1.

0 Business Leadership in the CCID Economy

The World is changing like never before: our children were born with digital technology as
part of their DNA, our parents are pushing the frontiers of ICT as they increase their life
expectancy; neo-urbanization is blurring the boundaries between urban and rural areas and
hyperconnectivity is changing the way we live and work. Some amongst the megatrend that we
talked in class are : Mega-Cities,E-Mobility, Geo-Socialization , Space Jam and etc.
However, one of the megatrend that the we are all actually talking about is the set up of 8
smart cities that the Mauritian Government had announced recently in its budget with a total sum
of 120 billion rupees. That project will bring a total revolution in the way of life we live and
play.During the residential seminar, my team mate and I had done a presentation on the smart
cities and its impact in the society and I was so delight while our Finance Minister announced
that he is planning to have smart cities in Mauritus.
Moreover the presentation that Mr Pants had on Big data was so inspiring and new to us.Big
data presents great opportunities as they help us develop new creative products and services, for
example apps on mobile phones or business intelligence products for companies. It can boost
growth and jobs , but also improve the quality of life.

2.0 Complexity and Managerial Challenges

I want to start this topic with a quote from M.L Menchen which says that for every
complex problem, there is an easy and clear solution, simple and wrong. This statement gives a
holistic approach to defining the complex nature of problems. When looking on Glouberman and
Zimmerman explanation on the differences between simple, complicated and complex things
they base their explanation on a simple situation as following a recipe, a complicated situation
with sending a rocket to the moon while a complex situation as raising a child. In every company

there will be times to solve different types of problem where some requires more resources than
others. In businesses it is also thought that complexity is unique as they provide solutions that
can be used as a opportunity to innovate and improve processes which was once complicated.
Moving on with computational thinking which was described as a problem solving
technique whereby understanding the human behaviors based upon computer science. To flourish
in today's world, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way people think
and understand the world. Computational thinking means creating and making use of different
levels of abstraction, to understand and solve problems more effectively. I am referring to the
seminar where it was mentioned that there are effective and efficient ways of solving problems.
One responding to the nature of the problem while the other one is addresses the problem
temporarily with the available resources.

3.0 Innovation in business leadership

Innovation or creativity, whatever the name being ascribed to it is a process without
which a business will fade into the business jungle. The bright idea that will generate millions
and make your brand be to the top is a whole process which starts with a simple idea till the
product conception. Innovation in business is vital nowadays. As discussed in the seminar in
todays world the nature of business is being greatly affected by the impact of globalization and
the merging of markets which forces businesses to be more and more creative with product
development.
In counterpart this rapid spurt of innovation is causing an invasive disruption of
technologies. An example of disruptive innovation is the use camera with the arrival of
smartphones and digital cameras which impacts on the economy with the closing of business
namely in America the Kodak company closed down in 2012 and left 10,000 people

unemployed. It is to be noted that Kodak was the first company to introduce photography a
century back.
Speaking about the learning curve or diffusion of innovation, it is in fact important to
understand how this impacts on todays business. Managers are fully knowledgeable about their
jobs but if they do not understand how innovation spreads it might certainly lead the business
into jeopardy. People like innovation very much and with the rapid evolution of science and
technology people craves for innovation more and more.
Innovation has two sides of the coin, it has its perks of facilitating our daily routines by
saving time and also at the same time it affects our social lives by making us more alienated than
we were before. Innovation in its very own nature is fueled by the need to add value to this
globally connected market.

4.0 Life -Long Learning for business leadership

Learning is a non-exhaustive process which starts from early childhood till the day we
die. Choosing to learn new things everyday is a healthy decision which most employees should
adopt. By having a learning workforce a company can better shape the success and offer the
opportunities to empower their needs. For this to happen the human resources department should
work closely with each employee in order to better define the ideal balance in order to provide
corporate learning and staff development opportunities.
In fact 70% of training should ideally take place on the job, then the 20% should be
conducted informally through mentoring programs and lastly the remaining 10% should be
conducted formally with proper training sessions

. In fact referring to Gadwells 10,000 hours rule whereby he states that to master a task it
requires roughly 10,000 hours of training. In Germany psychologists conducted a research on
violin students. When the researcher did ask the question on the number of hours it took them to
master the violin they identified that it took them more than 10,000 hours. Starting at age 5 the
violin students could play the violin well at age 8, and at age 20 the elite violin players
accumulated more than 10,000 hours of practice while the other students had only acquired 4,000
hours of practice. Adapting Gadwells theory into practice this would mean working on an
average of 45 hours weekly over a period of 5 years this would make 10,000hours of practice. So
if we follow this theory it would mean that it takes a worker 5 years to completely master his job.
This statement bothers me as looking back on motivational theories I can recall about job
rotation and job enrichment which completely go against encouraging a worker to do and overdo
the same task again and again.

5.0 Recommendation and Conclusion

Being gathered with my teammates on this week-end seminar was at first exciting, adventurous
and promising. I sound rather deceptive on my pitch but it was in fact enriching as it has widen
my horizons on innovation, complexity at work, leadership as well as learning in business.
Morning lectures at 9.00 a.m after having spent a sleepless night, not so much for me. Also I
would recommend having personal breaks just to have this time out from having a whole day
lecture. At some point, we could barely stay focus as I was so tired listening. It is difficult to
keep on having the same pace as the first day as the tiredness was having its toll on me.