What motivated me to start 'Managing Systemic Change'
Thursday 22 November 2018 at 11:22
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What 'sticky situation' motivated me to start this module?
I don’t think there was one specific sticky situation - the immediate prompt to go back to studying was providing career summary/ history as part of a supplier pre-qualification process. This made me realise that there was a long gap since I'd last studied or done any personal development. My immediate response was, when I had time, to start looking at leadership development options - not academic study. Although I did want some academic input and challenge.
I found, personal leadership development, in the current market, is mainly available via in-company programmes. There are very few available publicly. And many that are advertised turn out to be much more focussed on coaching skills rather than leadership. So then I turned to look at academic courses - specifically ones which were modular/ part time to enable me to fit them in round my freelance work pattern.
Re-looked at MBAs but they really didn’t appeal - the course material is very set and didn’t offer much flexibility. The OU MSc Open was definitely of interest - except that I wanted to do all the optional modules rather than the core ones. But this did make me consider doing an MSc - so looked in more detail at what was available.
The title of this module 'systemic change' really appealed. Note at this stage I hadn't even looked at the course content. The idea that someone had put some thought into how to manage and achieve sustainable change in a holistic manner was great. I had some early experiences of systems projects (especially IT ones) where the box was delivered and the project considered complete without any recognition of embedding the system, reviewing effectiveness or measuring benefits delivered. Even when a business case had been developed the idea of referring back to it to establish whether the outcomes had been achieved was alien - and in some cases actively resisted.
So I jumped in and signed up for Managing Systemic Change.
Has it turned out as expected? Mmmm not sure yet. But its certainly challenging my thinking.
What motivated me to start 'Managing Systemic Change'
What 'sticky situation' motivated me to start this module?
I don’t think there was one specific sticky situation - the immediate prompt to go back to studying was providing career summary/ history as part of a supplier pre-qualification process. This made me realise that there was a long gap since I'd last studied or done any personal development. My immediate response was, when I had time, to start looking at leadership development options - not academic study. Although I did want some academic input and challenge.
I found, personal leadership development, in the current market, is mainly available via in-company programmes. There are very few available publicly. And many that are advertised turn out to be much more focussed on coaching skills rather than leadership. So then I turned to look at academic courses - specifically ones which were modular/ part time to enable me to fit them in round my freelance work pattern.
Re-looked at MBAs but they really didn’t appeal - the course material is very set and didn’t offer much flexibility. The OU MSc Open was definitely of interest - except that I wanted to do all the optional modules rather than the core ones. But this did make me consider doing an MSc - so looked in more detail at what was available.
The title of this module 'systemic change' really appealed. Note at this stage I hadn't even looked at the course content. The idea that someone had put some thought into how to manage and achieve sustainable change in a holistic manner was great. I had some early experiences of systems projects (especially IT ones) where the box was delivered and the project considered complete without any recognition of embedding the system, reviewing effectiveness or measuring benefits delivered. Even when a business case had been developed the idea of referring back to it to establish whether the outcomes had been achieved was alien - and in some cases actively resisted.
So I jumped in and signed up for Managing Systemic Change.
Has it turned out as expected? Mmmm not sure yet. But its certainly challenging my thinking.