The topic of the first half of this week’s session was “drivers of world change”. After briefly summarizing what had been covered last week, Prof moved on to listing some factors that have changed the world, including environmental factors, scientific discoveries and technology innovation, globalization and et cetera. Prof also mentioned some sayings of several famous men, but it was only the saying of Charles Darwin that really captivated my attention:” “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." . My mind was immediately brought back to a biology lesson in which my teacher mentioned the term “natural selection” once raised by Darwin. What that term means is species which can’t fit in their surrounding environment eventually become extinct, and that is actually the pattern which nature follows. Key message? Be flexible and versatile, and keep an open mind since the world is constantly changing.
Charles Darwin
George Bernard Shaw’s saying is also in some sense interesting, but it didn’t really catch my attention as much as Darwin’s one. G.B.Shaw said:” “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.” Seemingly, the content of this saying contradicts to that of Darwin’s at first since it suggests that people shouldn’t adapt themselves to the world. But after mulling over this saying for a while, I finally found the underlying message Shaw wanted to convey was that adapting to this world, a lifestyle chosen by most of people, is just merely for surviving or in other words, living a passive live, and that lifestyle doesn’t help the world to progress. It is only by daring to step out of one’s comfort zone and make changes to the world, mold it into one’s desired shape that one can truly live a meaningful life and push the world forward. To put in simple term, changes happen everywhere, and people can choose either to be monitored by changes or make the changes themselves. The ones who can do the latter are highly rewarded.
Changes, according to Prof, can be divided into two types, namely evolutionary change and revolutionary change. The former takes place quite slow, which is somehow similar to development in nature where species gradually mutate and evolve with a view to adapting to the surrounding environment. Meanwhile, revolutionary change happens very quickly and can reshape the whole world. To illustrate, the invention of wheels led to the birth of many kinds of carriages and greatly enhanced the productivity and effectiveness of transport. Revolutionary change could also be regarded as disruptive change since it can change the way things are done forever. Isn’t it quite clear that snail mails are going to meet its end soon after emails come into handy?
G.B.Shaw
Changes, according to Prof, can be divided into two types, namely evolutionary change and revolutionary change. The former takes place quite slow, which is somehow similar to development in nature where species gradually mutate and evolve with a view to adapting to the surrounding environment. Meanwhile, revolutionary change happens very quickly and can reshape the whole world. To illustrate, the invention of wheels led to the birth of many kinds of carriages and greatly enhanced the productivity and effectiveness of transport. Revolutionary change could also be regarded as disruptive change since it can change the way things are done forever. Isn’t it quite clear that snail mails are going to meet its end soon after emails come into handy?
To be honest, I’ve never longed for this session since I have to present alone in English in front of English-speaking students for the first time of my life in this session. I did bungle, of course, but basically, everything was not as bad as I had expected. My presentation centred on “How social media has changed the world?”, and the answers can be summed up in three letters “I”: interaction, information and impediments. Undoubtedly, social media has considerably changed the way people interact or communicate with each other. In the past people had to rely on snail mails, telephones and so on to keep in touch with each other. These means of communication are not only time-consuming but also very inconvenient. Just imagine how long it may takes for a letter written in Singapore to reach the US. A month, maybe??? But now, all people have to do is grab a device which allows them to have access to internet such as a laptop or an IPhone and then enjoying chatting with their friends or relatives thanks to Facebook, Yahoo and the like. That is how social media changes the way people connect with one another. Regarding the second “I” – information, it is without doubt that nowadays, thanks to Wikipedia or Google, people find it never easier to have access to any piece of information they want to know. Some area in reality has been affected, typically politics, which can be exemplified by the presidential campaign of Barack Obama who made use of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to gain support for his cause. However, since nothing is perfect, social media also brings about impediments. According to Susan Greenfield, a brain psychologist, Facebook and the like are turning people into babies, who. As we all know, have a very short attention span and are very impatient. She claimed “: . . .brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action and reaction, of instant new screen images flashing up with the press of a key, such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such timescales. Perhaps when in the real world such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we will see such behaviours and call them attention-deficit disorder.” This issue was once talked about in the class, I believe. So what can we benefit from these “I”s? Make use of social media wisely and refrain from sticking to one’s laptop or IPad all the time.
The second half of the session was mostly about managing and leading changes. Change management can be interpreted as how people can control the process of change itself while leading change actually is people’s creating changes themselves or coming with ideas that could bring about changes. Since I was then too worried about the grading of my presentation, all I can remember now is that change management and change leadership are equally important. Even though leading changes - coming up with new ideas is the mother of managing changes, changes can’t be made if people can’t apply the ideas to reality or in other words, managing it well. I was also shown a very interesting clip:
As can be clearly seen, at first, people around that seemingly crazy guy just kept looking at him and do nothing. But after a while, luckily, another guy joined him and since then, people continued to join those guys. What is the underlying meaning of that clip? Leading changes is not an easy job. But after all, isn’t it clear that the outstanding guys in the history are those who dared to stand out and did the hard things?
This session was quite eye-opening, so I would rate it 8/10/.
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