Leading Change: Make No Mistake !

When one in the leadership position, it can be very interesting. Sometimes it may put one become glamour. Why is it so? Glamourous may come from the ability of the leader to lead his team navigate through good and bad times.

Make no mistake! Why? It is apparent that on the other flip side of glamourous, to be in the position of leadership also has its minus points. What are they? Take note that the leader will be never escape from attempts to take him down especially during turbulence period. That is when the leader whom at the same time double hat as change agent(CA) must be very careful in leading change.

What can be used as a general guide to lead change that truly transforms?

1) The CA needs to ask his team to confront difficult and hard press issues; and at the same time they(the team members) have to let go rituals that long time ago has been dear to them.
2) There will be many attempts and plans to try to reduce CA's influence or even worst to eliminate him by hook or by crook.
3) Resistance group normally wish to derail CA's plan and prefer status quo to maintain. People will resist to accept changes and the new moves. Worst still they even come out loud denying that there is no problem.
4) Do not do it alone. The danger if you are doing it alone, there's no one to dilute your ideas or celebrate your success. Choose a partner who will protect you from baseless attacks. Your partner also act to point out possible flaws in your change mechanisms.

Persistence: Be Like a River

Let's imagine a mighty river such as the Rajang River in Sarawak. A powerful river gains its natural power, size, and landscape from its smaller tributary or contributory rivers. It begins in the higher parts of the catchment; then the rain water run off down the slopes upstream and proceed with its journey to the lower parts towards the open sea.

The water as we can see never get tired in penetrating its long journey to the sea. Water also always consistent in looking for its own level.

I bought a very good motivational poster on persistence of a running water with a picture of a tall waterfall and pasted it on the wall of our common area in the office to keep motivating sales team. Attach here are few photos of a river taken at a famous picnic spot at the foot of Gunung Nuang; Hulu Langat; Selangor.





The poster said something like this:

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins... not through strength, but through persistence."

Another poster on the same topic of persistence also said:

"You will need to make many turns and overcome many obstacles to create the path you desire."

Lesson learned: In the same way, in our confrontation between our journeys(in whatever we do) and the obstacles, we also can always win and successful at the end... but remember; it is not through our physical strength per se, but it has something to do with our level of persistence or never give up attitude.

Yearn For a Return To Normalcy?

The world's economy is not fully emerge from recession after global meltdown. Post-crisis was creating many wishes and fantasies that thing will be going back to where it used to be. However, to be realistic, let's call it out here - that there will be no going home again for the average of us.

The surest thing now is that the business environment and its whole landscape has been forever altered. Many global companies(MNCs) and financial institutions not only affected badly, but some even wiped out from the market such as Lehman Brothers. Googling for and browsing at Lehman's website today creates a kind of loss and historical feeling; and it is as good to say - study about dinosaur extinction !

In the aftermath of this unprecedented crisis, regulators(Central Banks) and governments around the globe will now map out better control mechanism. Expectation on "rational behavior" that suppose to safeguard us from faulty or bad decisions economically is now no longer reliable.

In assessing this post-crisis issue, the psychology is now also going to be totally different. The new economic order is very interesting and promising, however, it is too early to yearn for "return to normalcy" after many months living in uncertainties.