Thoughts in Management and Cultures- Part 2

I believe in order for change managent to work, many aspects of the entire culture must change, from how people view change to how truly they are ready to embrace change. Change management doesn’t only happen inside corporate rooms, but there are many areas in the society at large must support that.

The mindset: change requires change in mindset, there are many advocates of change, but few who are willing to change the status que. As I mentioned before, the culture here doesn’t support innovations, it will only allow limited change that will not disrupt the balance of power in the organization. At the moment, most organizational decision making process is slow and centralized.

Local laws and local culture: although all the countries in the Arab world, especially in the Gulf area, are advocating transparency and encouraging foreign direct investment, the reality is bit different. Local laws still give preferences to local citizens in leadership positions, many foreign talents leave the region because of the glass ceiling that limit their ability to reach certain positions, change management make take years to produce results and the rate at which foreign talents are leaving the region will not help process.

Local laws and local culture still look at foreign investors and foreign workers as outsiders who are coming into the country to deprive the locals of their resources. In my class at Carnegie Mellon, most of the foreign students who are working on innovative projects are not comfortable to have any long time investment in the country, they don’t feel comfortable about how the local culture and the local laws view them.