Keynote Gruß für Konferenz der APPM – Asia Pacific Professional Managers Association
Peter Yip, Gründer und Vorsitzender dieser großen Vereinigung, die ihre diesjährige Jahreskonferenz in Beijing, u.a. in der „Großen Halle des Volkes“ abhält, bat Gerald Kimmel um eine key note message per Videoclip. Die Veranstaltung findet vom 28. bis 30 Oktober 2016 statt, der Text ist nachfolgend aufgeführt:
Dear professional managers and honoured guests, dear Mr. Yip, hello. My name is Gerald and it’s a great honour of me to give this greeting key note.
Change Management is becoming a key for sucessful projects and companies in the world more and more. ACMP – the Asscoiation of Change Management Professionals – is a global organization dedicated to develop the ‚art of CM‘. There are two reasons why I speak to you, honored to do so. First reason is your mission as APPM to promote ‚leadership excellence‘. Secondly, your core values comprising exchange, cooperation and friendship. These, I ‘d like to offer and to ask of you as the chairman of the German ACMP Chapter.
To create ‚collaborative success‘ – the motto of your conference – I want to share some fundamental thoughts on Change Management with you, being a Business Leader and CM professional for over 25 years now. In recent times leadership had to ensure mostly people’s obedience… Up to now, it is often about convincing ‚people’s brains‘, the rationale side of us humans. Today and tomorrow, it will be about winning peoples hearts. Why?
Replicable work is more and more replaced by machines and IT. Creative, complex and fuzzy tasks take much more place in our work lives now – and they depend on contributions willingly and with spirit given by the people inclined. Just let’s think of a new car design or an innovative service concept on the Internet. That is the reason why Change Management – managing the soft side of change – is so important to our work in business nowadays! A professional, modern leader must incorporate the competency of developing and changing people’s minds in both ways – brain AND heart – to generate the highest business value possible with his teams and staff.
Personally, I quit working as a manager for a global top consulting firm many years ago, to found a company of my own, based on these principles in a tough market. Starting with not more than two staff, this company is nowadays a healthy enterprise, doing Change Management not only in Europe but since a couple of years in China – Beijing – too. But our development was never just a straight line and Change Management helped our team and me especially in the rough and challenging phases that occured.
And this is, why I want to encourage you to develop your skills in Change Management.
CM is rapidly developing and spreading around the world, but it is a profession still in the making. Besides topics currently discussed by experts on how to merge project managrement and change management or how to apply agile methods like SCRUM to Change Management, I want to point out two sophistcated developments that are currently emerging:
First is the finding, that teaching or explaining changes – whether in business, organizations or projects – are somewhat restricted to generate a maximum of people’s engagement involved in the change. It was the famous chinese philosopher Lao-Tse who said:
„If you tell me, I will listen. If you show me, I will see. But if you let me experience, I will learn“
So the trend is smartly emerging that people should experience the changes in safe environments beforehand in order to learn and conduct them successfully afterwards. This can be done by simulations arising in the markets that not only adress the brains of people affected, but ‘them as a whole’ – including emotions and behaviour. In my experience and judgement, this will be a major trend in the upcoming years.
Secondly, experts of CM start to discuss how CM might eventually redefine the composition of management tops boards in the future: Will we still have the typical C-Suite of CEO, COO, CFO etc. or will a CCO, – Chief Change Officer – become an important position in these groups, next to the CEO maybe?! You see, there are lots of opportunities in dealing with CM as part of our professional career! And maybe, I am talking to a lot of future CCOs among you right now…
I appreciated sharing some of my thoughts and experience with you and my grateful thanks go to Peter Yip, your founding President who made this possible. I wish you a proficent personal development and a conference in the light of our exchange – collaborative success!
Thank you and zàijiàn!
Gerald Kimmel