Adaptation to the Pace of Change

The pace of our personal and professional lives seems to be getting faster by the day. In order to operate most efficiently, we must be prepared to change at a moment's notice. While it may increase our productivity in many ways, there are also negative aspects of change that we must expect and deal with.

Since change requires adaptation, the pressure on individuals to become ever more resilient is intense: speeding up processes, demanding 24/7 attention, depending upon and integrating technological shifts, elimination of slack leading to efficiencies but also stress, and the need for continuous personal education and development, we must ask, is it realistic? Can management and the workforce be as Proteus, the first shape shifter (from Greek mythology), and become all things to all challenges?

This student views the change as a process that we have accepted and that adaptation will continue to grow rapidly. Technology has grown a desire to obtain information at a rapid rate. Server down, or email outages in business can cause a business to lose customers and millions of revenue hourly (Abrams, 2010).

Society, through technology, has increased its demand for information, and individuals and organizations have adapted. We have moved from desktop to laptops, from laptops to net books, from net books to mobile phones. The transformation is happening at an alarming pace and continues to require humans to morph to accomplish the tasks technology helps them accomplish.

The hours of operation for individuals in the business world have shifted from 9-5 to 24/7. There is an expectation that email's prompt response on email's and the user of voice mails has become obsolete. The shift continues to happen; Facebook is now developing an E-Mail services that integrates our email, instant message, Facebook message and tweets into one view (Helft, 2010). So in answering the question of the workforce continues to shape shift, this student agrees that the change is inevitable. The integration of social networks with email services will increase the response time and enhance the communication medium.

Abraham Maslow describes the human beings desire to feed their need on different levels in order to obtain satisfaction (Maslow, 2000). Technology helps feed our need for smaller and faster, the continuous availability of new technology drives us to adapt. 20 years ago, email was in its infant stages, and over the past decade, it has grown into the dominant mode of communication; now considered an outdated mode of interaction (Helft, 2010). The adaptation will continue to happen, and this student views it as a run-away train that will be challenging to slow down let alone stop.

Reference

Abrams, R. (2010). Server down? You've just lost potential customers. USA Today. Retrieved on November 17, 2010 from http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2010-03-19-networks-key-for-small-business_N.htm

Helft, M. (2010). Facebook to start an e-mail service. NY Times. Retrieved on November 17, 2010 from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/facebook-to-start-an-e-mail-service/

Maslow, A. (2000). The Maslow business reader. New York: Wiley.

Examining Management Theory

Contingency theory discusses the idea that the best way to manage an organization is to have a plan that is dependent upon the surrounding environment. Many Risk Managers who work to implement a contingency plan are often limited by the structure of their firm (McDonald, 2010). The contingency theory at this student firm is one that has been refined through the years. Management has found it necessary with the diversity of the sales team to handle each individual sale on a case by case basis. Though many of the transactions and projects are of similar size and scope the ever changing clientele base requires the management team to size up each opportunity differently. According to McDonald, "Though changes are not as easily implemented as planed," several firms prepare with the intentions of addressing the risk potentially faced in their industry. The management team at this students firm decided that the most successful way to handle the situation is to deal on a case by case basis. Most recently two customers were making an acquisition of the same technology, however both were negotiated with differently. On one hand management made sure the customer was satisfied, however Customer 1 was satisfied with an extension on their payment terms, while Customer 2 was satisfied with a credit on future purchases. Both decision though effective required different leadership styles with customer 1 an aggressive approach was needed while with customer 2 it was passive. The firm understands that each customer must be handled with a different style and that though the technology they acquire are similar their use and the characteristics of each organization is vastly different.

References

McDonald, C. (2009), How sound is your firms Disaster Contingency Plan, National Underwriter.