Session 3 ELEVEN

Develop and articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation of your choice.

There are five essential elements contain in the framework for leadership which is made by Michael Fullan (2001): moral purpose, understanding change, relationship building, knowledge creation and sharing, coherence making.

When take consider into the organization that I involved in, the leading change in TV station can be analyzed by this framework as following:

Moral purpose

As a crucial part of media industry, TV station must take the “tell the truth and guide the correct orientation for public opinion” as its highest moral purpose， and so as all people who take media as their career should do. However, the sense of this moral sometime cannot be taught directly, staff should foster it through day-by-day working. Most media people suffer the stress of bettering TV rating, some would try, for example, making fake news.

In TV station, every program would be censored by program audit section. This process aims at make sure that all content is according to broadcast standards and secure that no biased, no exaggerated, no fraudulent content would be spread out. Thus, in order to pass the censorship, the staff must keep the “tell the truth and guide the correct orientation for public opinion” in mind conscientiously, or they would have great chance to be fired.

Maybe it is not a perfect way to cultivate the moral purpose, but at least, every staff can bear the purpose in mind.

Understanding change & Relationship building

As I mentioned in week 2’s blog, a TV station will die out if with no continuous development/change. So as all TV station did, Channel Zhejiang reintegrates the channel resources and creative new program according to the market need. When new program emerged, it is certainly that a new program-making group would be set up, so that at the same time, some staff get a chance to work with different colleagues and try another cooperative relationship through a new team working. At the same time, the leaders would observe and compare each individual’s team-working performance and besides, master each one’s character, with whom she/he cooperate would be better, so that leaders can make a wiser decision when rebuild program group.

Knowledge creation and sharing

The most common formats of knowledge in a TV station are audio & image. Every procedure of program making is a time of knowledge creation.

From program design to shooting & recording, they produce knowledge, which is recorded on the video tapes, related to vast majority of fields. Meanwhile, sometimes staff would make mistakes in the course of program making, they can accumulate experience when correct these mistakes, it becomes an intangible knowledge asset to TV station which can be shared by all staff.

Broadcasting these TV programs is the method of sharing valuable information & knowledge to the public. Then, all the video tapes will be recycled for storage, even the tapes of news. Though every piece of news has its timeliness, it does not mean that they become useless once broadcasted, they still can be the recordings for today’s history. Thus, all the tapes will be put in a warehouse, which is the most abundant information/knowledge base for a TV station. During the time of storage, every staff can browse these program tapes as references for their working or studying needs. It is a way of knowledge sharing.

After 2 years, tapes would be disposed in diverse ways. Generally, news tapes will be reused to record new programs. Others especially those record TV documentaries or those can be used for educational purpose will be preserved forever or donated to library, museum, film archive, or some exhibitions. At that time, even the public can share these knowledge.

Coherence making

At this point, I suppose the coherence making is ultimate goal of other four components. As I realize that all mentioned above can finally achieve a harmonious environment for working. Cultivating moral purpose can make every staff professional and work more sincerely, understanding change & relationship building can drive staff’s enthusiasm of working and organize several most matchable & effective working groups, knowledge creation and sharing can promote everyone study and common progress; they together are a kind of coherence making.