The Fetish of Change
"Change is a notion which is drawn upon in a largely unthinking, but very significant, way so that it takes on an almost magical character.
Change is like a totem before which we must prostrate ourselves and in the face of which we are powerless." - The Festish of Change
‘The snail! The snail!’, they cry. ‘How can we possibly escape!? - Is The Pace of Change Really Such A Shock?
Sometimes, I find it useful to challenge my own assumptions. I was particularly taken by the following articles as they made me consider something I have been asking recently: is our time any different than any other time? Are things really speeding up?* Or are we simply afraid of a small, slow moving snail?
…As a change agent I am often wondering how we can cope with flow, what is the best way to do this, if there are all these ways out there, what ways of being or methods or questions can I introduce to clients (or myself) to be more effective/comfortable with change?…and so forth. My most recent discovery was we have a lot to learn from trees**.
In any case, I thought you might like to check your assumptions on change too:
- The Fetish of Change: a more academic article, by Chris Gray
- The Fetish of Change: a blog posting by Johnnie Moore
- Is The Pace of Change Really Such A Shock?: an article on the changes at the BBC by Tom Coates
–> I am particularly chuckling about this line by Tom:
"The only way that snails catch you up is if you’re too self-absorbed to see them coming."
Back into Change Agent mode (yes yes, this is a hard pattern to break…) regardless of the actual speed things are going, our perceptions that things are going faster are likely to be self-fulfilling…so here is an Action:
"We need people to watch the industries that could have an impact upon them, take them seriously, don’t freak out and observe what’s moving in their direction and then just do the basic work to be ready for it."
Happy observing and preparing…and remember, to some extent real change can happen both in leaps and as a culmination of is snail steps/snail sized turns…even snails can cover a long and varied terrain over time!
* For the record, I still do think the answer is yes to both these question…
** As usual it is common for me to digress, but I find trees offter us a very healthy metaphor for how to cope with continous large and small change - will try and blog on this tomorrow…
Thanks to Communigations for the links…and to 2005tigarn for the photo via Flickr
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September 26th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
And as I recall - the Turtle beats the hare