March 25, 2011
School of Business, Bengaluru
 

Mr. Scott Smith, Director & COO, Deloitte India Tax Operations, was in our Bengaluru campus for a colloquium lecture titled Looking Through the Lenses – Change Management from the Perspective of an Expatriate. First- and second- year MBA-MS students attended.
 

First-year students Apoorv Singhal and Meghdoot Bhattacharjee report.
 

A famous personality once said, “There are three things that are inevitable in this world – death, taxes and change”. Among these three, change is the only thing that is happening at a really fast pace in the world today.
 

Change was an apt topic for today’s discussion at a time when the first batch of students from ASB, Bengaluru are graduating and stepping into the outside world to embrace the inevitable change.
 

It was an honour to have among us, Mr. Scott Smith, Director & COO of Tax Operations for Deloitte India member firms. As an expatriate, Scott has served in multiple roles including that of a tax training coordinator and tax operations leader.
 

“In 99% of the cases, change is highly resisted,” he said. “People are always sceptical about working out of their comfort zone. People like to remain within their known boundaries. When the boundary disappears, people are lost.”
 

“Therefore, being able to leverage and manage change helps people,” he stated.
 

Emphasizing that change should be meaningful, Scott noted that bringing in change without understanding its implications would be futile.
 

“It is crucial that one realises what he or she doesn’t know, and such a person should never be afraid of asking questions,” he underlined.
 

Quoting a popular mantra to cope with change, Scott shared the philosophy of Reinvent, Redeploy and Recharge.
 

“Change brings people forward; change helps people in developing and learning new skills. Change allows a person to take the entrepreneurial path, and eventually differentiates one from the rest,” he added.
 

Towards the closure of the session, he spoke about the importance of calculating the trade-off between bringing in change and going the old-fashioned way. “Some amount of rationality has to be taken into account while bringing in change. Having a mentor who can advice and help with decision-making, will make it easier to embrace change,” he said.
 

“It is important to be ready to embrace change with an open mind and an optimistic attitude,” he finally noted.