Abstract - Envisioning Change Prospects and Challenges

Envisioning change calls for the foresight of a prophetic leader who can foresee change and make strategic planning for transformational and organizational changes so as to lead the entire team and stakeholders to a better future.  This would entail working out the modalities of the change, embarking on the process that would accelerate and bring in the required paradigm shift, which would determine the success of any individual and organization. Change management to be effective has to take into consideration the needs of the stakeholders, employability, industry and global competencies required in today’s job market. In Who Moved My Cheese, Dr. Spencer Johnson, illustrates very vividly how change demands innovative and enterprising ways to meet the challenges and opportunities at a given time.  In today’s world of scientific and technological revolution, one has to keep pace with changes lest one becomes obsolete and irrelevant.  One has to keep in mind the 5 P's of leadership: Passion, Persistence, People, Process (this includes Planning) and Profit.  A visionary leader will ignite the big dream with passion and perseverance.  People would always be on the focus and will strategically plan out the process and create a win-win situation where all the stakeholders will reap the profit of the envisioned change and paradigm shift. 
Envisioning Change: Prospects and Challenges
Dr. Davis George
1.         Envisioning Change: Ignite the big dream
"Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes - it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm." - Peter Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century (1999).
As ecological, economic, and social crises deepen, human societies are seeking new designs for a sustainable and desirable world. Although it is widely recognized that isolated initiatives will not form an adequate response to our interconnected plights, current efforts to promote sustainability rarely pervade all aspects of our lives. Our failure to craft holistic solutions is due, in part, to the lack of a shared vision of what a sustainable world looks like.
Envisioning is a process in which community members collectively identify shared values, describe the future they seek, and develop a plan to achieve common goals. Envisioning complements more traditional forms of planning, serving as a tool for determining community desires and initiating the process of change. It generally begins by establishing consensus on a community’s goals and desires through public forums and group discussions. "Even those who fancy themselves the most progressive will fight against other kinds of progress, for each of us is convinced that our way is the best way." - Louis L'Amour, The Lonely Men.
Our civilization’s challenge is to create a positive and detailed vision of a sustainable and desirable future. This needs to be a future in which living in harmony with nature enhances everyone’s quality of life, a future that can captivate and motivate the public, a future that we are proud to bestow on our grandchildren. Until we create and widely share this vision, we have no hope of achieving it. How true what Charles Kettering said, “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” 
1.1       Who Moved My Cheese: The Challenge of Change
Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, published in 1998, is a motivational book by Spencer Johnson written in the style of a parable or business fable. It describes change in one's work and life, and four typical reactions to said change by two mice and two "little people", during their hunt for cheese.  It http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=livliftothe0f-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0399144463is a fable that teaches an amazing way to deal with change in your personal and professional life.  The Six Important Lessons on Change we can learn from this book are:
1.                  Change happens.  They keep moving the cheese.
2.                  Anticipate change. Get ready for the cheese to move.
3.                  Monitor change. Smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old.
4.                  Adapt to change quickly. The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese.
5.                  Change. Move with the cheese
6.                  Enjoy change. Savor the adventure and enjoy the taste of new cheese
One of the constant things in life is Change.  Each day brings a new life and a different experience for us.  But our daily routine task, from the time we wake up until the time we lay down in bed again, creates a cycle that leads us to comfort.  Such comfort creates laxity and negligence in our character that makes us forget that life is constantly changing.  Then when change happens, we stress out, react, complain and are beaten up. That’s why it is hard for majority to handle and accept change. Upon experiencing change, our initial reaction is to resist it.  Either because we are afraid to lose the comfort of what we currently have or the fear of the unknown. Even we don’t admit it, we act like Hem.  When change happens in our lives, we get angry, we blame others, and we lose hope and resist change.
The only thing constant in life is change, and our source of pleasures, wants, and needs can and does indeed change. If one learns to change quickly and enjoy it again and again, one can successfully deal with any change in one’s life. Comfort lulls us into complacency and keeps us in the comfort zone.  As leaders, we must relentlessly challenge ourselves not to let ease and security dissuade us from making the changes necessary to fulfill our vision. How true, "In three years every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make it obsolete or someone else will."  Bill Gates
2.         Change Management: Paradigm Shift
Change your thoughts if you wish to change your circumstances.  Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them.  You will want to change them when you realise that each thought creates according to its own nature. - Paramhansa Yogananda. Everything changes, nothing remains without change. - Gautama Buddha.  "Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights." said Pauline R. Kezer
Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment.1 In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.2
As a multidisciplinary practice that has evolved as a result of scholarly research, Organizational Change Management should begin with a systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine both the need for change and the capability to change. The objectives, content, and process of change should all be specified as part of a Change Management plan.
