Vision & Change

The Jakarta Post, Features, 1 July 2007
Published as "Vision, change and life goals"
Dewi Susanti & Kayee Man

As you go about your daily life and routine, both personally and professionally, how often do you wonder where your life is heading and how your present activities might contribute to your life in the future? Or do you tend to live for the day and not get too worried about where you are heading in life?

Having a personal goal, a vision for a company, an objective for a project are all important things to have -- or so we've heard from many.

But as most of us know by experience, our path toward a goal, a vision, or an objective, doesn't come in a straight red-carpeted line with people on both sides to cheer us on along the way. More often than not, the road toward our intended destination is obscure, dotted with roundabouts, full of ups and downs with seemingly no road signs or people around to guide us.

Alternatively, there is a temptation to dwell in a cozy corner we have encountered and be reluctant to move on. When we have a clear view of what's before us, surrounded by people whose company we enjoy and love, why would we choose to set our feet on an unclear path?

Why leave a comfort zone you already have now for an obscure goal that you may or may not achieve? Sure, if it gets you to where you want to be, the chances are you will feel more satisfied. But there is also the risk of losing the security you already have -- security that you will most likely never get back if you took the plunge.

This contemplation may come to most people who are going through major change in their lives -- be it personally or professionally -- such as those thinking about leaving a job, changing their career path or moving to a foreign place or country.

Similarly, companies are also faced with having to make major decisions. These may require them to cut back on employees, change regulations, terminate production or alter lines of business.

Change is a natural course of life. As noted by Henry A. Wallace, "The only certainty in life is change". Prevailing circumstances can force change to happen, but at other times, deliberate change is needed to realign one's self.

Yet if we have a clear goal, vision, or direction, we may not have to worry so much about the risks involved.

Here's why: When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision. We wished we had come up with that preceding sentence, but real credit is due to Paulo Coelho in his best-selling book The Alchemist.


Many ways to Rome

Like sailing in the sea, life often takes us to experiences and places we had never dreamed of. Like getting to a destination in the sea, life very much represents the Indonesian saying of banyak jalan menuju Roma (there are many ways leading to Rome); as in the sea, there is no set road leading to the destination.

Yet, like sailing in the sea, without a goal, the boat will drift away with no set trajectory and, at the end of the day, the boat will probably get lost in the big ocean, going nowhere. Of course, the journey of life itself can mean as much as reaching a goal. Perhaps we'll use an illustration from The Alchemist to make our point.

The Alchemist tells a story about a shepherd boy who wants to find the secret of turning metal into gold. While on his way to find an alchemist who would become his teacher, the boy meets a man who gives him a spoon filled with oil, and asks him to take the spoon around a city without spilling the oil.

Seeing this as a test, the boy had his focus on the oil, making sure it doesn't spill. When he returns, however, the man asks him what he saw in the city. The boy admits he didn't see anything. So the man sends him off again, to make sure the boy would see the city the second time around. Having never visited the city, the boy was really excited, forgot about the oil in the spoon and spilled all of it.

The man then said: "The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon".

Like the boy, we tend to be either focused on the drops of oil -- the objective of one's life at any given moment -- or on the marvels of the world, the enjoyment of living itself. Although a balance between the two is hard to find, it is not impossible to align what we are currently working on with our objectives in life, and enjoy the process at the same time. Just for good measure, we must also throw in the need and ability to adapt to or create change along the way.

In their highly acclaimed book Built to Last, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras maintain that it is not enough for a company to have a goal. In their words: "But core ideology alone, as important as it is, does not -- indeed cannot -- make a visionary company. A company can have the world's most deeply cherished and meaningful core ideology, but if it just sits still or refuses to change, the world will pass it by."


Boeing policy for change

The authors tell the story of the time Boeing, which up until the World War II was producing military airplanes, decided to develop a prototype for commercial jet aircraft. The decision was made despite the fact that 80 percent of their business had come from the Air Force, the sales reports for commercial airlines in both the United States and Europe were not interested in a commercial jet from Boeing and that the prototype would cost them roughly a quarter of Boeing's entire corporate net worth.

Boeing's decision made it become a major player in the commercial aircraft industry and brought the jet age into commercial airline traveling. Boeing also left behind McDonnell-Douglas, which "made the explicit decision to stick with piston propellers and take a cautious wait-and-see approach to commercial jet aircraft. Douglas waited and saw Boeing fly right past and seize dominant control of the commercial market. ... in 1958, Douglas introduced the DC-8, but never caught up with Boeing" (Collins & Porras, 1991, p.91-92).

If we pay close attention to the changes that have occurred in the past decades, we will realize that changes have happened at an exponential rate in comparison to previous decades. Informational technology is probably the most obvious example of life-altering changes.

Nowadays, a personal computer (PC) is a common feature in a household. Most of us reading The Jakarta Post are likely to have one computer in our offices and another at home. Yet, the PC is a foreign, intimidating object for people of our parents' generation.

Our ability to adapt to these changes is the key to our being able to survive and compete within the workforce. And if we want to stay ahead -- set the trend, so to speak -- the chances are we will have to create changes that others will have to adapt to.

In the words of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, "You can't just keep doing what works one time, because everything around you is always changing. To succeed, you have to stay out in front for that change."

To reiterate: it is important to have an objective in life either in the form of personal aspiration or a vision for a company. Yet, while living toward this objective, we should also enjoy the marvels of the world and be open to and even drive changes.

Resistance to change is a major block to creativity and problem solving (James L. Adams, professor emeritus at Stanford University).

Without our openness to and drive for change, we will not only undermine the achievement of our own life goals but also shut out our own chances of contributing to progress in society.