Week 4- Drivers of world change & change management and leadership

Overview of the lesson


In the first half of the lesson, we discussed about the different drivers of change. The include environmental  drivers, scientific discovery and technology innovation, social demographic cultural and ideological change, business innovation, competition between products and services, globalization and lastly the changing expectations and changing times. Positive and negative effects of our behaviors and attitudes are all drivers of change. I see them as the results of the changes in man kind. In my opinion, these drivers of change are important. They are the caused by and will cause changes in our lives, in both positive and negative ways. We will learn from these negative results and continue to drive for changes. Hence negative results may also an important driver of change. Next we had a discussion on revolutionary and evolutionary changes. An evolutionary change includes rethinking direction and the coming up with new directions for changes. Evolutionary changes are usually geared towards innovations, while revolutionary changes are more related to inventions.

In the second half of the lesson, we discussed about leadership and management. We focused on a couple of main roles, a visionary and a leader. When a visionary gets followers, they become a leader. As for the leader, they manage the vision, while the manager manages the community. However, i believe as a leader, they have manage both the company's vision, as well as the community, so as to convince the community to have trust and follow in them and work towards the vision.

What i found interesting


In enjoyed the video that we watched about the man that led the crowd into dancing. I had great take aways from this video. The first and most important trait that a leader must have is to be courageous. It takes courage for one man to stand up and tries to lead the crowd, even though he may not know if the outcome will be successful. Next, it take the first follower to follow the leader. The role of the first follower is also important, as not only will it boost the confidence of the leader, but also the confidence of the people around. As more people gain confidence, they will start following the crowd. However, many times, we only focus on the achievements and accomplishment of the leader, but not the first follower. Which also plays an important role in leading or encouraging others to join, also implying it that the leader can never succeed alone.

Most important take away


The most important take away for this lesson is that we have to respond to changes. Prof used 3 different approaches to this. The eagle, usually illustrates the leader, one that makes things happen. Next is the ostrich  approach, it illustrates people that let things happen instead of making them happen. Lastly, its the do-do bird approach. They are usually not aware of changed and not taking necessary actions. In my opinion, eagle approach would be the best, whereby you step up and take the lead to make things happen. However, it would take a lot of courage and not everyone have the ability to do that. The least we could do is to embrace changes and respond to them by changing our lifestyle and behavior.

How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to learn more about how we should respond to changes, both negative and positive changes. When should we step up to innovate or invent systems or products that would benefit others. What do we have to take into considerations when we try to make changes. This relates me to our previous week lesson. About the Shahi landscape model, whereby we should examine where the opportunities of the industry are and work towards it.

Rate this session

I would rate this session 9/10. This session gave me a great insight on leadership and management together with the drivers of change and some causes of them.