Resistance to Change

One of the most baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which people in all segments of life, whether work or personal life face is the resistance to change in or from people around. Any type of Change is, put in simple words, a variation in pre-existing habits, methods, customs and conventions. Change is always inevitable but so is resistance to change. It is the basic human nature of people to try and keep their methods and customs constant.

In order to facilitate transitions and changes, we should identify the exact reason for resistance. People generally find it convenient to continue doing something what they have always been doing. Making them learn something new is difficult. Changes always bring about alterations in a person’s duties, powers and influences. People who are adamant on maintaining customs instead of taking risks and doing new things will always resist changes. This can happen either due to their insecurities or lack of creativity and will.

Ambitious Zombies

The new generation is motivated: it combines the cultural values of the traditional Indian family with the life goals of the western teenager. No matter how poorly placed they find themselves now, they actually constitute the world’s largest ever cohort of like-minded young people, and they find absolutely no reason why the world shouldn’t run by their rules.

A point of concern but still remains that there aren’t enough jobs to go around. The sheer number of young people has yet to become an asset: only 2.3% of the Indian workforce has had formal training. Secure work is hard to find in India. Entire districts of one or two cities are devoted to call-centre scams. The work has its attractions – one of them is outsmarting foreigners who believe they are smarter, as well as richer, than you are – but the main driver of recruitment is push rather than pull.

Today, although baby boomers are the largest generation of active workers, research shows that boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory, optimism, and their willingness to work long hours. This generation grew up in organizations with large corporate hierarchies, rather than flat management structures and teamwork-based job roles. On the other hand, millennials have a drastically different outlook on what they expect from their employment experience. Millennials are well educated, skilled in technology, very self-confident, able to multi-task, and have plenty of energy. They have high expectations for themselves, as well as from the teams they work in teams, instead of individuals in it. Millennials seek challenges, yet work life balance is of utmost importance to them. They do, however, realize that their need for social interaction, immediate results in their work, and desire for speedy advancement may be seen as weaknesses by older colleagues.

While the Indian CEOs pooh-pooh the issue of work-life balance by saying we have to work 18 hours and build the nation, the expats find the lack of work-life balance in India quite appalling. Unlike the West, there's no distinction between work and life in India — they are fused. Expat CEOs believe spending long hours in the office equates with inefficiency. It's actually hard work done smartly that takes you the long way. At the end of the day, time management is important.