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The times they are a-changing


Optimize Blog - February 27, 2014 - 0 comments

A common complaint we hear from clients is that of ‘change fatigue’ which appears to be some kind of frustration around the fact that things continually need to change. What is more worrying is the fact that this is not accepted as the new normal but everyone appears to be clinging to the hope that at some point soon things will ‘settle down’.
However the world is facing unprecedented change and indeed unprecedented speed of change. What will differentiate the losers from the winners will be the ability to create agile organizations where change is a core competence and where the organization is flexible enough to adapt, change and overcome.
For those organizations waiting for some stability, it is worth reminding ourselves of how man’s development has speeded up and continues to do so. Around 1 million years ago the first primitive tools appeared. 360,000 years ago we first harnessed fire. We figured out how to make wheels around 6500 BC and the sundial made an appearance around 1450 BC.
In Medieval times the pace started to quicken as the first public clock appeared and in 1495 we came up with the first bomb closely followed by the first bullet in 1514. Microscopes and telescopes appeared in the early 1600’s but we had to wait until 1876 for the first incandescent bulb. In 1885 Mr. Benz came up with something called a car which we were able to photograph 3 years later and record the sound of in 1899.
The pace of change really picked up in the 1900’s with the plane in 1903, the rocket in 1924, the atomic bomb in 1945, fibre optics in 1960 and the Apple computer in 1977. By 2000 we had cloned a sheep called Dolly.
The new millennium has gathered even more pace with the internet permeating our lives and the capability that it brings with it. We are an increasingly globalized humanity faced with climate change, dwindling resources and technological upheaval.  2002 marked 1 billion PC’s sold, Skype announced 100 million registered users in 2006, the first iPhone appeared in 2007, scientist trapped anti-matter in 2010, the first synthetic transplant took place in 2011, in 2012 we were testing the surface of Mars and in 2013 we witnessed the first creation of human embryonic stem cells by cloning.
For 2014 futurologists predict that the Internet will be farther reaching than television, we are likely to see the first self-regulating artificial heart in 2015 and in 2016 Holograph Versatile Disc (HVD) will replace Blu-ray…….
By 2020 Generation X will be re-shaping global politics and Internet users will reach 5 billion. We will have cured Malaria and holographic TV will be mainstream. There will be 30,000 drones patrolling US skies and manned exploration of near-Earth asteroids will be a reality. By 2025 human brain simulations will be possible and vertical farms will be common in cities. There will be no slowdown.
Change is a constant and the pace of change continues to accelerate. Wishing for a time of stability is not realistic and the sooner organizations grasp this fact, the sooner the complaints of change fatigue will turn into efforts to make change management a strategic imperative.

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