Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who has for the third time assumed office as Minister of Finance under the new President, is well known for new innovative solutions, processes, vision and solutions to end the stalemate in achievement.
by Victor Cherubim
To participate meaningfully in today’s government, economy and society and to realise their value or for that matter their added value in the changes that are going to take place after the election of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, citizens rely on the news media. Sri Lankans are eager and want to be inspired by the new policies of President Rajapaksa.
There are institutional arrangements that rebel against change. Procedural matters can also block change, as the political culture inculcated over years of mismanagement may fight back, if not literally, against this change.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who has for the third time assumed office as Minister of Finance under the new President, is well known for new innovative solutions, processes, vision and solutions to end the stalemate in achievement.
“Ape balaporthu” our great expectation, our goal is becoming a country great again.
The future is there for us to grasp this vision.
How can we manage this change?
Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. But it is not like walking down the “road to nowhere”. From time to thank supporters to other pleasantries, we have a job to be done and it is not the world which is watching us but our own people who put the Government to power once again.
We have Gary Hamel’s perspective, (many of us don’t know him from Adam). Heheld that change management is the “technology of achievement.” Management of change is a formal discipline. It is nothing new. Everything that has happened through the centuries, over decades, including where we are today, the emergence of the exploration of data and data analysis, exponential growth in power and advancement in communication, sensors and now Artificial Intelligence (AI), is demanding that we in Sri Lanka also modernise management of change for the times.
We live in an age of management of constant change and uncertainty. This is not at all new to us. The Buddha taught us this very fact of existence, that everything changes except change. So, our teaching and preaching is installed in our psyche. We feel this change in our very bones.
What is new about this management of change?
Change demands we now need to adapt to new ways of getting things done. New ways of work, new ways of productivity, new ways of living?
How can I describe this other than putting it, so that even a child can comprehend?
We have had the thirty odd years of war,(our skills depleted, our roads and infrastructure needing renewal among other things), we have experienced the tsunami (where our coastline had to be secured for survival), we have now had four and a half years of “Blame Government” where as Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa states, decision makers were fearful of taking any worthwhile development decisions” and the country was paralysed by incompetence and lack of productivity. Can we call this management of change?
Management must evolve to account for the speed of change.
We cannot live on “Cloud Nine” for our existence. We need to give life to the idea of management of excellence. For this, speed, agility and adaptability are essential attributes for survival and success in today’s Sri Lanka.
Along with increased demand for speed comes increased demand of risk management.
The world is running out of babies and especially so in our paradise isle. Our isle is facing a shortage of childbirth, a baby gloom. Long working hours without accountable productivity, is seen everywhere to eek out a survival. Chemical pollutants, fertilisers and pesticides, have made fertility rates tumbling. Mothers leaving their young at home and going abroad to the Middle East to send money home. Unemployment, gender inequality, anti-family policies where women are not entitled to maternity leave and “unsaid poverty” among women in Sri Lanka makes women all over Sri Lanka without the time or money to raise a family. In fact, among the wealthy, children are seen like a burdensome responsibility. Those who do want children are waiting longer, often until it is too late.
We need children, as an asset to our nation. Chemicals known as “endocrine disruptors” are now found in many foods imported into Sri Lanka, which we are told may damage fertility. We need to monitor these substances, not immediately, but soon.
What other factors impede our acceptance of change?
We need innovative ways to be able to educate our children and our ways of work. Some of the ways which come to mind among others are Distance Learning, Distance Work, Distance Sharing of our Ayurveda medicine and Idea Store?
These ideas will need further exploration and Risk Management.
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