Financial Times

The time for retransformation
Professor Wee Chow Hou, the head of the division of strategy, management & organization of the of Nanyang Technological Institute, Singapore, considered a foremost management thinker in Asia, was in Sri Lanka recently to present the management lessons from “Sun Zi - the Art of War”.

At the end of his presentation, he left his audience with a lesson from the animal kingdom to show the importance of retransformation for those engaged in business and management.

He stated that the Eagle was the bird with the longest natural life span, a span of 70 years. By the age of 40 the Eagle outgrows the physical capacities that endow it with the capability to be the unmatched hunter in the bird kingdom, able to land on the prey with precision and grab the prey with its talons. At this time its beak has grown so long that it touches its neck and restricts the ability to tear the meat and eat. The nails on the talons have overgrown and the talons are full of hair.

The wings become too heavy with excess of feathers at this age. All these restrict its capability to land quickly with precision upon the prey, stun it into a state of unconsciousness and fly up fast. The Eagle then has one of two choices, to slowly fade away due to its incapacity and die or retransform to regain its full capacity and live to its natural life span.

To retransform the Eagle goes up to the top of a mountain and scrapes its nails down to the required levels and hits its beak on the stones till it breaks off. Then it waits up in the mountains till the beak grows back.
With the new beak in proper position the Eagle pulls off the excess feathers from the wings and the talons. This process takes 150 days before the fully retransformed Eagle flies back rejuvenated to begin its extended innings of active hunting.

The message left with the audience was the need in business and management to take stock periodically of the strategies, products, markets, processes, relationships, organization structures and management capability and to retransform to meet the emerging challenges, from the environment and competition.

This message is equally applicable to the business sector and the business chambers and also to national leaders, political leaders, religious leaders and civil society leaders.

They need to retransform their leadership action, policies, strategies and the communications to the publics in order to meet the present and emerging challenges of the nation and its people.

It appears to be fashionable these days, with the impending presidential elections, for political parties, trade unions and other organizations to pledge their support to one of the two key candidates and enter into policy agreements and memorandums of understanding. Will the business sector and the Chambers also enter this process? If so, what areas and issues will they focus on?

Will it for instance seek a policy regime that will assure the realization of a vision that endows all stakeholders of society? For instance will this vision be to “ensure by 2015 that all stakeholders of the Sri Lankan society enjoy a sustainable living standard and life style that assures to them peace and harmony amongst communities, a secure and disciplined society with good governance, law abiding and law enforced environment, surpassing millennium development goals, opportunities for personal advancement on meritocracy through knowledge and skills development, quality housing with water, electricity and sanitation, easy access to education, health and recreation, means of transportation to access with ease the national infrastructure, a facilitative environment that fully empowers and engages the village communities to achieve their desired level of political, economic, social and consciousness empowerment with all leading to the lowest 10% of the income earning households in society derive at least a per capita of $ 1500?

This vision is far apart from the lines of agreement sought by JVP and JHU!
The national, political and business leaders should take a cue from the President of India, Abdul Kalam, who on the Indian independence days gave a commitment to the nation and its people of the intent to be self reliant in energy needs by 2025. Earlier he focused on the need to enhance further the already high capability of the people of India.

Are our leaders, especially the business leaders, paying sufficient attention to energy issues and education and capability of the human resources, which issues can be the next tsunami to hit this nation?
Professor Wee Ckow Hou also stressed on the need to know your real enemy, stating that “ he who lacks strategic foresight and insight and underestimates his enemy will definitely end up being captured.” It is now over to you JBIZ and other business leaders!

(The writer could be reached at wo_owl@yahoo.co.uk)

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