The next chapter of Liar game has been out, but unfortunately they stopped at some cliffhanger. =.= But one unexpected development has arose! The naive Nao Kanzaki has suddenly imbibed some brains and a lot of common sense! It is wonderful.
Anyway I was just thinking about a few things after catching up with Mei and asking her about her new job. Apparently her organization has a very different and modern culture, and they try to use that culture to heighten employee creativity and productivity.
I remember as an intern I used to pay a lot of attention to Merck's efforts to shape a new culture after the merger of Merck and SP. I used to re-read my IA reports (yes I do things like that), and note my own mentions of such efforts. Changing the way people work, and their attitudes toward their work. In my HR lessons we do take note of such things.
As an intern I noted these efforts, but now as a permanent employee, I notice the difficulties of implementing a new culture on something that has already more or less been hard-set. They've are doing it through the easiest way of implementing change: changing first the behaviors of people before working up to their attitudes and finally their convictions. But it is hard to change attitudes (although you can forcefully change behaviors) when these new changes are initially viewed with skepticism. The discussions of these barriers are very realistic after all, especially when people don't realize the necessity of making changes; or just take them as new fancy names for old things. No wonder now people take personality tests before going into a job. If you're not suited for a certain culture, it would be more useful for the organization as a whole not to hire you despite you having the required core competencies.
I still remember at Year 4 I was seriously contemplating going into HR at some stage of my life. Right now I'm still keeping my options open with regards to that, although I currently enjoy doing something that is related to what I've studied, and gaining new skills and knowledge in the process. But my perceptions of how HR policies are rolled out are now different. I'm glad to be working somewhere that I can observe how these policies of change making are carried forward. And the difficulties they go through. We've been harped through the '12 inclusive behaviors' for a year now, and still, the only behavior people probably really remember (and do not take very seriously) is the first one: 'Say Hello'. That's how difficult it is.
I used to think it was easy to hammer things into people - to get them to understand something or develop certain attitudes that are useful to themselves or to an organization. But I realize now it is very difficult. Visual reminders, examples by leadership, constant mentions and setting them as performance objectives: all these seem to not have their required impacts to move the inertia of the past. And no wonder certain things I've tried to do as a leader in the past has had its hitches. I'd never came up with creative ways to handle such obstacles, nor considered the background of people who are different from me.
May I continue to learn how to be an agent of change through example and be more willing to embrace change myself. Thank God for these lessons I can learn.
May I continue to learn how to be an agent of change through example and be more willing to embrace change myself. Thank God for these lessons I can learn.
