Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Willingness to change

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Willingness to change

Many people are afraid to change, because the change may go wrong. The fear the consequence of a mistake - that they may lose a well paying job.

Here are my views. We have to make many changes, in the hope that some will succeed and that the benefit of success will outweigh the cost of the failures. Usually, it is not possible for us to know if a change will succeed or fail, unless we are willing to try it. We only need to make sure that the cost of the failure is small and is affordable.

Sometimes, we need to fail the first time, in order to succeed the second time. The lessons of the first failure can be a great way to learn what the real world situation is like. If we never try, we will never know.

I wish to share this interesting personal experience. In the early 1980s, I headed an insurance company that launched, for the first time, the life annuity product. We did a great deal of planning, preparation and training of the agents and employees. We also advertised the product on a modest budget. It failed. The consumers do not accept a product where they can lose their capital on early death.

Three years later, we launched a modified life annuity product that provided a guaranteed payment for 15 years but gave a smaller payout. It was a roaring success and established a domiant market share for the insurance company. The lessons from the first failure was the trigger for the changes that led to the success of the second attempt.

I wish to encourage people, especially the younger ones, to be willing to try and to change. It will be fun to experience the succeess, failures and to learn from the results.

Tan Kin Lian

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: Whether change will succeed or not also depends very much on who you are or your level in the organisation. It may also depend on some luck, timing and situation.

There is a Chinese saying

天时地利人和

literally meaning when the factors of heaven, earth, time and humans are in harmony.

This explains why some changes can succeed in some places and situations but the same is a total failure in others.; June 15, 2010 8:43 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: To: 8:43 AM

It is true that big changes have to be done by leaders with the authority.

We need this type of daring leadership in our Government, Civil Service and in Business.

We need to change the mindset of most Singaporeans, to get away from the "kiasu" mindset.; June 15, 2010 8:47 AM
Concerned said...: Nothing venture, nothing gain.
Therefore no change no progress.; June 15, 2010 11:36 AM
Anonymous said...: Used to be afraid of changes, as do not wish to rock the boat.
This could be a sign of complacency, but later realised it would disadvantage myself and lose out in the end.
Currently have this new mindset for changes, as changes are necessary for our future generations. My engineer son having a master's degree and drawing a pay of only $2,000 is fuming with anger when internet news broke out that our own EDB, is currently advertising in China's
newspapers for recruiting raw engineering graduates to work in Singapore. Then what would happen to our own Universitys' graduates.
Time for a change of Govt, we are becoming second class citizens in our own country.; June 15, 2010 12:24 PM
C H Yak said...: When the environment is very stable, it tend to promote contentment, complacency and "kia-su" attitude and hence natural resistance to change...quite typical of GOVT bureaucracy.

When the environment is so volatile and changing everyday, the fear of change is lesser or minimal...or CHANGE is a "norm" everyday...which explains why the Private sector is more organic and receptive to change.

Hence, in organic business setup we want to promote the culture to accept change. If all is in the mood to change, there is minimal resistance to change. If fact the kia-su culture may force negative people to move along with the change.

There is no doubt that the current govt. leaders fear CHANGE...CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE, but change to what...our PM crititised President Obama when he was campaigning...when he also tried to sell the concept that change should only take place within PAP and why the multi-parties political system would not work in S'pore...a rather inward and selfish argument for a democratic country.

But in USA after Obama became President and especially after the financial crisis, whether you like CHANGE or not ... you have to CHANGE because of the collapse of the capitalist system...the environment has changed.

If CHANGE is only within PAP, they can only make incremental change, perhaps after much muddling through when the MM has finish his "forecasting". The CHANGE could not be positively radical.

Even if radical, it must wait for something serious to happen, always on the corrective mode. E.g. the security breach by the Swiss graffiti painter. We also need the daring student to put it on You-Tube...if not maybe we wait for years to realise such security breach is possible by terrorists...and maybe too late.

If anyone of us would have brought it up to SMRT or the Govt. before this incident, do you think they will CHANGE? LOL; maybe in the next decade when the new Ministers' millions salaries had doubled or tripled...one of them will speak for the CHANGE...if not you think they will listen to public feedback.

Public feedback is welcomed only as an excuse when things went wrong, and seldom welcomed by our Authorities just to implement CHANGE. If it involves politics, then it is "outbound" to the public...and "CHANGE should and would come from within PAP".

I believe what Mr Tan advocated is that CHANGE should be top-down in implementation. But I don't think that CHANGE process itself should be delegated to the apex in this pyramid ... the culture should be all round. I read a book which said organisations should not behave like triangles and pyramids...it should be revolving like a cone and be organic...and it is not just uni-directional or a one-way traffic.; June 15, 2010 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...: It is very difficult to change when you are a deaf frog.

A fish rots from the head down.

The first symptom of a rotting head is a loss of hearing.; June 15, 2010 4:13 PM