Change Management processes may include creative marketing to enable communication between change audiences, but also deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics. As a visible track on transformation projects, Organizational Change Management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. It makes use of performance metrics, such as financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design appropriate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or solve troubled change projects.
Successful change management is more likely to occur if the following are included:
1.                  Benefits management and realization to define measurable stakeholder aims, create a business case for their achievement (which should be continuously updated), and monitor assumptions, risks, dependencies, costs, return on investment, dis-benefits and cultural issues affecting the progress of the associated work.
2.                  Effective Communications that informs various stakeholders of the reasons for the change (why?), the benefits of successful implementation (what is in it for us, and you) as well as the details of the change (when? where? who is involved? how much will it cost? etc).
3.                  Devise an effective education, training and/or skills upgrading scheme for the organization.
4.                  Counter resistance from the employees of companies and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.
5.                  Provide personal counseling (if required) to alleviate any change related fears.
6.                  Monitoring of the implementation and fine-tuning as required.

2.1       Leadership: responsibility for managing change

The employee does not have a responsibility to manage change - the employee's responsibility is no other than to do his/her best, which is different for every person and depends on a wide variety of factors (health, maturity, stability, experience, personality, motivation, etc). Responsibility for managing change is with the management and executives of the organisation - they must manage the change in a way that employees can cope with it. The manager has a responsibility to facilitate and enable change, and all that is implied within that statement, especially to understand the situation from an objective standpoint (to 'step back', and be non-judgmental), and then to help people understand reasons, aims, and ways of responding positively according to employees' own situations and capabilities. Increasingly the manager's role is to interpret, communicate and enable - not to instruct and impose, which does not yield a positive response.

2.2       Change must involve the people - change must not be imposed upon the people

Be wary of expressions like 'mindset change', and 'changing people's mindsets' or 'changing attitudes', because this language often indicates a tendency towards imposed or enforced change and it implies strongly that the organization believes that its people currently have the 'wrong' mindset, which is never, ever, the case. If people are not approaching their tasks or the organization effectively, then the organization has the wrong mindset, not the people. Change such as new structures, policies, targets, acquisitions, disposals, re-locations, etc., all create new systems and environments, which need to be explained to people as early as possible, so that people's involvement in validating and refining the changes themselves can be obtained.
Whenever an organization imposes new rulings on people there will be difficulties. Participation, involvement and open, early, transparent communication are the important factors.  You cannot impose change - people and teams need to be empowered to find their own solutions and responses, with facilitation and support from managers, and tolerance and compassion from the leaders and executives. Management and leadership style and behaviour are more important than clever processes and policies. Employees need to be able to trust the organization. The leader must agree and work with these ideas, or change is likely to be very painful, and the best people will be lost in the process.

2.3       Change Management Principles

1.                  At all times involve and elicit support from people within system (system = environment, processes, culture, relationships, behaviors, etc., whether personal or organizational).
2.                  Understand where you/the organisation is at the moment.
3.                  Understand where you want to be, when, why, and what the measures will be for having got there.
4.                  Make your goals “SMART” – Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic and Time-bound.
5.                  Communicate, involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and as fully as is possible.
John P Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor and leading thinker and author on organizational change management in his highly regarded books, 'Leading Change' (1995) and its sequel 'The Heart of Change' (2002) describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.
Kotter's eight step change model can be summarized as:
1.                  Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant.
2.                  Build the guiding team - get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels.
3.                  Get the vision right - get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.
4.                  Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against.
5.                  Empower action - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognise progress and achievements.
6.                  Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones.
7.                  Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones.
8.                  Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion and new change leaders. Weave change into culture – Institutional Culture.
