Business World: Anna Hazarel : South East Asia on its way to a Pub...

Business World: Anna Hazarel : South East Asia on its way to a Pub...: Now veteran social reformer Anna Hazare, has caught the state off guard, bringing tens of thousands on to the streets of the country’s majo...

Anna Hazarel : South East Asia on its way to a Public Led Revolution after Middle East

Now veteran social reformer Anna Hazare, has caught the state off guard, bringing tens of thousands on to the streets of the country’s major cities. Many are young and middle class, and their outcry – broadcast round the clock by the nation’s TV channels – is one of anger with rampant corruption, and a Congress party-led government leaden-footed in its response.

As one Delhi-based businessman explained, the middle class are working harder and yet finding their goals – such as education or buying a house – further out of reach. The idea that politicians, bureaucrats and oligarch-like business leaders are plundering a growing national cake is increasingly intolerable to India’s “squeezed middle”, touching a nerve in a country whose economy is much changed over the past 20 years, but whose vote bank politics remain stuck in the past.

Yet while Mr Hazare’s cause is well-intentioned, it is also dangerous. The 74 year old is not an obvious champion for India’s youthful, urban classes, who are supporting him in growing numbers in what is becoming an uncomfortable face-off with a flagging Mr Singh.

A former army driver, Mr Hazare was previously best known for running a rural model village, where he implemented religiously-inspired iron discipline to raise education standards and improve agricultural productivity. He overtly encourages comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi, India’s liberation leader; but his background proves he is no Gandhi.

True, his resort to hunger strike as a weapon against the government has proved as effective today as it did when Gandhi held British rule to ransom in the 1930s and 40s. But Mr Hazare, despite being a formidable lobbyist, has neither legitimacy to rewrite the laws of the land himself, nor to subvert democratic process.

Even so the Congress party-led coalition, which has lost traction since its re election 2009, is at a loss as how to handle him. This week it made the crashing mistake of jailing him when he threatened a public fast. Overnight, he became the next best thing to a Bollywood blockbuster. India loves an arrest, and the martyrdom it confers. The government’s mis-steps made Mr Hazare a hero, not the people.

The real risk – for the government, and India’s stability – is that this anti-corruption movement will gather momentum, becoming a lightening rod for malcontents all over India – of which there are many. Already the issue at hand has changed, from corruption in Asia’s third-largest economy to one of a governance deficit in the world’s largest democracy. India’s leaders stand accused of silencing dissent and trampling the constitution.

Senior lawyers line up to warn the government that it had committed a “colossal folly”. The shrill Hindu nationalist opposition cries that India had returned to the era of the Emergency, under former president Indira Gandhi, from 1975 to 1977. But far worse is a growing public disdain for the political class itself, with doubts about whether it really represents a young population of 1.2bn with rising economic ambition.

Here the Congress-led government has itself to blame. On its watch a number of corruption scandal have blown up, including the $39bn estimated to have been lost from state coffers during the auction of 2G mobile spectrum. Graft scandals marred last year’s Commonwealth Games, while a Mumbai property scam also managed to tar the handlebar-moustached rectitude of the army’s top brass.

Some in the Congress party plainly regret this week’s action against Mr Hazare. Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and, at 41 years old, a symbol of generational change, is probably among them. The legacy he is set to inherit from his mother, Congress party president Sonia Ghandi, now looks all the more shaky.

Others, however, risk complacency by seeing Mr Hazare’s arrest to be business as usual. Salman Khurshid, the Oxford-educated law minister, says the protests in Delhi are simply part of the nation’s political theatre. “This is one way of showing dissent in Indian democracy,” he says, “You sit there, you sing songs, you are given food by the police and that’s the part of the compassionate Indian state. What’s wrong with that?”

Mr Hazare’s campaign may yet fizzle, of course. Many political analysts predict India will muddle through, in a prolonged monsoon of discontent, characterised by grievances, bungling and a weakened government. They are probably right: this Indian Summer is certainly no Arab Spring, or at least not yet. The jail in which Mr Hazare was put is no Tahrir Square. Mr Singh, a respected leader, is not comparable to Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

But deafness to appeals for change risks something worse, if not now, then soon. For this anti-corruption struggle does bear some of the hallmarks of that which unfolded in the Middle East earlier this year. Young populations, armed with better information, do not suffer gerontocrats, distant power and cheats indefinitely. Instead they seek peaceful renewal – and if denied it by defunct parliaments, they seek it on the streets. India is right to have faith in its democratic institutions, but until its leaders become less self-serving and more honest, that faith alone is unlikely to be enough to keep India’s dreams alive.

Business World: Change Management

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Business World: Obama surrenders on debt ceiling

Business World: Obama surrenders on debt ceiling: "By PAUL KRUGMAN Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize Economist and writer to many newspapers The deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, given th..."

Obama surrenders on debt ceiling

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize Economist and writer to many newspapers

The deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America's long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.

The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn't work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.

Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won't even help the budget situation much, and might make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker.

And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction — and if these recommendations aren't accepted, there will be more spending cuts.

Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending will be among the areas cut. But the GOP has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members want. Why expect it to be more reasonable in the next round?

In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered in December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it's just me, but I see a pattern here.

Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.

First of all, he could have and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn't, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.

And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable.

At the very least, Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.

But wouldn't taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite.

Make no mistake about it, what we're witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn't over: There will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

In the long run, however, Democrats won't be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation's economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can't.

Business World: Financial Crisis and Hidden Hand

Current economic situation is at its worst almost in all the countries, where credit is a major source of financing. Especially, United State is at a very critical stage of time as it is at a higher risk of default and President Obama is begging Republicans (opposition) who have a majority in US senate, to support him to extend US borrowing limit to avoid possible default. This is a very serious issue not only for US itself but also for the rest of the world. In case of default, US will lose its Triple A credit rating which means very expensive borrowings. Idea of US default is horrible as it is one of the biggest Economy and has the ability to affect already suffering international stock markets and businesses around the globe and ultimately a common man either living in US or in any part of the world. International Monetary Fund warned that if the debt ceiling was not increased there could be an impact on the US dollar as well and one of the consequences could be a decline of the dollar as a reserve currency. 

It is more than three year since the economic crisis started and conditions are worsen day by day. Different people suggest different solutions to this problem but no one is looking at the reasons and source of crisis. For me it is quite strange as everything is same as before the crisis like consumers, demand, financial resources and market. Is that because of war on terror? increased population? or shift of economic power from west to east. These financial crisis seems to be artificially created by a hidden hand to gain some serious financial or political advantages.Current, US crisis are a part of that artificial game plan as the most powerful person on the planet, Mr. Obama, is  helpless like an ordinary person. The US Treasury has warned the government will run out of money to pay all its bills unless a $14.3tn borrowing limit is increased by 2 August. US politicians need to understand Its possible impact on the world and should not politicise the issue to make it a single point of failure for US economy. There is a need to serious effort to find the reasons of all that and especially that hidden hand playing with the destiny of billions of people. 

Government's cuttings and Recession in my view

Most of Govt.'s including UK and USA have adopted the policy of cuttings in expenses by restructuring of public funded bodies and cutting in the staff. This strategy will be helpful in reducing the Govt. borrowings and maintenance of their credit ratings which will lead to the cheap interest rate borrowings to cover the budget deficit.


But the dangers of this strategy are very horrible including;

With cuttings more people will be redundant and unemployed which will lead to lower buying power of consumers and definitely it will directly affect the business of consumer goods companies, their lower profits and higher losses which will lead to redundancy programmes in these companies so more people out of jobs. It is a vicious cycle  which will involve more and more people and ultimately multi-dip recession and finally death of economy.

This recession is more like a fear in the mind of investors who got the money but because of fear they are not investing. Govt.'s need to adopt a strategy of reducing this fear and promote economic activity by creating more jobs and opportunities. They need to learn from history as Keynes (A great economist) adopted the strategy of creating jobs and economic activity and brought world out of Great Recession of 1930.

So, we need to get rid of such thinking and be positive in our approach and policies and promote economic activity either at the cost of expensive loans as it will be difficult in the short run but very fruitful in the long run for economic prosperity and progress of global economies.

Business World: PESTEL ANALYSIS - UNILEVER GLOBAL

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Change Management

Introduction to Descon

Descon is one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan operating for over three decades.  Founded in 1977, initially it was a multi-faceted engineering and manufacturing concern that has now become the largest Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Commissioning [EPCC] company in the country.

A few years after its establishment, the focus turned to chemicals, materials and power generation. For over three decades. Desk on is a group of companies with multiple companies operating under this group conglomerates. It has a workforce of over 600 persons and operating from different location and has product range of more than 200 innovative products and services.

