Change is inevitable. We face it every day and every
day we are challenged as individuals, as families, as workers and as a society
to consistently move forward with change in the hopes that our contributions to
ourselves and those around us are sufficient enough to ensure success in our separate
endeavors either to ourselves or to one another. We have not just seen change.
We have experienced it and even more so, we have contributed to it. Transformations
of change have been witnessed for days, months, and years and will continue to
be witnessed for decades and centuries to come. Even if the change that we hope
for is not accomplished in the lifetime we live, we move on to the hope that our
friends, families and offspring experience this change in their own lifetimes
and benefit from the many opportunities it may have to offer.
Change isn’t a secret. It isn’t a
shadow lurking in the dark and it isn’t something we can run from. The only way
to deal with change is to take it head on. Allow for it to show its full
potential and its expectations of us, so we can then push forward with implementing
our own conscious decisions and creative solutions in dealing with the
revolutions that organizations, economies, cultures, technology and society
will throw before us. We “exist in an ever changing environment and therefore must
have the capacity to adapt.” (Brown, pg 33, 2011). But with all of the competition,
the negativity, and the challenges we face, how is this possible? How can we
ensure success and development, when the challenges and barriers of change are
always staring us dead in the face?
Matthew Taylor’s RSA Video Animation
the 21st Century Enlightenment tells us how we can
do this. The idea behind RSA’s video is to show the history of society and
remind us of where we came from and where we have the potential of going. It
begins by pinpointing some of our nation’s greatest pioneers and philosophers
such as Copernicus, Newton, and Galileo and the ideas and inspirations that stimulated
a movement toward a change to better our world and society as a whole. I
believe the video is called the Enlightenment because it focuses on a progressive
outlook on today’s society and “invites us to return to core principles of
autonomy, universalism and humanism, restoring dimensions which have been lost
and seeing new ways to fulfill these ideals” (Taylor, RSA Essay, Twenty-first
century enlightenment).
In the video Matthew Taylor states
that in order “to live differently you have to think differently” (Taylor, RSA
Animate, 21st Century Enlightenment). To me this is a challenge for
society to branch out of our traditional views and ways of thinking and become
more innovative with how we approach or see things. Taylor invites us to strategically
promote new ways of thinking and challenges us to stimulate our minds into
achieving a new level of social innovation that is rarely seen these days. I
think that the challenge Taylor sets before us is one to experiment with more
ways in becoming proactive rather than reactive to situations and the
challenges we face as a society. The driving force behind society’s successes
and failures stems from its contributors and to be successful, everyone
involved must ensure that they are doing their part to unleash revolutionary
ideas, products and creations that have the ability to reform and renew themselves
moving forward.
Taylor moves on in the video to state that we
need "to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely
familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange" (Taylor RSA
Animate, 21st Century Enlightenment). I think that Taylor means that
in order to advance and move forward with becoming innovators and strategic thinkers
which will help to advance our society, we must place ourselves in
uncomfortable positions and stop being so quick to make choices that are less intimidating
and more obvious to us. When we do this, all we are creating are conceptual
blocks within ourselves and others which inhibit us from creative problem
solving solutions. When we place negative emphasis on things that seem strange
to us or that we are uncomfortable with we are creating a conceptual blockage of
constancy, commitment, compression and complacency to our ways of thinking
resulting in reduced innovation and creativity of ideas.
Constancy
“occurs because individuals become wedded to one way of looking at a problem or
using one approach to define, describe or solve it” (Whetton and Cameron, Pg
186 2010). When we do this surviving the changes on our global society becomes
impossible as we are not able to effectively manage our social, technological
and environmental constraints. While we hold a commitment true to the successes
of our past, present and future, too much commitment can create issues as it
can also stifle creativity in decision making. “Two forms of commitment that
produce conceptual blocks are stereotyping based on past experiences and
ignoring commonalities” (Whetton and Cameron, Pg 189, 2010). When we follow
through on a “particular point of view definition or solution” (Whetton and
Cameron, Pg 188, 2010) we risk individual and societal progress.