3.         Leaders make the envisioned change a reality.
As Ralph Nader rightly said,I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” According to John Quincy Adams, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, you are a leader.”  Leaders make things happen. A visionary leader stands for enhancing and sustaining quality, empowering people and ushering in the required paradigm shift to redefine the vision and mission of the institution and meet the challenges of the times. Institutions flourish or perish depending largely on the leadership qualities of the persons at the helm of affairs, 2Sigma effect of change can be brought about by mentoring and coaching. Words of affirmation and guidance would make the team explore the latent potentials and produce the required synergy to sustain capacity building. Transformational leadership through relationship to achieve the required purpose would be more enduring. Soft skills when complimented with hard skills can maximize the effectiveness of leadership. Personal integrity and authenticity would enhance trust and credibility. "You be the change you want to see in others", said Mahatma Gandhi. Management of change - of self and others, in a positive and proactive way would make the leadership effective. 
If you just walk into any bookstore you will find hundreds of leadership books purport to answer all questions concerning leadership. Broadly, the research, thinking, and writing about leadership can be divided into two camps. One camp holds that leadership is all about behavior and that if you want to excel, you should learn and replicate the key behaviors of good leaders. Many companies pursue this view by developing competency models and then rigorously assessing and training their leaders accordingly. The other camp holds that leadership is all about character, values, and authenticity and companies that adhere to this view focus on transmitting company values and orienting leaders to the right way to do things. Stephen Covey advocates principle-centred leadership for effective and sustainable impact.
Leaders who do not succeed tend to be people who lack self-awareness. Daniel Goleman has made this basic truth clear by describing the importance of emotional intelligence as an important component of effective leadership. Ineffective leaders don’t understand their own motivations or acknowledge their weaknesses; they don’t engage in reflection, especially when they fail and are unwilling to assume accountability. As smart and skilled as these people may be, they don’t really know themselves, and this lack of self-knowledge derails them, especially when they face new leadership challenges. High-performing leaders, however, are aware of their strengths and their weaknesses; they talk and think about their limitations and failures and try to learn from them.
3.1       Visionary Leadership
Vision is what determines what an organization is going to try to accomplish. Without a clear vision the organization will be pulled in many different directions.  It is much easier to lead if you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and your ideas are good. Even if you don't have a tremendous amount of skill as a leader, having a clear vision can help you through your shortcomings. People want to follow someone with a plan. By having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, you will attract followers and people who want to align themselves with your vision. Individuals realize that one of the cornerstones of success is a clear vision. For this reason they want to join align themselves with the success strategies.  In fact, a poor leader with a great vision will achieve more than a great leader with an ill-conceived plan. People want to follow someone who will lead them to success. If you appear to be able to do this, people will want to follow you. If you have a track record of success, people will want to follow you. If you are pushing people toward shared success, they will tend to stick with you because they are succeeding. In some cases they may even start mimicking some of your poor leadership habits thinking they are part of the reason for your success. Many people mistake success for good leadership skills. That is because people want to follow people with whom they can be successful. Obviously good leadership skills are very important. It is much better to lead with a solid vision and skillful leadership expertise.
Visionary leaders are the builders of a new dawn, working with imagination, insight, and boldness. They present a challenge that calls forth the best in people and brings them together around a shared sense of purpose. They work with the power of intentionality and alignment with a higher purpose. Their eyes are on the horizon, not just on the near at hand. They are social innovators and change agents, seeing the big picture and thinking strategically.  There is a profound interconnectedness between the leader and the whole, and true visionary leaders serve the good of the whole. They recognize that there is some truth on both sides of most polarized issues in our society today. They search for solutions that transcend the usual adversarial approaches and address the causal level of problems. They find a higher synthesis of the best of both sides of an issue and address the systemic root causes of problems to create real breakthroughs. 
Visionary Leaders become Transformational leaders who are more charismatic and inspiring in the eyes of their followers. They inspire commitment, instill a vision and excite people. They are well trusted and their followers place confidence in them. Transformational leaders give individual consideration. They pay attention to individual differences in subordinates' needs for growth and development. They coach, mentor and assign tasks that not only satisfy immediate needs, but stretch peoples’ capabilities in an effort toward improvement. They also link the individual's current needs to the organization’s mission.  Transformational leaders provide intellectual stimulation and motivation. They raise peoples' awareness of issues and problems. They help people become aware of their own thoughts, imagination, beliefs and values. It is through intellectual stimulation that transformational leaders facilitate the generation of new methods of accomplishing the organizational mission.
