Dear fellow HR Practitioners,

Change is constant and often necessary for continuation. In nature, the ecology of nature evolves and changes are contributed by the inhabitants of that habitat.  When we introduce externally imposed change or interventions to nature, it effectively destroys rather than help create a better eco-system. Can we draw parallel comparison between nature and the business ecosystem?

In times past, we may have attempted every known program and techniques in bringing about better organisational change and performance. From “Total Quality Management”, “Quality Control Circles”, “Business Process Reengineering”, ISO Standards and  more closer to home, initiatives like “People Developer”, “Singapore Quality Class”, “Work Redesign”, “CREST”, “Industry Capability Upgrading Program”, all supposedly are to bring about an outcome of transforming organisations and driving better business performance. Have these delivered its intended outcomes?  Or have huge amount of financial resources and time been unable to really bring about the desired changes for improving organisational performance?

Harvard Professor Dr Michael Beer highlighted this in his book "A Critical Path To Organisational Renewal", where a key premise was that programmatic driven change in organisations most often fail.  Unfortunately the key perpetrators of such programs are the consultants in collaboration with senior management, and in our local scene, even key authorities and national bodies or institutions.  Seen in a right light, the intentions of such programs are sound, but the results unfortunately fall way short of its intentions. 

As part of being a member of the Human Capital Development(HCD) and Organisation Development(OD) fraternity, my proposition is that our Community needs to wean itself off the tendency to simply run programs because of it being the next popular initiative or because it is something being propagated at a national level.  The Human Capital Professional/Practitioners, having learnt from previous futile initiatives should now be wiser, matured and competent  to take a deeper role and ownership in charting the course of what really is needed for its HCD and OD strategies within the organisation.  For this to happen,  competencies  must be enhanced among the HCD and OD Professionals.  We need to not just understand programs but also take a holistic and integrative view of organisation development. The other important thing is also to heighten the business awareness of the HCD and OD Professional so that there is a strong link and relevance to the business goals and strategies. HCD and OD Communities  must  emerge to drive the goal for identifying and growing best practice.  This can comprise of the diversity of stakeholders, from consultants to practicing Human Resource and OD persons, to representatives from the government.  

Just like the nature in the forest, we can view our HCD and OD  fraternity as being a diverse sort of inhabitants in our unique and specialized reserve. We and only we can bring about that change and transformation.  A transformation that will be driven in a social ecological sense, rather than a unilateral directive and policy making, exclusive frequently only to top management and legislative bodies.  I believe deeply that such a community-based approach is the best manner to help the Human Capital Development field come of age! 

Training Vision welcomes you to be such a key participant and contributor to the journey of  Transformation and Change. To know more about who we are, continue on to our world as captured in this web site.  Let the journey begin. ...

Your-partner-in-change

David Kwee