            Source: http://www.descon.com/chemicals.php?id=206

My research work is focused on the how change can be implemented in an organisation. Detail the implementation with a special focus on dealing with resistance to change in an organisation of my choice. So I have selected Deskon for my detailed review and analysis.

Introduction to Change Management

Change management is a structured approach to shifting individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment. In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.

 Source: Wikipedia

Change management has different areas and phases which a change manager need to condiser at planning stage and these areas include;

1. Missionary changes

It is a strategic management job which was performed by executives and relevant business area managers at Deskon but in this project there were not many missionary changes. However, Chief Executive made it clear that we nee new system and he emphasied the reasons in the light of long term strategic objectives and competitive emvironment.

2. Strategic changes

At Deskon strategy is designed by BOD and relevent managers and in the over all strategic planning they considered the element of new ERP system and how it could help to acheive strategic ovbjectives.

3. Operational changes (including Structural changes)

Likely changes in operational and technocratic structure of Deskon and improvement in the current working practices and relative resistance against the new system and how to cope with it through imposition, training and communication.

4. Technological changes

What type of technical infrastructure will be installed and how it will impact the working style of staff and training needs of individuals and support they want.

5. Changing the attitudes and behaviors of personnel

Discussed in detail in next section.

How Change Management worked at Descon

1. Measurement: Organizational Change Management at Descon started with a systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine both the need for change and the capability to change. The objectives, content, and process of change was specified as part of a Change Management plan.Change Management processes was treated as a creative marketing to enable communication between change audiences which included both internal as well as external to organisation, but also deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics in different departments like marketing, production and finance. As a visible track on transformation projects, Organisational Change Management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. Director of IT made use of performance metrics, such as financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design appropriate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or solve troubled change projects.
2. Strategy was Successful at Descon because DIT included some of really important elements in the Change Management strategy including;

Measurement enefits management and realization to define measurable stakeholder aims, create a business case for their achievement , and monitor assumptions, risks, dependencies, costs, return on investment, dis-benefits and cultural issues affecting the progress of the associated work.

2. Effective Communications

Informs various stakeholders of the reasons for the change (why?), the benefits of successful implementation (what is in it for us, and you) as well as the details of the change (when? where? who is involved? how much will it cost? etc.).

3. Training

Devise an effective education, training and skills upgrading scheme for the organization.

4. Change Management as part of over all strategic plan

Counter resistance from the employees of companies and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.

5. personal counseling

Provide personal counseling (if required) to alleviate any change related fears.

6. Feedback stystem in operation

Monitoring of the implementation and fine-tuning as required.

Change management in the context of IT projects

Change Management is a part of IT Service Management discipline. At Descon, Change Management in this context is to ensure that standardized methods and procedures were to use it for efficient and prompt handling of all changes. This process controlled IT infrastructure, in order to minimize the number and impact of any related incidents upon the project.

It is important to consider that changes may arise reactively in response to problems or externally imposed requirements, e.g. legislative changes, or proactively from seeking improved efficiency and effectiveness. Change Management can ensure standardized methods, processes and procedures which are used for all changes, facilitate efficient and prompt handling of all changes, and maintain the proper balance between the need for change and the potential detrimental impact of changes.  This strategy proved to be very successful at Descon.

Resistance Framework

Resistance is the act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding. Changes always welcome resisted especially in an organisational context. Major reasons for resistance that I observed at Descon include:

1. A lack of awareness about the change

Resistance was higher from the employees who were less aware or completely ignorant of what is happening around them and what are the reasons for the introduction of new Hi-tech ERP system.

2. Comfort with the ways things are and fear of the unknown

Technology fear was very common as most of the employees including management level staff were suffering from this fear as they were more comfortable with the existing in-house developed system.

3. The individual's personal predisposition to change

New system means new management infrastructure and sometimes redundancies. Also managers had the fear of losing their current comfort zone and powers.

4. Surprise and fear of the unknown

As new ERP Oracle based system was an unknown for most of employees and staff and there were so many myths and self developed perceptions so this leads to create stress among the employees which was a major cause of resistance.

5. Climate of mistrust

In a phase of change because of fear of losing current position and even job people did not trust even their peers and colleagues, this situation creates a frustration and element of stress.

6. Fear of failure.

Managers always have a fear of failure to achieve tasks and targets and even a failure to adjust in the new environment would expose them.

7. Disruption of cultural traditions and/or group relationships

New system affected the cultural traditions and relationship among the staff. New set up so new relationship dimensions and so new culture which is quite unfamiliar will increase strain and stress.

