Ride the wind!

Boy, it's been a while! And a lot has happened during this "while" - both good and bad. One thing that has remained pretty constant for me is the belief that, no matter what, time has continued to march on. Along the way, the world has lost comedians and comediennes (Robin Williams and Joan Rivers), those who made us laugh at man's fallibility, through seemingly senseless, although very different, actions; we've lost journalists, our scribes, holding the mirror to the face of those who do evil in this world. But I think we've also celebrated those that remain with us, perhaps just a little bit more...

Whatever the case may be on an individual level in response to what is happening in the world in which we now live, the immutable fact remains that the world, as we once knew it, has changed. And as we all know, change cannot be stopped. Once the process of change begins, a slow and gradual process, it is impossible to freeze and reverse the process altogether. There is, in organizational behavior theory, a stage where once an orchestrated shift in the organization has yielded the desired change to a new state or place, it is possible to "freeze" the entire process and, in effect, stop the change process. At least according to change theory, this is what happens. But I question if it is ever truly possible to control change. Proposing to control change is somewhat akin, in my mind, to trying to control the wind - a massive, unseen force that is as unpredictable as the seasons of nature: we know the different seasons come, we just never know what each will bring...

The same is the case with managing change in our places of work, and in our individual careers. We never really can tell where our careers or life, in general, will take us, The boss assigns us to a new team, takes away a position at which you once excelled and puts you in a totally new one, technology replaces the thing that you once did as though it were your "art" - the thing you were born to do - and management is satisfied to do so...We may not like it, we may not agree with it all of the time, and we may even consider ourselves to be change agents, in our own rights. But we all face CHANGE. The key is to be brave. I was tempted to state the negative version of what our response as members of this global workforce should be: "we must not be afraid." But I realized that stating what you shouldn't be or what you shouldn't do, i.e., "panic," is not necessarily the same as stating what we should be, what we should do, "accept the process." It is important that one keep their wits about him or her during organizational change - first, because it is going to happen with or without your help or participation, and second, because, believe it or not, our contribution is necessary (we are PART of the organization's "whole") to help define what we will become.

I can't say that it is an easy process, nor that we don't have anything, even our livelihood, at stake. But I've got news for you: if you haven't noticed, nothing about that has changed. By virtue of the fact that we are part of the organization, the economy, we are engaged in this mechanism called PROGRESS, also know as LIFE. Stay centered on the only things you can control, your response to it. Each day that you live, you have a chance to play in the game (of chance); influence it by giving it your own twist on it. Change may be like the wind, but we should probably make like we're dealing with a bull and ride it! Never know how long we can stay on it! Or what we may win for doing so!