English: Change Management and Newton’s Laws of Motion 

Source: google.com

During our life, we have seen various changes in almost every aspect of our life that directly or indirectly affect us. Experts say that change would probably never stop and indeed we are currently in the ever changing process itself. We need to be always optimistic about any change because it would surely bring us into a new better things for our life. At first, we tend to assume that it would be seemingly a bit worse for our life but that is just our shallow perspective because everything must be changing continuously to fit in into a newer thing.

In this article, we are gonna be discussing about the change management for which explains why some companies and people are reluctant to make a change. Change management is one of the branch of the social sciences, but we also see various changes in the nature as well to meet the fundamental balance. For instance, the circulation of celestial bodies and the ecosystem equilibrium.

There have been already a lot of cases that some firms had to be permanently closed and die due to its disability to make a change. Why have many firms been unable to change even though they are the experienced ones and well established? 

Newton’s Laws of Motion which is the part of natural sciences surprisingly can explain it. Did you still remember this law which had been discovered by Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)?

• First Law: an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity , unless acted uponby a force  
• Second Law: the force on an object is equal to the mass of that object times its acceleration.
• Third Law: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equally in the opposite  direction on the first body as well. 

First law can explain us why some firms are kind of being difficult to change because of an inertia, they tend to maintain the initial state, consequently they would need an even greater amount of energy to move forward, as a result they wouldn’t move at all as it became harder. However, if they didn’t move at all, they tended to only maintain its initial state for the inertia, and eventually they wouldn’t go for a change at all for eternity. That’s why it would always need such a significant breakthrough to start making a change. Thousands steps always start from one. 

Evidently, there is a case in the real business life about the first law. For instance is the innovation of Uber and Airbnb which disrupted the conventional taxi and traditional hotel business. Many sophisticated businesses or the old players tend to be comfortable with their mature business. They are usually objected to innovate their obsolete business due to an inertia they have, consequently they deny to take new risks. When the Uber and Airbnb come into the market, they have completely changed the way of ordering a taxi and booking a hotel room a lot easier and cheaper especially for millennials who prefer to use apps. Online booking and ordering make their life more convenient and such a practical way of living for millennials as a growing customers segment. Old business model like conventional taxi or traditional hotel business are now more lagged behind. Wouldn’t they change their obsolete business soon, they would always be lagged behind the Airbnb and Uber.

The third law which explains about the action-reaction, states that almost every change that is happening, there will always be people or society who are resistance to it. However, it is apparently reasonable to happen in the social life as it being explained by the third law of motion. For example, when the Indonesian government was launching the BPJS (Indonesian national health insurance system), many people and certain organizations like private hospitals and clinics avowedly refused this new health insurance system. This new health insurance system has made healthcare system more affordable to anyone and prompted more people to use this new system and made them unwilling to visit the private hospitals anymore. It inevitably causes many private clinics and hospitals in the brink of collapse due to the declining revenues. Some people also expressed their discontent with the BPJS service and its bad claim process to the social media. Many parties spread some bad news and rumors about the BPJS to ruin its image and make people less likely to sign up for a BPJS account. 

So, what should we do to be more willing to accept those inevitable changes and get used to it?

First, throw away any dogma out of our mind. If we still believe dogma, it is always going to be difficult to start a change. Who knows that a PC was initially considered as a toy and would die soon. But today, every office needs PC to do the work.

Who knows that many experts doubted and skeptical about the creation of a rocket because it would need a larger fuel tank to operate. If everyone had believed it, the human wouldn’t ever have stepped on the moon and there were no international communication, and even no internet. That’s s the danger of dogma which could hinder humanity from progress. Therefore, we have to eliminate all kind of dogma which might have nested in our head for a long time. 

Second, principle of spiral pendulum. We may think that the past events tended to happen again in the future like a rotation of an hour finger. Nevertheless, it could be relatively wrong. Past events or trends will not happen again in the future. But the future events tend to happen again based on the past events and have some similarities. Various trends have happened in our life, for instance, power balance bracelet, tulip mania, louhan fish, supreme sweater, anthurium plants and likewise. Those kind of collectibles items trends will not happen again in the future but there are similarities, all of the goods mentioned above are collectibles items which tend to be expensive during its insane nonsense and would be merely invaluable when the trend ends. What trends that could probably have happened again in the future? Hence, when we are entering into a new era, we should definitely change our way of thinking by engaging the spiral pendulum pattern.

Third, we have to tackle all kind of inertia and start moving. It is unarguably important to start moving even though only with a small step, so we can move and make a change. A small step could lead to a tremendous change. If we remained motionless, we wouldn’t go anywhere. Hence, we better start moving and make a little meaningful step. Remember that thousands steps start from a single step.

Fourth, based on the Action-Rection Law, it is indisputable fact that we can’t make a significant change in a short period of time, instead we can only make it gradually. If we made a sudden change and forced anyone to be receptive to it quickly, there would be a resistance equally in the opposite direction and it could even lead to a social unrest. Change process should be undertaken gradually by educating people through a social discussion, persuasive public speaking, or engaging them by making a positive impact on the social community together.

Now, you may understand that the Newton’s Laws of Motion has clearly explained us why does change sound so difficult for anyone of us. By writing this article, I hope it could eventually make you more being aware of any changes that may be likely to have been happening and make you more open-minded to anything that is possible. Let’s make a change!