8. Personality conflicts.

New system and setup where everyone is stressed and under pressure, it would affect relationship dimensions among the people and hence personality clashes would be exposed and severe which will ultimately create stress and resistance to new system as people will think major cause of problem is new system.

9. Not seeing the benefits

People always look at negative aspects and they disregard the benefits and positive areas. This attitude will generate lot of stress and resistance to new system.

Change Management system Goal

The goal of the Change Management process is to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes, in order to minimize the impact of change-related incidents upon service quality, and consequently improve the day-to-day operations of the organization.

Source:http://www.itil-officialsite.com/

Change Management system at Descon

Change Management would typically be composed of the raising and recording of changes, assessing the impact, cost, benefit and risk of proposed changes. It also involves developing business justification and obtaining approval, managing and co-ordinating change implementation, monitoring and reporting on implementation and finally reviewing and closing change requests.

1. Responsibility for managing change

At Descon Management realised that the employee does not have a responsibility to manage change - the employee's responsibility is no other than to do their best, which is different for every person and depends on a wide variety of factors (health, maturity, stability, experience, personality, motivation, etc). Responsibility for managing change is with management and executives of the organisation - they must manage the change in a way that employees can cope with it. The manager has a responsibility to facilitate and enable change, and all that is implied within that statement, especially to understand the situation from an objective standpoint (to 'step back', and be non-judgemental), and then to help people understand reasons, aims, and ways of responding positively according to employees' own situations and capabilities.

2. change must involve the people - change must not be imposed upon the people

Top management was aware with the fact that key to success is 'changing people's mindsets' or 'changing attitudes', because this language often indicates a tendency towards imposed or enforced change and it implies strongly that the organization believes that its people currently have the 'wrong' mindset, which is never, ever, the case.

Management was also aware that whenever an organization imposes new things on people there will be difficulties. Participation, involvement and open, early, full communication are the important factors and they adopted a very systematic approach involving;

Workshops proved very useful processes to develop collective understanding, approaches, policies, methods, systems, ideas, etc

Staff surveys also proved to be a helpful way to repair damage and mistrust among staff - provided you allow people to complete them anonymously, and provided you publish and act on the findings.

Management training programmes helped a lot because managers are crucial to the change process and they enabled and facilitated, not merely convey and implement policy from above, which does not work.

Change Management principles

At Descon top management realised the importance of principles good change management which later proved to be a success story for Deskon. These principles including;

Ø  At all times involve and agree support from people within system (system = environment, processes, culture, relationships, behaviours, etc., whether personal or organisational).

Ø  Understand where you/the organisation is at the moment.

Ø  Understand where you want to be, when, why, and what the measures will be for having got there.

Ø  Plan development towards above No.3 in appropriate achievable measurable stages.

Ø  Communicate, involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and as fully as is possible.

John P Kotter's 'eight steps to successful change'

American John P Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor and leading thinker and author on organizational change management. Kotter's highly regarded books 'Leading Change' (1995) and the follow-up 'The Heart Of Change' (2002) describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.

Kotter's eight step change model if applied at Descon then we discover that;

1. Increase urgency - Inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant. Descon created sense of urgency among its people and gave every one some tasks to perform and thus made everyone part of it.
2. Build the guiding team -Get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. Descon hired a team of at least 20 people with different backgrounds like system, network, security and management consultants to implement the system and also involved existing business manager to design and implement this programme.
3. Get the vision right - Get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy, focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.
4. Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against. That was the key tactic of Descon to get the project done.
5. Empower action - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognise progress and achievements. Chief Executive officer, busness area managers alwasys reduced sense of beurocracy to get the jobs done before deadlines.
6. Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones. Even the team achieved to Go Alive of system one month before the deadline.
7. Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones.
8. Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, new change leaders. Weave change into culture. This strategy helped a lot as management created an environment of change and they were successful to clone it into Deskon’s culture.                                                                                                    www.kotterinternational.com.

In my observation at Descon there are some very important aspects which were either ignored or less importance was given to them and these aspects include:

The six phases personal or professional change Model

1. Anticipation

This is a waiting stage. In this stage employees really don't know what to expect so they wait, anticipating what the future holds.

2. Confrontation

 Employees begin to confront reality. They realise that change is really going to happen or is happening.

3. Realization

 Post change - Realizing that nothing is ever going to be as it once was.

