Wholistic Learning for World-Class Enterprises

The concept of Wholistic Learning for world-class enterprises originated from Dr. KC Chan's doctoral research work in holistic management with the University of Strathclyde, Department of Marketing, in Glasgow, Scotland, where he graduated in June 1994. Subsequently, Dr. KC Chan published and presented an article on Wholistic Learning titled "Sustainable Competitive Success For Tomorrow's Company: The FIRMS Paradigm" at the "First World Congress on a Holistic Approach to Business / Management" held in Sydney, 11th -14th of January 1995. This event was organized by the University of Western Sydney.

The empirical research pointed out that the traditional marketing approach of 4P's, 7P's and 8P's to manage customer's experience and expectation is inadequate. It recommended the adoption of a holistic business and marketing approach by managing five interrelated relationships for sustainable competitive success, i.e. Total Quality Customer Care, Integrated Human Capital Development, Supply Chain Management, Distributor Network Management and World-Class Marketing- cum-Manufacturing.

This Wholistic Learning concept has been tested over the past 18 years from 1990 to 2007. It has proven to be a pragmatic, yet robust, concept with a framework for the effective and efficient training- cum -development of workers, managers and leaders to cope with the knowledge-based economy radically transformed by the turbulent forces of globalization.

The impact of globalization has changed the way businesses are conducted and managed. There is a clarion call for the re-orientation of the mind-set for both profit and non-profit organizations. Businesses used to be predictable in the Industrial Era of old. Now, businesses become very unpredictable in the new " projectized" global business environment. Strategic Advantage is no longer considered as a competitive advantage, unless we have the execution capability or Action advantage.

Enterprises are evolving at such a fast pace that managers must drive the business as though they are "owners" of the company. This is further complicated and impacted by globalization where businesses are inter-dependent and one of the solutions for corporate survival and/or longevity is to go regional, international, and global.

There is the constant movement of job shift, wealth shift and knowledge shift from one nation to another arising from Cost, Market, Government and Competitive globalization drivers. Therefore, collectively managers need to harness the spirit of the enterprise or Entrepreneurial Spirit to ride the turbulent waves in the global landscape as if they are "owners" of the enterprise.

The advanced nations are exposed earlier to the impact of globalization where they have transformed their competitiveness from being Factor-driven to Investment-driven, to Value-driven and to Wealth-driven. Enterprise Wealth can be created, earned and learned. The game plan for Enterprise Wealth is to create multi-streams of revenue for cross- subsidy effect for organic growth, cash flow or liquidity needs, succession planning, philanthropy, etc.

Arising from the need to achieve success by nurturing a high performance organisation culture through Entrepreneurial Spirit; the need to sustain success by developing a pool of talented team players through Execution Capability; the need for scalable success by managing resources beyond three generations of successors through Enterprise Wealth, warrants the mind-shift to become a Wholistic Learner.

Wholistic Learning capitalized on three coherent capabilities; i.e. Holistic thinking, Systems thinking and Critical thinking for peak performance. The paradigm shift for Wholistic Learning and its elements are depicted in the diagram below.

The purpose of creating and evangelizing the Wholistic Learning Body of Knowledge is to serve the mission of Sharing the knowledge for multiplying the Success of the individual, the team and the organization so as to make a Significance to the society, the community, the nation and the world at large as we advance from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age for Action Advantage.