18th December 2005
Honoured Chairman, Honoured Officers of the CMSS, Honoured Guests of the CMSS, Ladies and Gentlemen.
May I thank the CMSS for allowing me to join you today in this important conference and for the opportunity to speak to you.
Let me also add the congratulations and felicitations of the IPMA in the UK and myself, to the CMSS on their twenty-fifth anniversary. It has been a twenty-five period of tremendous change in China and throughout the world too.
I thought you might be interested in thinking about the broader challenges facing professional managers today and in the immediate future.
Let me invite you to think about the changes that have taken place over recent years for managers working inside organisations and the changes that will come at a greater pace in the future. Perhaps, not all of you will have experienced all these changes yet, but you will recognise the directions of change.
There are five main changes we should think about. These of course are linked together.
The first change is of people’s wages rising faster than prices. In the developed world, people expect to gradually improve their standards of living over time. Our standard of living is better than that experienced by our parents. Our children will expect to live better lives than we have today.
This is made possible by using improved technology and increasing efficiencies. Getting more out of the same resources. This includes the people who work for us. Introducing modern technology can make amazing improvements to business processes. As an example we can understand the difference that emails, mobile phones and the internet have made to personal and business communications.
One of our [personal management challenges is to have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to adopt and to use new technology in our organisations.
Another major change is the move from being an administrator to being a manager.
Administrators follow the rules and procedures and follow detailed instructions from their seniors. They are usually inward looking and concentrate less on the users of their service.
Managers think differently. They are driven to meet the needs of those who use their service and will be proactive, make their own decisions, set their own priorities and be responsive to users needs. They are results driven.
This is a very difficult change for people to make. It requires managers to have a new set of skills, knowledge and thinking processes.
The third change is a move from working in large state-owned companies towards being in private enterprises. For example, in the past in the UK we had government owned businesses such as British Petroleum, British Airways, British Telecom, British Steel, British Gas, British Motor Corporation and many more. Over many years all of these have moved from being state-owned to being private companies.
Normally state-owned businesses find it difficult be competitive and to survive in the market place. Private companies tend to be more flexible and able to adapt more quickly to the needs of their customers and users.
The fourth challenge is the change from working locally to working globally. China is exporting more and more goods to other parts of the world, and at the same time importing goods from abroad for use in China. More and more people are travelling abroad for their work and holidays, and more and more people are coming to China to enjoy and admire the culture and heritage.
Suppliers and customers will increasingly come from across the world and managers will need to think globally.
Much of this change is made possible by the improvements in telephones and other communication technology. If you are selling goods or services internationally you are competing on quality, price and delivery with the best in the world This cannot be achieved without high quality management.
This change is about how you manage people. It is the change from directing a department or workgroup and moving towards being a leader of a team.
This change is not just about words. There is a big difference between a workgroup and a team. We can think about a good football team as an example.
With a successful football team, the manager is not on the football field with the players but sits in the seats. The team members do not keep asking the manager for instructions: they each look at who has the ball and individually, each one decides how to move and act to assist scoring a goal.
In a team at work, the individuals do not keep asking the manager for instructions; they guide themselves in moving and working to achieve the goals of the team.
A football team that keeps stopping to ask the manager for instructions will be too slow and unresponsive to win the game. A business that keeps stopping to ask the manager for instructions will be too slow and unresponsive to win the business game against the competition.
Most managers are not qualified in managing before they get their jobs. They are qualified in their specialist fields such as Engineering, Accountancy, Medicine, Architecture or other disciplines. When they gain promotion to become the Chief Engineer, Chief Accountant etc. they need another set of skills to manage well in their organisations.
The CMSS is working in partnership with the IPMA to assist managers in
I congratulate the CMSS on their success in their first twenty-five years and wish them continued success in their important work for the next twenty-five years.
Thank you for listening to me today and I wish you a very successful conference.
Terry
Morris
Deputy
Chairman - IPMA