4. Depression

This is often a necessary step in the change process. This is the stage where a person mourns the past. Not only have they realised the change intellectually, but now they are beginning to comprehend it emotionally as well.

5. Acceptance

This involves acceptance of the change emotionally. Although they may still have reservations but they are not fighting the change at this stage. They may even see some of the benefits even if they are not completely convinced.

6. Enlightenment

This involves people completely accept the new change. In fact, many wonder how they ever managed the "old" way. Overall, they feel good about the change and accept it as the status quo from here forward.

At Descon people proceeded through the different phases at different rates of speed. Some people accepted the change in two months and some of them took twelve months. So a change manager has to consider all the people according to their perception, level, position and attitude.

Resistance to Change – A more intellectual discussion

Most people prefer predictability and stability in both their personal and professional lives. People typically avoid situations that upset order, threaten their self-interests, increase stress or involve risk. When faced with changes to the status quo, people usually resist initially. The resistance continues and, in some cases increases, until they are able to recognize the benefits of change and perceive the gains to be worth more than the risk or threats to their self-interests.

Project leader should anticipate resistance to any change effort, prepare for it, and make special efforts to assess and deal with individual reactions to change.

Leaders must develop the proper attitude toward resistance to change and realize that it is neither good nor bad. In fact, resistance can serve as a signal that there are ways in which the change effort should be modified and improved. The following steps should help leaders faced with resistance to their change attempts:

Ø  Actively seek out people's thoughts and reactions to the proposed changes. 

Ø  Listen carefully. Do not launch into lengthy diatribes justifying the change - in the early stages, people are not interested in that. They want to be heard and have their concerns attended to. Recognize that it takes time to work through reactions to change.

Ø  Engage people in dialogue about the change. Leaders should do this only after fully understanding the specific concerns of others. 

Ø  Involve Others

There is no better way to minimize resistance to change than to involve those responsible for implementing it and those affected by it. If there is no involvement early on in the planning, during the implementation and throughout perpetuation, the change effort will fail. When people feel that they are valued participants in planning and implementing the change, they are more likely to be motivated toward successful completion. The following techniques are effective ways to get people involved and gain their commitment to change efforts: 

Ø  Determine who must be involved in planning the change and include them in the decision making process. Err on the side of involving more people rather than fewer. If there is a question as to whether or not a certain person's support will be needed, include them. 

Ø  Ensure that people from all levels of the organization are involved in planning the change process. This means involving the people that are at the on the floor level as well. It will be these people who will make the change process succeed or fail. 

Ø  Consult with employees from the areas affected by the change when determining the steps needed for change.

Ø  Seek input from people at all levels to establish realistic time frames for specific actions. 

Ø  When possible, run a test program with a selected work unit and solicit feedback on what is working well, where the problem areas are and how to work out any difficulties.

Ø  Publicly recognize any employees whose suggestions are used in the change process. 

Ø  Design a mechanism that provides ongoing feedback from employees throughout the change effort. Involved people are an effective barometer of what is working well and what is not working well. Ask them to suggest improvements.

Monitor for Results 

All change efforts are results-oriented - leaders implement change to realize new, different and better results. If the change is not monitored, effectiveness cannot be measured. Monitoring is particularly crucial during change processes due to the many forces that will challenge, resist or disrupt efforts. Since organizations must continue to operate day-to-day while undergoing change initiatives, the complexity of change is increased. When people within the organization begin to suspect that senior leaders are more interested in starting new programs than in the follow-through necessary to complete them, they will lose the sense of urgency and commitment to the initiatives and be more sceptical about any future change efforts. While monitoring change, remember to:

• Provide people the authority to implement changes.
• Keep people informed about the progress of changes.
• Listen to people's needs and concerns.
• Reward those who support the change efforts and achieve milestones.

The key to monitoring change effectively is to stay in touch with the people. Ask questions, demonstrate concern for their welfare and goal achievement and commit to do whatever is necessary to make the change successful. Leaders who can do this while continuing to practice great leadership skills will attune themselves to how the changes are progressing and react quickly with any required adjustments.

Concluding Thoughts

Although most people feel comfortable with minor changes, no one can live and work by yesterday's reality. Leaders must enlist the support of other organizational members to identify the right changes to make, credibly communicate these changes throughout the organization, provide resources to support the changes and allow enough time and flexibility for the changes to take place. With the widespread commitment of people throughout the organization, change efforts will succeed. Change does not substantially alter the way a leader leads; change only reinforces that leaders must always use their skills to lead every day.