Change bears a different connotation to different people.
In the 60’s, change threatened the status quo (Hell No, we won’t go).
It’s inevitable that we need to adapt (from jukebox to boombox, from paper-back book to e-book). A few years from now, we would rather be dead than getting caught carrying a hard-back book (today’s equivalence of carrying a brick phone w/pull-out antenna).
In fact, leadership is all about change management: take R or L at the fork in the road (yahoo)
take both (Cisco), or take the one less traveled (Robert Frost).
Change has been equated with letting go. But it’s not. It’s being adaptive and relevant.
Downgrading, downshifting, downsizing and retrenching.
The exact reversal of the 80’s “trading up”.
In the Hummer and the Mini, the author tries to point out the paradox in taste and style. At the present time, we might have to do away with Hummers altogether
(have you noticed gas prices lately).
And there is forced change e.g. aging, empty nesting or season change whose cold front disrupts our holiday travel. Here in Florida, they use helicopters to bring down warmer temperature to protect crops (same technology was used during the Vietnam War to spray Agent Orange to destroy crops).
The positive side of aging is maturity. Having been there and done that, one detects a familiar pattern (deja vu) and can easily connect the dots (for instance, Haiti and Vietnam both had some French influence. This makes easy for the Vietel engineers to connect with locals while trying to rebuild Haitian telecom infrastructure.)
Unfortunately, the path of least resistance is often the path most taken. It saves time when everything is in place, the same place (efficiency model). Have you noticed that as creatures of habits, we always congregate around the fire-place (or TV, its modern-day replacement) and water cooler at work (or the conference-room speaker phone). But that’s our pre-Google false sense of comfort.
Now that the transformation to digital is almost complete, we must embrace minimalist life style (watch out Good Will and Salvation Army, you will have to expand your warehouses). Digital natives will not give a second thought (since they are not attached to things non-digital) before junking that jukebox or that Polaroid.
We are change managers. And managers must decide what’s important and what’s urgent, what stays and what goes. Most importantly, from future vantage point looking back, will today’s decision hold? Are we being self-disruptive enough or face forced change?
The more we want to stay the same, the more we will have to change. Or just sit there and get run over by the train.
And that time is now.
Thang Nguyen 555 