3.2       What is it that makes a visionary become a visionary leader?
A visionary may dream wonderful visions of the future and articulate them with great inspiration. A visionary is good with words.  But a visionary leader is good with actions as well as words, and so can bring his/her vision into being in the world, thus transforming it in some way. Something beyond words is needed for a vision to take form in today’s world.  It requires leadership and heartfelt commitment. A visionary leader is effective in manifesting his or her vision because s/he creates specific, achievable goals, initiates action and enlists the participation of others.
What is the mysterious inner process within leaders that enables them to work their magic and radiate the charisma that mobilizes others for a higher purpose?  Visionary leadership is based on a balanced expression of the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical dimensions.  It requires core values, clear vision, empowering relationships, and innovative action.  When one or more of these dimensions is missing, leadership cannot manifest a vision.  The best visionary leaders move energy to a higher level by offering a clear vision of what is possible. They inspire people to be better than they already are and help them identify with what Lincoln called “the angels of their better nature.”  This was the power of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The creative power of lighted, inspired words can sound a certain inner note that people recognize and respond to.  This, then, creates dramatic social change. Like King, visionary leaders have the ability to sense the deeper spiritual needs of the followers and link their current demands to this deeper, often unspoken, need for purpose and meaning.
Visionary leaders often have the ability to see higher spiritual forces at work behind the scenes of events, and they align with the vision of these redemptive forces.  Both George Washington and Winston Churchill spoke about the help they received from a “guiding hand.”  Churchill said, “...we have a guardian because we serve a great cause, and we shall have that guardian as long as we serve that cause faithfully.”  Mahatma Gandhi called it “The still voice”.
4.         Leadership: Awakening the Sleeping Giant.
Globalization has ushered in an era of competition and impersonal existence with emphasis exclusively on task and results. Persons and their uniqueness have become things of the past. Survival of the fittest has come to stay. Success at any cost seems to have become the maxim. Competencies and talents often remain buried in this world of cut throat competition. And yet when institutions and organizations are ready to embark on a journey of inspiring, motivating, leading and mentoring their protégés and employees, the result would be incomparable: Big dreams shall be ignited; sleeping giants shall be awakened.
4.1       The 5 P’s of Leadership: Passion, Persistence, People, Process (this includes Planning) and Profit.
One has to keep in mind the 5 P's of leadership: Passion, Persistence, People, Process (this includes Planning) and Profit.  A visionary leader will ignite the big dream with passion and perseverance.  People would always be on the focus and will strategically plan out the process and create a win-win situation where all the stakeholders will reap the profit of the envisioned change and paradigm shift.  The leader is Passionate about what he has envisioned.  Mahatma Gandhi envisioned the freedom of the Country and he was passionate about it.  Despite the set backs, divergent views on the means of securing independence he persisted in his method of non-violence and Satyagraha.  He involved people and became a Mass-leader for all times.  He planned out events like Civil Disobedience Movement, Dandi Salt-March, Swadeshi movement, Charkha and the rest.  He showed the people the profit of such a movement – Freedom from the British through Non-violent means.
4.2       The 6 E’s of Leadership: Envision, Enable, Empower, Energize, Execute and Evaluate.
Leadership depends on having a unique vision, making strategic choices, finding the right tools and people to do the job, and designing and enabling an organization to get it done.  Leadership is about understanding people, and about getting people, pointing and acting in the same direction. The unique role of a leader is then to provide the energy and commitment to see this job through, and ensuring execution is perfect. Leadership is about listening, and making a real "connect" with others. It is a process.
We call this process the 6 E’s of Envision, Enable, Empower, Energize, Execute and Evaluate. The framework has been developed by studying historical Leaders.  The 6 E’s framework applies equally to Leadership in different cultural backgrounds – important to Leader’s of today’s’ multicultural Enterprises.
In each of the E's (Envision, Enable. Empower, Energize, Execute and Evaluate) we are working with two axes.  On the one hand, we are working with Operational parameters – the strategies, the tools, the measurements.  At the other side, we are dealing with Organizational and people issues. 
Step 1: Envision
Leadership starts with having a vision, then developing a plan to achieve it. It is based both on data assessment and intuition, hope and fear. It is a noble challenge. A vision of the future is the key to getting started as a Leader. Without one, go back to square one.
Envisioning starts with having a clear view of the external world.  It drives the formation of the mission of the Enterprise, and builds clear, mutual goals.  In day-to-day work, it is helpful to distinguish between verbal objectives (the mission), and numerical objectives (the goals).
A vision that is likely to come true has to take account of the culture of the Enterprise.  For example, a slow moving bureaucracy is not likely to succeed as a “New Economy” Enterprise without significant cultural change.  The Leader then has a choice – mold the vision and strategy to the capabilities and values of the culture – or change the culture to achieve a different future for the Enterprise. A decision either direction will have enormous consequences for the change program undertaken.
Step 2: Enable
The Envisioning step forces decisions on choices – strategies, in other wordsLeaders must then decide what methods or tools will be used to enable the objectives, and to encourage the right kind of action.
There are essentially two kinds of enabling mechanisms – both built on innovation. The first mechanisms (along what we defined as the “Operational” axis) include tools, technologies, and business methodologies. The second set of enabling mechanisms (on the “Organizational” axis) includes processes and structure. It also means ensuring the Enterprise has the right people and the right skill sets to get the job done. All these require building on the Enterprise’s culture and values.  This could mean the deliberate elimination of counterproductive values or structure - but there will always be a structure and a set of processes in place.
Step 3: Empower
Given a clear vision, strategy and enabling tool kit, the third step of the Leadership process is empowering people to achieve the goals. There is a “deal” between the Leader and his or her followers. The followers and the Leader have a contract, for success and failure, reward and sanction, on both sides. Both are given mutual freedom, yet held mutually accountable. Both are thus empowered3.
Effective empowerment provides the space to get the task completed, the space to innovate, and the feedback mechanism to both improve results and to motivate the organization.
Again, there are two sides to empowerment.  On the “Organizational” axis, the team needs to be given the training to get the job done.  This is self-evident. The empowerment must also bring rewards to all parties, and sanctions or challenges for improvement.
On the “Operational” axis, both Leaders and Followers need to be able to measure progress against the goals, in a transparent way, which also encourages dialog and continuous improvement.
We view this as another expression of the point made earlier that the mission of the Enterprise must take into account its values and its culture. A Leader must therefore work hard to understand how national culture affects the way people react – all constituencies, but especially employees and customers. That being said, bending to the local culture without thought to the Enterprise’s “culture in the making” will lead to inconsistency and chaos.  As ever, the Leader’s job is one of thoughtful balance. From personal experience, the most practical Leadership approach across a multi-cultural group is one of facilitation. 
Trust via empowerment.
The overall impact of empowerment is to build trust. There are many ways to do this, all of which are as applicable to networks as in any other context. A word of warning – trust is not something a group can just agree to have.  It is built over time4.
Step 4: Energize
So, the goal is clear, the plan is in place, and the troops are both motivated and armed.  Still, there is an essential ingredient missing. The Leadership role demands the skills of energizing the organization to act.  In fact, whilst we hope every member of a team "Energizes" others, one could argue that this Energizing step is a very personal one.  By contrast the previous three steps usually involve shared actions by the entire team.  For the members of the team, probably the maximum energy will result from the combination of winning (in the marketplace) and achieving a sense of personal success and satisfaction. The more energy the team generates, the more energy the Leader has – in a virtuous circle of reinforcement.
On the other, “Operational” axis, we see that continuous communication and course corrections are the key activities of the Leader.  This includes “walking the talk”, consistency, continuous communication with the team, personal persuasiveness and clarity.  The Leader is a kind of motor for the change – the moment he or she flags or shows a lack of resolve, the team will loose energy, and results will suffer.
One classic energizer involves expressing the vision and goals in a "story", which builds understanding and the desire for action in the followers. A great example of a "story" is John Kennedy’s "put a man on the moon and return him home safely by the end of the decade". This energized an entire nation, its military and its industries. He stuck to the script, and even after his death, the mission was accomplished.
To energize in the correct way one need to have “emotional maturity” and “emotional intelligence.” That is where Goleman’s work fits.  It is no use just having all of the Leadership theory in your head – you must have the maturity to be able to use it and energize others. There has been much written about Emotional Intelligence (developed by Daniel Goleman5, and it is an important concept. The concept includes self-awareness and impulse control, persistence, zeal and self-motivation, empathy, and social deftness. All these attributes are fundamental to excellent, personal Leadership skills.  We believe that emotional intelligence fits inside the energizing role of a Leader, rather than as a separate focus. We are helped to this conclusion by the many studies that demonstrate that successful Leaders have had a varied and challenging career.  This puts them through their “Leadership training paces” at each stage, en route to becoming a world class Leader. By contrast, individuals who have not had the opportunity to build long-term programs, or who have spent all of their time in focus area, tend not to make the best Leaders.  This breadth of experience, and the challenges associated with such a career, not only serves to broaden the Leader’s skill base, but also help his or her emotional development. 
Step 5: Execute
Execution applies at every stage of the Leadership process.  It takes courage to translate the vision into reality by implementing the decisions made.  One may have to take hard decisions and ensure that the dream is translated and becomes a reality.  Many a time good plans and innovative projects are not executed for lack of courage or due to procrastination. 
Step 6: Evaluate
The envisioned change has to be internalized and institutionalized. For this constant evaluation based on a feed back from the stakeholders is necessary. A critical activity of the Leader is also to provide feedback on progress, and to “course correct” as needed. There will be many mid-course corrections, to reach the goals whilst taking account of new information, roadblocks, issues and plain mistakes along the way.
5.         Conclusion:
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” - John Quincy Adams. Leaders make things happen. A visionary leader stands for enhancing and sustaining quality, empowering people and ushering in the required paradigm shift to redefine the vision and mission of the institution and meet the challenges of the times. Institutions flourish or perish depending largely on the leadership qualities of the persons at the helm of affairs, six Sigma effect of change can be brought about by transformational leadership which would make the team explore the latent potentials and produce the required synergy to sustain the envisioned change.
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References:
2.Filicetti, John (August 20, 2007). "Project Management Dictionary". PM Hut. http://www.pmhut.com/pmo-and-project-management-dictionary. Retrieved 16th of  November 2009. 
3. A very practical approach to Empowerment is in McLagan, Patricia & Nel, Christo 1995. “The Age of Participation”, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.
4. A clear and practical handbook on the subject of building trust is Shaw, Robert Bruce 1997. “Trust in the Balance”, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
5. The "LeaderValues" logo is a UK Registered Trademark and the "4E's.

Survival of the fittest

"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase which is commonly used in contexts other than intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert Spencer (who coined the term) and Charles Darwin.
Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."[1]
Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as a synonym for natural selection in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869.[2][3] Darwin meant it as a metaphor for "better adapted for immediate, local environment", not the common inference of "in the best physical shape".[4] Hence, it is not a scientific description.[5]
The phrase "survival of the fittest" is not generally used by modern biologists as the term does not accurately convey the meaning of natural selection, the term biologists use and prefer. Natural selection refers to differential reproduction as a function of traits that have a genetic basis. "Survival of the fittest" is inaccurate for two important reasons. First, survival is merely a normal prerequisite to reproduction. Second, fitness has specialized meaning in biology different from how the word is used in popular culture. In population genetics, fitness refers to differential reproduction. "Fitness" does not refer to whether an individual is "physically fit" – bigger, faster or stronger – or "better" in any subjective sense. It refers to a difference in reproductive rate from one generation to the next.[6]
An interpretation of the phrase "survival of the fittest" to mean "only the fittest organisms will prevail" (a view sometimes derided as "Social Darwinism") is not consistent with the actual theory of evolution. Any individual organism which succeeds in reproducing itself is "fit" and will contribute to survival of its species, not just the "physically fittest" ones, though some of the population will be better adapted to the circumstances than others. A more accurate characterization of evolution would be "survival of the fit enough".[7]
"Survival of the fit enough" is also emphasized by the fact that while direct competition has been observed between individuals, populations and species, there is little evidence that competition has been the driving force in the evolution of large groups. For example, between amphibians, reptiles and mammals; rather these animals have evolved by expanding into empty ecological niches.[8]
Moreover, to misunderstand or misapply the phrase to simply mean "survival of those who are better equipped for surviving" is rhetorical tautology. What Darwin meant was "better adapted for immediate, local environment" by differential preservation of organisms that are better adapted to live in changing environments. The concept is not tautological as it contains an independent criterion of fitness.[4]
History of the phrase
Herbert Spencer first used the phrase — after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species — in his Principles of Biology of 1864[9] in which he drew parallels between his economic theories and Darwin's biological, evolutionary ones, writing, “This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."[1]
In the first four editions of On the Origin of Species, Darwin used the phrase "natural selection".[10] Darwin wrote on page 6 of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication published in 1868, "This preservation, during the battle for life, of varieties which possess any advantage in structure, constitution, or instinct, I have called Natural Selection; and Mr. Herbert Spencer has well expressed the same idea by the Survival of the Fittest. The term "natural selection" is in some respects a bad one, as it seems to imply conscious choice; but this will be disregarded after a little familiarity". Darwin agreed with Alfred Russel Wallace that this new phrase — "survival of the fittest" — avoided the troublesome anthropomorphism of "selecting", though it "lost the analogy between nature's selection and the fanciers'". In Chapter 4 of the 5th edition of The Origin published in 1869,[2] Darwin implies again the synonym: "Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest".[3] By the word "fittest" Darwin meant "better adapted for immediate, local environment", not the common modern meaning of "in the best physical shape".[4] In the introduction he gave full credit to Spencer, writing "I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient."[11]
In The Man Versus The State, Spencer used the phrase in a postscript to justify a plausible explanation for why his theories would not be adopted by "societies of militant type". He uses the term in the context of societies at war, and the form of his reference suggests that he is applying a general principle.[12]
"Thus by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in all matters whatever".[13]
Herbert Spencer is credited with starting the concept of Social Darwinism.
