TNB: Change Management in ACTION

Change Mgmt in Action

Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) had given a 48-hour transfer order to Maimunah Ibrahim, the general manager (distribution) out of the state (Malacca), following negative publicity over its alleged failure to provide supply to several factories. Maimunah Ibrahim, who had been in charge of TNB in Malacca, reported for work yesterday in TNB Bangi Training Centre as one of the department heads.

It is learnt that the transfer letter was sent out on Saturday. When contacted yesterday, Maimunah, who had been based in Malacca since 2001 and the only woman general manager in charge of a state, confirmed that she was in Bangi.

Mohd Aminuddin Mohd Amin, area manager for Seremban, is to take over the post vacated by Maimunah.

Maimunah had called for a press conference earlier to “defend her dignity”. In her statement of defence, she claimed that there was no delay on TNB’s part to provide power supply as alleged by the companies.

The actions by TNB clearly illustrate the positive act of corrective actions towards re-tuning and process adjustments of its system where significant variations had surfaced. What had happen to the distribution system had been outright failure of its system and its process and unless substantive actions are taken to re-direct and tune the system, anything lesser corrective actions will not bear effective results.

Clearly, the actions by the top management of TNB is a show of leadership and the fundamentals of CHANGE MANAGEMENT. Change management cannot be effective without the application of CHANGE per se. Rightly or wrongly, any senior management in charge of a sub-system should not have allowed its processes to behave in dysfunction mode and claimed innocence or ignornace, at the same time find reasons of excuses using blame-game techniques to justify its system inefficiencies.

The new CEO of TNB had time and again hold his ideological foundation of strong leadership and high performance criteria. How many of the other institutions had done the same?

Lets look at another news published by the New Straits Times today titled:

HIGHER EDUCATION SET FOR MAJOR POLICY REVIEW!



Here, it was reported that the Higher Education Ministry is set for a MAJOR REVIEW as it is beset with numerous problems. The Prime Minister said that an independent committee to review the industry's direction had submitted its report to the Higher Education Ministry and the ministry is reviewing the report with a view to implement the recommendations in the NEAR FUTURE. It hope to redefine and focus set of policies to pursue certain strategies and policy directions to become a regional centre for excellence.

What are we hearing of our higher education system?

What can possibly come out from the above actions? The irony is that the whole higher education system is currently in dysfunction mode; hundreds of thousands of graduates are unemployable, thousands of aspiring and qualified students are not been accepted into public universities due to inadequate system, the nation is facing massive problem due to brain drains, and there is lack of significant human capital needed for the nation to drive towards its vision 2020 and to ensure the nation become a develop nation status by then.

With the vision being far-sighted and its generative engine in dysfunction mode, what we hear of from the executives are: MAJOR POLICY REVIEW with A VIEW TO IMPLEMENT POLICIES to pursue strategies and directions. There is CLEARLY an ABSENCE of CHANGE MANAGEMENT and an absence of system re-construction where the system itself and its leaders are still in hybernation mode.

In reality, clear emphirical evidence of the inefficient system and ineffective executives would have required an immediate and drastic actions to overhaul the system, cast the dead woods, dumped its minister, and appoint a new leader of high performance to set a new strategic direction in line with the nation's aspiration to become a regional centre for educational excellence.

Deputy Prime Minister had rightly pointed out that the country must have sound national education policies at all levels, recognise the importance of internationalisation in the educational sector, keep abreast of technological developments, and ensure high standards in the service delivery system.

Instead, we hear that the higher education ministry is studying the situation and reviewing a report IN A VIEW (which means, they are not ready yet) to implement the recommendations IN THE NEAR FUTURE (here again, it means that it won't be happening so soon; maybe after another general election).

Dear Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, you are both blind and both of you lived behind a smoke screen. REVIEWING .... IN A VIEW .... IN THE NEAR FUTURE .... these words clearly points out that the system managers knows nothing and have no solution for today's problem; you are talking about the proposed solution of TODAY to be implemented in the FUTURE in order to resolve YESTERDAY'S problems. And in time, and by the time you are ready to implement the solution, the problem had changed into another state, and had transform into far insidious pattern and form; your then solution would certainly be obsolete and redundant, and your cure would then breed new diseases and a whole new set of problems.

This is Murphy's Law - The solution to a problem breeds many new and far more insidious problem. Worse off, today's solutions from recommendations made by a study of yesterday's problem, which the ministry is only looking into now, but of which it will only be implemented in the near future, would, by then, be problems in different propositions and dimensions. Thereon, the ministry will need to conduct further studies and which then would submit recommendation for actions which would then be reviewed and actions proposed to be taken in the far distant future; and then, the cycle keeps repeating itself. We will be hearing more of the same: ...REVIEWING ... IN A VIEW TO IMPLEMENT ... IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!!!!