction needs.
Absurd organisations alone do not change. To keep the organisation youthful in its approach, an examination of the past must be done with total dispassion, for essentially all the elements requiring change, will emerge from such introspective analysis. Life is not static and so is true of business. Time and tide wait not for man. Any refusal to accept this can come only from those in asylum who can’t because of incompetence or from those who are housed in cemeteries.
Corporates know that to change every other thing yields, because it is in the nature of everything that is must undergo change. Even the snake shakes off its skin, with every change in climate. ‘The interval between the decay of the old and the formation and establishment of the new, constitutes a period of transition which must necessarily be one of uncertainty, confusion, error and wild and fierce fanaticism.’ (A Disquisition on Government-1850). We die one life to enter into another. A matter of belief. Institutions to change themselves have to shed off the yoke of past practices and processes. Water in its inherent quality flows naturally, hence we can’t attempt to dip our feet into the same water of the river ever. Institutions in gearing up to manage change must reconcile to this natural thought and accept with boldness the outcome of change. Manager must cut-loose from the past, if they wish to see new corporate melodies to break forth on the tongues of its workforce, only then will the old die out. The fields of change are ripe and fertile grounds for giving birth and impetus to revolutionary thought and action.
While the entire business world accepts that change is constant and therefore is directly related to growing era of competitiveness. Yet the art of handling change is so little understood. To change is difficult. To manage and drive change is even more difficult.
‘Change’ has its enemies. It faces tough resistance inevitably because nothing is comforting than the ‘usual and known’ to handle for the manager. The enemies of change are best portrayed by Nicolo Machiavelli in his famous work, ‘The Prince’ says, he, ‘it must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, and partly from the incredulity of mankind who do not truly believe in anything until they have had actual experience of it”. Those managers charged with the responsibility to spearhead management of change must therefore be professionals of highest standards with a prominent display in their character of traits like integrity, respect, aura, flair and if I may also suggest charisma. As a student of history, I have found, ‘Charisma’ playing a pivotal role in initiating and managing ‘change’. The personalities of not too distant past that come to mind are Charles de-gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and of course JFK!
Inevitably all managers have to face change. They must polish skills to manage it well and also in good time.
Learned Hand- in address to Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1942) had stated, ‘we accepted the verdict of past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action.’
Managers/organisations must rush to embrace and embark upon the journey to ‘change’ every single day. This is not a once a life time exercise, but a daily chore. Continuity is boring. Monotony in life is death.
‘The displacement of a little sand can change occasionally the course of deep rivers.’ Lest we forget!
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
