Week 4

Well it sure doesn't feel like I've been sitting in TWC lesson for the fourth week now. Time really does pass so fast (when you're having fun?). Anyway today in class we were focused on the topic of Drivers of World Change, mainly elaborating on what are the motivations behind the change that happens. Some examples mentioned were environmental, globalisation, and changing expectations&tastes with changing time. These examples mentioned by Prof are a subset of what was stated in Reading 1, which gave a wide variety of examples of global drivers of change.

Some of these examples mentioned in the reading kinda relate to last week's topic of sustainable development, the primary one being climate change. How the need for us to keep innovating and keep producing stuff has somehow led to more polluted skies and seas, and how such pollution has led to climate change, and finally, how climate change is a driver of change.

Prof also gave us a few of his favourite quotes, and I take special liking to the following one:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-George Bernard Shaw.

I thought this quote really summarised the two kinds of people that we can be, passive or aggressive. There is a significant group of people who are comfortable at where they are, thinking that staying in their comfort zones would somehow inch them nearer to success. These people don't question the Whys when things go wrong and are just satisfied with people's reasons for hiccups. On the other hand, the individual who's bold enough to press for change if he senses that things aren't going the way it should be would be the one who's the reason for change today. It's a pity that many aren't for change, particularly the older generation, who would sometimes prefer to stick to tradition.

After our very short 8minute break today, we were gonna talk about Change Management & Change Leadership. Prof showed us this amusing video of a guy who started dancing (top half naked, i think) at this random field with so many people! Well, he was labelled the Leader. Cause soon after, this other skinny man joined him, then a fat man, then 2, then 3 others, till there was this whole crowd that made it look like some rock concert!

Well the video illustrated some points, that

1st, you have to be willing to take the initiative to make the change, well this is in reference to the first guy not minding what others might think of him. And I guess that's the same way for leaders with a vision, that you have to be able to be confident and persuasive in presenting your vision, and to be able to take criticism as well.

2nd, sometimes it requires more boldness to be the first follower. You gotta be willing to 'look stupid doing something stupid'. This is when people are skeptical about this new idea that's brought up, unknowing of all the good it might bring. And as humans, we all have the herd mentality, it would not be any longer before everyone joins in to do what was thought of as stupid in the first place.

& lastly, there has to be music in the background for the dance to appeal. This is in no relation to today's topic, but I thought it was important to recognise that each organisation has to have people in the background, the back office support who does what we call saikang (directly translated to shit work in english heehee) but receive no acknowledgement. As part of being in the leadership, they've gotta recognise that there are important people behind the scenes and credit them, for without them there wouldn't be the basis to drive change.

So, some key takeaways from lesson today is that change begins with the individual. As future leaders (hopefully) of organisations, my generation has to be both receptive and willing to initiate change. Being receptive would enable us to be open to suggestions from other sources that might spark growth, and being willing to initiate change would mean we have to inculcate a sense of boldness in us (i guess school's helping in this ie speaking up with our personal viewpoints) so as to be confident in expressing our ideas across in the secular world in future.

All in all, I'd give today's lesson a 7/10 because there were a number of presentations today, which led us to rush through some questions which could have been elaborated on more. But presentations were insightful, and discussions were alright too.