Change management under constraint

Changing organizational culture is tough work. You need to transform how people work and they (don’t) work together. A particularly difficult task in a country where work conditions are ‘extremely difficult’.

 

One key problem is the differing views of change held by senior management and the rest of the organization. Senior managers view it as an opportunity to strengthen the business, to align strategy and operations and to advance their careers, while other employees often see change as disruptive and intrusive. It upsets the balance.

Plug into the end of oil age

Sustainable development may ultimately be about the environment, but it is perhaps about economics first and foremost.

Electric vehicles are not new. They were first marketed in the early 1900s and then revived unsuccessfully in the 1990s. However, the situation at that time was very different: oil was cheap and abundant, and the downside costs of environmental impact largely ignored or unknown. Thus the internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) emerged as the dominant technology, since it was less expensive and not limited by battery capacity or recharging times. A century of infrastructural development based around the ICEV has created ‘lock in’, which has enabled the incumbent suppliers to prevent all disruptive technologies from emerging. No wonder then that nine of the ten largest corporations in the world are either oil companies or automotive manufacturers.

 

Time has changed and now that economies are committed to win the war against global warming, reduce foreign dependency and increase national security, industries are reconsidering the model.

From Berlin with empathy

君子报仇 直待三年, 小人报仇只在眼前 : a gentleman, to take his revenge, wait for three years, while a base person takes his revenge immediately.

A recent project in the snowing Berlin makes me discover an intriguing irony that life can sometimes offer you.
I happen to realize that a restructuration plan was conducted years ago in the company that employed my parents. It was recommended by the consulting company I am currently working for.

The outcome of this ‘Berlinale’ mission leads me into these two mixed thoughts: