Question
Can change be managed in organisations?
Can change be managed in organisations?
I receive a weekly newsletter from an economist. This week he applies the principles of economic theory to crime. In so doing he points out the beneficial aspects of crime for the country, along with some not so obvious negative consequences. If you enjoyed this type of application of economics then you will probably also enjoy ‘Freakonomics‘ by Levitt & Dubner.
I have posted this essay on on our blog in light of much of the debate currently circulating around SA, crime, & the blogosphere.
The Economic Consequences of Crime
Weekly Comment by Dr Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist First National Bank
5 September 2006
It is a popular notion that crime undermines economic growth. Perhaps reality is more complex than that.
Firstly, crime is a form of self-employment or self-help (also known as proletarian shopping). It directly levies a social tax on the community through the actions of possibly hundreds of thousands of people.
Whereas taxation is popularly depicted as highway robbery, taking from the well-off and distributing among the poor, it does so efficiently at very low collection costs, with at least a partial sense of universal agreement among the victims that any good will come of it (if the state is efficient in using the resources so collected and enhances the general welfare over time).
Not so crime, which in essence is also a Robin Hood activity, but a totally inefficient, often utterly destructive and devastating one.
But whereas the actual crime of stealing doesn’t add economic value, many of the consequences most certainly do (as yet another, mostly unremarked, form of ‘creative destruction’).
Sue Grant-Marshall, co-author with me of “Mind the Gap”, our book about the generation gap, has written a nice primer on generational attitudes to health. It was published in the Business Day on 30 August 2006 – read it here.
Maybe, more than any other personal factor, health care and attitudes to health are influenced by a person’s generation. Massive advances in medical science over the last 80 years have resulted in huge shifts in people’s expectations for their lives, and this has in turn impacted on their values and aspirations.
In the 31 Aug 06 edition of strategy+business, Michael Schrage wrote an excellent article about using the power of Web 2.0 type thinking to involve customers in innovation processes. Read it here.
His basic point needs little elaboration: Involving customers in the innovation process can add value to new product designs. He is arguing for more than just “market research” – a process that can so easily be manipulated to achieve the results you’re looking for. Like many of us who believe that interactive technologies are causing a shift in values and institutional power, he is arguing that we need to extend an invitation to customers to actively assist in the whole process of innovation, especially when considering new features and functionality on existing products and services.
We don’t do nearly enough of this. If we did, I am certain we’d get more customer loyalty, too.
Lynda Smith, trained Retirement Coach and Wisdom Continuity expert, shares some insights into the options facing those who will reach retirement age in the next 10 years. Its fairly clear that this generation of retirees are not going to give up work completely and disappear to the coast or golf courses. But what options do they have?
Aiden Choles looks at the business critical issue of retaining talent, highlighting some of the mistakes that companies make when trying to manage their talent. He argues that a certain amount of churn is inevitable, and possibly even healthy if managed properly. But that requires a shift in perspective on what talent is.
Aloysias Maimane wonders how we can shift today’s talented young employees from a Sprint mentality to a Marathon mentality. How can we get them to stay for the long haul, and stick it out? He suggest three simple solutions that provide some of the pieces of the puzzle.
Dr Graeme Codrington suggest that traditional segmentation models aimed at understanding the youth market fall short because they fail to see the impact of generational value shifts. In fact, he goes further to suggest that by combining lifestage theory, socio-economic indicators and generational overlays, you are able to gain insights into your market that would otherwise have been hidden. Sound complex? It’s actually remarkably simple.
In an article, “Be prepared: Generation Y workers are a different breed” (available here), Jerry Osteryoung explains:
Eventually, you will have to manage Generation Y staff. These are people who were born after 1978, who will in time become the backbone of our labor force. It will require a real understanding on your part of what causes their behavior and what they want to get out of the workplace. Generation Y’s behavior and motivation are much different than Generation X and baby boomers.
His main points seem to indicate that all Millennial (Gen Y) kids are children of Baby Boomers, and he relates their current drivers and motivators to the influence of their driven Boomer parents. For example, he says that because they were pushed to be over-involved in so many activities as children, they now actively seek control over their own schedules, striving for flexibility and free time. I am not convinced that all Millennial kids are children of Boomers. But his article makes good reading, anyway. His main point that Gen Y will be different from anything we’ve seen so far in the workplace is important.
A summary of his key points appears below:
… Continue Reading
Keith and I will be in Hawaii for two weeks working with the Asia pacific Leadership Programme based at the Uni of Hawaii in Honolulu.
I’m just working through the list of Students on the APLP course. I made up a map of where they come from to give you an idea of how diverse this group is.
Here is a list of the countries they represent… Australia, Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Canada, China, Federated States of Micronesia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Lithuania, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, USA and Vietnam.