The phrase "survival of the fittest" has become widely used in popular literature as a catchphrase for any topic related or analogous to evolution and natural selection. It has thus been applied to principles of unrestrained competition, and it has been used extensively by both proponents and opponents of Social Darwinism. Its shortcomings as a description of Darwinian evolution have also become more apparent (see below).
Evolutionary biologists criticize how the term is used by non-scientists and the connotations that have grown around the term in popular culture. The phrase also does not help in conveying the complex nature of natural selection, so modern biologists prefer and almost exclusively use the term natural selection. Indeed, in modern biology, the term fitness mostly refers to reproductive success, and is not explicit about the specific ways in which organisms can be "fit" as in "having phenotypic characteristics which enhance survival and reproduction" (which was the meaning that Spencer had in mind).
Also, see the section Conflation of "survival of the fittest" and morality below.
Is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?
"Survival of the fittest" is sometimes claimed to be a tautology.[14] The reasoning is that if one takes the term "fit" to mean "endowed with phenotypic characteristics which improve chances of survival and reproduction" (which is roughly how Spencer understood it), then "survival of the fittest" can simply be rewritten as "survival of those who are better equipped for surviving". Furthermore, the expression does become a tautology if one uses the most widely accepted definition of "fitness" in modern biology, namely reproductive success itself (rather than any set of characters conducive to this reproductive success). This reasoning is sometimes used to claim that Darwin's entire theory of evolution by natural selection is fundamentally tautological, and therefore devoid of any explanatory power.
However, the expression "survival of the fittest" (taken on its own and out of context) gives a very incomplete account of the mechanism of natural selection. The reason is that it does not mention a key requirement for natural selection, namely the requirement of heritability. It is true that the phrase "survival of the fittest", in and by itself, is a tautology if fitness is defined by survival and reproduction. Natural selection is the portion of variation in reproductive success, that is caused by heritable characters (see the article on natural selection).
If certain heritable characters increase or decrease the chances of survival and reproduction of their bearers, then it follows mechanically (by definition of "heritable") that those characters that improve survival and reproduction will increase in frequency over generations. This is precisely what is called "evolution by natural selection." On the other hand, if the characters which lead to differential reproductive success are not heritable, then no meaningful evolution will occur, "survival of the fittest" or not: if improvement in reproductive success is caused by traits that are not heritable, then there is no reason why these traits should increase in frequency over generations. In other words, natural selection does not simply state that "survivors survive" or "reproducers reproduce"; rather, it states that "survivors survive, reproduce and therefore propagate any heritable characters which have affected their survival and reproductive success". This statement is not tautological: it hinges on the testable hypothesis that such fitness-impacting heritable variations actually exist (a hypothesis that has been amply confirmed.)