Many different types of conceptual
blocks occur on a daily basis in professional as well as personal environments
making it that much more difficult for organizations and its members to remain
successful in their competitive environments. “Every organization must have
enough stability to continue to function satisfactorily and still prevent
itself from becoming too static or stagnant to adapt to changing conditions” (Brown,
Pg, 34, 2011). My current organization experienced a recent organizational
restructure which challenged its place in institutional effectiveness and
challenged its employees to move with the change of times. While upper
leadership promoted the efficiency of what the change would bring many
employees conceptual blocks of
compression and complacency didn’t allow them to see the vision our organization
had for us and our students.
Compression occurs when individuals
look “too narrowly at a problem, screening out too much relevant data and
making assumptions that inhibit problem solutions” (Whetton and Cameron, Pg,
190, 2010) and complacency occurs because of “fear, ignorance, insecurity, or
just plain mental laziness” (Whetton and Cameron, Pg, 190, 2010). It was clear
that with the new organizational changes that would be implemented many staff
member had their blinders on and were hesitant on accepting them in fear of how
the reform would positively and negatively affect them. According to Taylor individuals
need to be more proactive, positive and engaged by the reform that society
faces. He moves on to state that we should be more involved in the choices that
are made, and give permission to our leaders to make positive long term
decisions for us. Lastly, Taylor states that society has to be more cognizant on
how our own behaviors and actions shape the choices that are made for us.
(Taylor, RSA Essay, Twenty-first century enlightenment).
I would agree with Taylor when he
states that we should spend more time developing empathetic citizens as it
promotes an environment of citizens who are more emotionally aware of others as
well as self aware of the emotions, actions and intentions. While achieving
global empathy may seem impossible, I believe that the positive effects of our
efforts are what we make of them. Improvement of more simplified factors such
as social and emotional awareness can lead to larger changes in the technical,
structural, psychosocial and managerial subsystems we all experience within our
organizations as well as environment. Implementation and promotion of these
changes can lead to effective sociotechnical systems which can increase the
effectiveness of high performance teams within businesses and the global environment.
Increased efforts in social values can also lead to individualized effectiveness
within civilians, teams, and a vast majority of organizational systems.
Taylors suggests that “what we aim
for can be as important to our well being than what we achieve” (Taylor RSA
Animate, 21st Century Enlightenment). He plants a seed in us to make
us work harder, think more creatively and look past the simplistic things in
life and of change so we can all be held responsible for creating a more
sustainable environment by looking past inadequate ideas of freedom, justice
and progress and recreate humanistic ideas of who we are rather than who society
believes we should be and preferably create visions of who we aspire to be. (Taylor,
RSA Animate, 21st Century Enlightenment). In order to creatively
incorporate solutions to society’s problem’s we must first define them, find alternatives
to our global issues, implement positive resolutions and reverse our
traditional views and ways of thinking. As an individual we are only one, but
as a society we are one of many. In order to execute change we must instill it
within ourselves first so we can be ready for it and be accepting of it. One
person can change the world with one thought. Imagine what the rest of us could
do if we stopped being such pessimists or pragmatists and joined the world of
visionaries, and power players.
This video was inspirational and
offered me a number of ideas on how I can make positive contributions to my organization
as well as society. In order to do this I will be asking myself challenging
questions on the changes I am instilling in myself and how I can positively
promote effective actions and knowledge into society on a global level. I have
to do my part to research proactive opportunities and engage in positive
actions. I have to want to see a difference in people, cultures, norms and
other societies so I can know how to move forward in making my own instinctive,
optimistic and constructive additions to our own norms and conditions. Lastly, I
have to reject negative and pessimistic thoughts and actions and promote
environments of tolerant, spiritual and inspirational adaptation. In doing
this, I will then be able to make a change not just in myself but in others as
well.
Cassandra
R.
References
Brown, D. R.
(2011). An experiential approach to organization development(8th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Whetton, D.
A., and Cameron, K. S. (2010). Developing management skills (8th ed.). Prentice
hall
Taylor, M. (2010). Twenty-first
century enlightenment. RSA. Retrieved from
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/33366439?access_key=key-2la2zx82dem8d3i2uzvw&allow_share=true
Taylor, M. (2010, August 19).
RSA Animate - 21st Century Enlightenment [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=youtu.be
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