Our Thoughts on Change Management

The success and failure cycle

Posted by Patrick Manyanza on May 8 2012

The late author and teacher Napoleon Hill spent 20 years studying the lives of 500 very successful men and women in the early 1900’s. Most of these men and women were millionaires. He found out that success can be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and follow if they choose to. “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”, is one of Hill’s famous expressions.

Hill was absolutely right for in today’s world it is clear that people who have limiting beliefs, hardly tap into their potential which leads them to take mediocre actions and ultimately getting mediocre results. Once they see their mediocre results, their limiting beliefs become even more strengthened, they tap much less into their potential which leads them to taking further poor actions and they keep on getting poor results. This failure cycle continues unless their limiting beliefs are changed. Continue reading...

Organizational learning and change

Posted by David Manyanza on Apr 19 2012

According to the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 (TDV2025), Tanzania will be characterized by five key attributes come 2025. They are: high quality of livelihood; peace, stability and unity; good governance; a well-educated and learning society; and a competitive economy capable of producing sustainable growth and shared benefits. With respect to a well-educated and learning society the vision envisages, “a nation whose people are ingrained with a developmental mindset and competitive spirit. These attributes are driven by education and knowledge and are critical in enabling the nation effectively utilize knowledge in mobilizing domestic resources for the provision of people’s basic needs …”

While education is provided in schools and colleges in the form of information, learning implies a continuing process of inquiry, answers and further inquiry that goes on in the course of our lives. Through this process knowledge which never existed before is created. Unlike information which is available knowledge that can be retrieved from somewhere, knowledge is required information that is not currently available as such has to be created or generated. Continue reading...

Embracing change

Posted by Patrick Manyanza on Apr 15 2012

To move from where we are to where we want to be in our careers requires us to take different sets of actions. Change is our own personal responsibility. We only got one life to live so we have to get over ourselves and make it count. Most people get stuck and they keep doing things the same way because that’s how they’ve been told to do. When change has to happen there is always fear.

We are always afraid to try something new, we are afraid that we might make the first big mistake and be pointed out for it. The reality is that people who don’t do anything automatically loose. Now when you take action you may make some mistakes, in fact chances are that you probably will at some point but bear in mind the richness in experience you will now possess that will aid greatly in your coming future endeavors. Continue reading...

Data to sustain better service provision

Posted by David Manyanza on Apr 4 2012

The use of data and information is still limited in Tanzanian public organizations. It is not uncommon to see organizations prepare strategic plans without the aid of data and information. Obviously, strategic plans prepared in this way are not strictly strategic and consequently they do not impact the organizations. Long term effects of poor data and information usage leads to non–responsive management resulting into poor organizational performance and even total organizational collapse. Glaring evidence of this is from the public business enterprises formed in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies but which collapsed and had to be privatized twenty or so years later because they could not respond to their changing business environments.

It may well be argued that even currently there are some public institutions which exist only because they are legal entities and not because their services are demanded by those who benefit from them. They simply survive because of supply based funding. Such organizations have, unknowingly, lost relevance to their customers a long time ago. But why is it that public organizations do not use data and information during strategic planning and the normal management process? Continue reading...