While watching the first episode of Survivor South Africa last night, Sam and I wondered how the series would differ from the US version and whether we’d see a distinctly South African flavour come out of the tried and tested Survivor script and screenplay. At first we reckoned that we’d see how much more tolerant South Africans are of our fellow earth-inhabitants than those of our American compatriots.
I wonder?
One might suggest that because of our legacy as a country and the role prejudice has played post-94, we’ve developed a sincere and genuine acceptance and tolerance of each other as South Africans. Pre-94, aggression and open conflict with one another was pretty much rewarded by the system (regime) and of late the system change no longer rewards that behaviour. So, is the tolerance we see around us genuine or perhaps a pseudo form of tolerance to simply please the reputation(delusion) we have of ourselves as a forgiving and reconciliatory nation? In fact, I wonder if we as South Africans even know how to handle conflict?
Your thoughts please.
Everyone once in a while someone walks on this earth and does things that the staunchest East Rand boytjies (not sure what the global equivalent is?) would never do … stick their head into a crocodiles mouth … for fun … as a career!? Steve Irwin, the legendary Croc Hunter died today after being stung by a stringray while filming an underwater documentary.
Kudos to Steve.
Read the reports here at The Australia Zooand CNN.
Penguins represent a paradox of innovation and narrative in organisations. Penguins are considered one of the most sociable species on the planet, and often live as a flock on an iceberg or cliff. Both fear and food reside in the same place – in the water. The fish as food and the sharks as fear.So now, how do you get the first of the flock into the water? The answer: the flock pushes the pengiun closest to the edge into the water to see if it is safe. This paradox is ironically labelled as “co-operation in a competitive envirnment”. It is the same paradox we find in organisation when they have to innovate i.e. “great idea Bob, you go ahead and try it!”
When one gets to grip with the organisational narrative of a company, one often finds that they are a company just waiting for someone to be pushed off the edge to change the Story. So, in some cases, when a company has gone through a particularly tough patch the narrative pattern, as an indicator of the culture, is one dominated by a lack of meaning and mistrust in leadership. This organisation is just waiting for a leader to emerge, and will often put one in place, to find out if it is safe to move on and change the Story/culture or not. It is in this space that an organisation is just yearning for a hero to come along and lead them out of the mire. This may sound counterintuitive to my logic above regarding the pengiuns. The truth is however that organisations, as collectives of employees, often do not see their inherent ability to “push” someone off the edge and the leadership, instead of seeing the opportunity, embody the dominant negative narrative without seizing the opportunity to step forward.
Some fo thsi thinking comes from an audio clip of Peter Engstrom’s found here.
LyndaSmith – Will I Retire Like my Parents?
Lynda Smith, trained Retirement Coach and Wisdom Continuity expert, shares some insights into the options facing those who will reach retirement age in the next 10 years. It’s fairly clear that this generation of retirees are not going to give up work completely and disappear to the coast or golf courses. But what options do they have? click here to read the rest of this article
AidenCholes – Talent saturation
Aiden Choles looks at the business critical issue of retaining talent, highlighting some of the mistakes that companies make when trying to manage their talent. He argues that a certain amount of churn is inevitable, and possibly even healthy if managed properly. But that requires a shift in perspective on what talent is. click here to read the rest of this article
AloysiasMaimane – From Marathons to Short Sprints
Aloysias Maimane wonders how we can shift today’s talented young employees from a Sprint mentality to a Marathon mentality. How can we get them to stay for the long haul, and stick it out? He suggest three simple solutions that provide some of the pieces of the puzzle. click here to read the rest of this article
GraemeCodrington – Youth – The Same Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Dr Graeme Codrington suggests that traditional segmentation models aimed at understanding the youth market fall short because they fail to see the impact of generational value shifts. In fact, he goes further to suggest that by combining lifestage theory, socio-economic indicators and generational overlays, you are able to gain insights into your market that would otherwise have been hidden. Sound complex? It’s actually remarkably simple. click here to read the rest of this article
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In the last few hours the 10 billionth tweet was tweeted on Twitter. As one would imagine there was all kinds of hype and excitement, as Tweeps with the necesary skills attempted to predict the time it would happen, and I imagine even be ‘the one’?
My last tweet was 9999989724. Wild. Will be at 10 [...]
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Twitter recently hosted it’s billionth Tweet and Facebook had over 500 million users [...]
Miranda Devine is a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, and recently wrote an excellent piece on Australia’s Gen Y (young people now in the teens and early 20s). She had just witnessed a group of 400 of them grilling Kevin Rudd, the Aussie PM – and they had given him a rough time.
It’s well worth [...]
Many years ago, in a South Africa finding it’s way to it’s first democratic election, a friend of mine would often say, “Don’t be a victim of your own words.” He of course was referring to saying things that might come back and bite you down the road. And in an emerging ‘New South Africa’, lots of people [...]
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