change management process change management plan
It is the pride and joy of so many third world citizens to say that they are associated with one or other of the many relatively wealthy individuals who head prominent businesses of various kinds in many of these little countries around the world.
It is a fact, so common, that few stop to question the implications of this mind-set. That is not at all unusual; for a mind-set is a little like a box in which one has lived all his/her life. Never having got out of the box, one believes that its confines mark the boundaries of the world. The inside of the box becomes the only reality a person ever knows, if there is no way of getting out and looking at it from a perspective that allows one to see that they were indeed in a box.
Many businesses in these countries are still in the BOX. They believe that going international is only a matter of public relations and publicity. They believe they can change public opinion simply by running an expensive advertising campaig n. They don't know that what people say in the 'whispering campaigns' is the most deadly and powerful in this country. They believe that the glossy magazines and annual reports full of fictitious stories about their modern approach to management will cover them for life. They believe that they will be able to take shareholders' and investors' money and use it without any reckoning or accountability. They count on never being investigated.
The protection they have gained from the wars and/or other political situations - by way of postponing the inevitable is, after all, only a postponement. They will have to display greater transparency in the way they manage their material and human resources. Can they continue to ensure the same level of returns on investment to their shareholders after the investment in the physical infrastructure is over? Can they continue to ensure profitability after the opportunities for making easy money are over? Can they continue to deceive th e world about the reliability and modernization of their management structures and systems with smooth talk and no facts? Yes, the new buildings look like space-age structures, but will they be sufficient to hide the senile management philosophies and the despotic decisions made by one man or woman who is probably the least informed on the issue under consideration?
Let me throw some questions at you:
Would you entrust your money to a person over whom neither you nor anyone else had any control?Would you place the fate of your son or daughter in the hands of someone who is not only less educated, but who thinks but he/she knows everything because he/she made a lot of money by dishonesty or luck?Would you put an individual in charge of the destiny of hundreds of people, without ever asking how that individual could be stopped if he/she made bad decisions?Would you give single individuals so much power that they could do everything in their power to render themselves indispensable?Would you give a manager so much power that even should their judgment become impaired and they begin to make irrational decisions no one would have the ability to stop them?Why does the structure of so many big businesses make the CEO/PDG accountable to no one?What happens when that person dies or is incapacitated? Does the business go down the drain because there are no immediate or well prepared successors?If these questions seem unnecessary to you, you should make a close examination of a few of the biggest and apparently most successful businesses in these small third world countries. Nine out of ten are run by one person who controls the destiny of hundreds of other persons. The job market is highly static because mobility between one organization and the other is severely limited for a multitude of reasons including the fact that business owners often know each other and do not want to spoil personal friendships by employing someone who has had a fall ing-out with a friend.
Another question to ask is why do so many competent, young professional become so frustrated when they return to their home countries after living abroad that they eventually leave again? Who should we sympathize with? Those who complain that they can't find effective leaders or those who say that most business managers are really looking for obedient followers who will adhere to their archaic management systems? How can businesses in third world countries attract and retain the brightest and the best of their young professionals? The business representatives are very good at painting a rosy picture to those who have not yet experienced local businesses from the inside. However, once these fine young men and women see what the rosy picture hides, they suffer one of the greatest deceptions of their lives and eventually turn their backs on their home country to serve other nations and build foreign businesses because there are no challenging opport unities at home.
How much longer can such a state of affairs prevail before we pay a heavy price for our shortsightedness?
Can it be true that only CEOs or PDGs and Directors over 60 years of age, with management styles inspired by the 'carrot and stick' approach know what they are doing and that they are the ones who are going to lead their country into the next Century?
If economies are to recover, it must be placed on firmer foundations than those on which it rests today. Family-owned businesses which depend on the life or death of one person are just not good enough. Job stability which depends entirely on the capricious whims of just one person and a workforce that is impotent to defend itself are not good enough. Economies that are so vulnerable as to be no more stable than the lives of the people who run them; which have no room for accountability or recourse to justice: these cannot serve the purposes of any country that wishes to survive within a g lobal economy managed by financial resources much greater than single country's entire GDP. Wake up Rip van Winkle!
Fay Niewiadomski founded ICTN (International Consulting & Training Network) in 1993. ICTN provides complete management services to its clients who are among the leading regional and multinational players. Furthermore, she has worked with CEOs, Board Members, Presidents and Ministers of Government and other Leaders to help them meet the challenges of change within their organizations through creative problem solving, management interventions and powerful communication strategies. Prior to founding ICTN, she researched the subject of "Managing Change through Needs-Based Assessment' in large Lebanese Organizations" for her doctoral work at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Additionally, she also held various university positions as a professor at AUB and LAU and as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at NDU.
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