Skeptic Society founder and Skeptic magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer addresses this argument in his 1997 book, Why People Believe Weird Things, in which he points out that although tautologies are sometimes the beginning of science, they are never the end, and that scientific principles like natural selection are testable and falsifiable by virtue of their predictive power. Shermer points out, as an example, that population genetics accurately demonstrate when natural selection will and will not effect change on a population. Shermer hypothesizes that if hominid fossils were found in the same geological strata as trilobites, it would be evidence against natural selection.[15]
Conflation of "Survival of the fittest" and morality
Critics of evolution have argued that "survival of the fittest" provides a justification for behaviour that undermines moral standards by letting the strong set standards of justice to the detriment of the weak.[16] However, any use of evolutionary descriptions to set moral standards would be a naturalistic fallacy (or more specifically the is-ought problem), as prescriptive moral statements cannot be derived from purely descriptive premises. Describing how things are does not imply that things ought to be that way. It is also suggested that "survival of the fittest" implies treating the weak badly, even though in some cases of good social behaviour — cooperating with others and treating them well — might improve evolutionary fitness.[17][18] This however does not resolve the is-ought problem.
It has also been claimed that "the survival of the fittest" theory in biology was interpreted by late 19th century capitalists as "an ethical precept that sanctioned cut-throat economic competition" and led to "social Darwinism" which allegedly glorified laissez-faire economics, war and racism[19]. However these ideas predate and commonly contradict Darwin's ideas, and indeed their proponents rarely invoked Darwin in support, while commonly claiming justification from religion and Horatio Alger mythology. The term "social Darwinism" referring to capitalist ideologies was introduced as a term of abuse by Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought published in 1944.[18][20]
Using the phrase "survival of the fittest" as a criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution is an example of the appeal to consequences fallacy: use of the concept of survival of the fittest as a justification for violence in human society has no effect on the truth of 'the theory of evolution by natural selection' in the natural biological world.
"Survival of the fittest" and anarchism
Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin viewed the concept of "survival of the fittest" as supporting co-operation rather than competition. In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution he set out his analysis leading to the conclusion that the fittest was not necessarily the best at competing individually, but often the community made up of those best at working together. He concluded that
In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense — not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress.
Applying this concept to human society, Kropotkin presented mutual aid as one of the dominant factors of evolution, the other being self assertion, and concluded that
In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle – has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race.
References

^ "Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology of 1864, vol. 1, p. 444, wrote: 'This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection", or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.'" Maurice E. Stucke, Better Competition Advocacy, http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=maurice_stucke, retrieved 2007-08-29, citing HERBERT SPENCER, THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY 444 (Univ. Press of the Pac. 2002.)

2.      ^ a b Freeman, R. B. (1977), "On the Origin of Species", The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (2nd ed.), Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent, England: Wm Dawson & Sons Ltd, http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html, retrieved 2009-02-22 
3.      ^ a b "This preservation of favourable variations, and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest." — Darwin, Charles (1869), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (5th ed.), London: John Murray, pp. 91–92, http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F387&pageseq=121, retrieved 2009-02-22 
4.      ^ a b c "Stephen Jay Gould, Darwin's Untimely Burial", 1976; from Michael Ruse, ed., Philosophy of Biology, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998, pp. 93-98.
5.      ^ "Evolutionary biologists customarily employ the metaphor 'survival of the fittest,' which has a precise meaning in the context of mathematical population genetics, as a shorthand expression when describing evolutionary processes." Chew, Matthew K.; Laubichler, Manfred D. (July 4, 2003), "PERCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE: Natural Enemies — Metaphor or Misconception?", Science 301 (5629): 52–53, doi:10.1126/science.1085274, PMID 12846231, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/301/5629/52, retrieved 2008-03-20 
7.      ^ Evolution Vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Eugenie Carol Scott, University of California Press, 2005, ISBN 0520233913
9.      ^ Vol. 1, p. 444
10.  ^ U. Kutschera (March 14, 2003), A Comparative Analysis of the Darwin-Wallace Papers and the Development of the Concept of Natural Selection, Institut für Biologie, Universität Kassel, Germany, archived from the original on 2008-04-14, http://web.archive.org/web/20080414023545/http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb19/plantphysiology/wallace.pdf, retrieved 2008-03-20 
12.  ^ The principle of natural selection applied to groups of individual is known as Group selection.
13.  ^ Herbert Spencer; Truxton Beale (1916), The Man Versus the State: A Collection of Essays, M. Kennerley, http://books.google.com/?id=_Fg8kw8ztWkC  (snippet)
15.  ^ Shermer, Michael; Why People Believe Weird Things; 1997; Pages 143-144