“In the next 100 years, we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress.” —Ray Kurzweil
If you have been wondering about what life might look like by the end of the 21st century, you may want to read a few of Ray Kurzweil’s books like The Singularity is Near or How to Create a Mind.
Kurzweil—a pre-eminent futurist who graduated from MIT, formed multiple companies, and now works for Google as Director of Engineering—has shown that change is exploding exponentially, even though we cling to the belief that change is happening linearly.
If you want to get an appreciation of the differences between linear and exponential change, simply sit down and compute the differences in the value of your retirement account if you add $1,000 per year vs. doubling your initial $1,000 every year. With a linear equation, you will have saved 10,000 in 10 years. With an exponential curve, you will have saved $1 million dollars. And then, it starts getting really interesting—you reach a billion in 20 years and a trillion in 30 years.
Just as you probably can’t imagine having a trillion dollars in your retirement account in 30 years, you probably can’t imagine change occurring at such a dizzying pace that humans might transcend biological limitations or that new changes will disrupt our lives and livelihoods beyond comprehension.
But that is the reality we are facing, and we don’t have a choice on whether or not we will be impacted. Our only choice is how we deal with these changes.
Over 30 years ago, I wrote a book called Managing Change. I sold over 100,000 copies to large corporations who were looking for ways to help their managers cope with the changes they were facing. And, believe me, the changes they were facing in the 1980’s were at a snail’s pace compared to the changes we are facing now.
I suggested in the book that managers needed to help people work through the resistance they experienced to whatever changes were occurring; to help them accept the reality that the ways we lived, learned, and worked had changed in ways that placed new demands on us; and to support them in making a commitment to the positive possibilities the change represented. While those constructs are still valid today, the magnitude and pace of the changes we will be facing tomorrow render the book entirely inadequate.
It is not enough to manage change. Business executives, parents, teachers and governmental officials need to anticipate change, get in front of the curve, and lead their constituents through the change.
Our choice is simple.
We can take an anachronistic approach or a possibilistic approach to living, learning, and working, i.e. we can stick our heads in the sand and hope for a positive result, or we can anticipate changes and position ourselves to take advantage of them.
The former approach will inevitably doom us to decline whereas the latter approach may accelerate our growth and development.
Here is my updated version of leading change. In addition to helping people work through the phases of resistance, acceptance, and commitment, we also need to hold ourselves accountable to these three covenants:
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We will impartially and objectively assess where we are on qualitative and quantitative scales.
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We will passionately aspire to move up those scales.
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We will be relentlessly disciplined in the process of achieving our goals.
In my impartial and objective opinion, we are currently being subjective and partial in our assessment of where we are in relation to the changes that are coming regarding the environment, the economy, education, international relations or our personal health.
Further, my observation is that, while our aspirations may be noble, our passion is lacking. And, while we fall in love with lots of idealistic ideas, we refuse to make the effort to realize our possibilities.
In our gridlocked, partisan, political situation in Congress, it’s pretty clear that our governmental officials are not exactly leading change.
The following chart summarizes how Republicans and Democrats stack up on the three covenants.
|
Impartial, objective assessments |
Passionate dreams and aspirations |
Relentless discipline in pursuit of goals |
|
|
Republicans |
Subjective, partial assessments |
Ideological end-states |
Relentless discipline—fall in line |
|
Democrats |
Objective, partial assessments |
Idealized end-states |
Fall in love, start with a bang, end with a whimper |
Both parties have significant shortcomings on the three covenants.
For example, given the Republicans’ stance on environmental policies, it’s fair to say that their assessments tend to be more subjective and partial vs. scientific and evidence-based. And their strategy of winning at any cost puts their aspirations in the category of ideological vs. ideal. On the plus side, they have been relentlessly disciplined in achieving their ideological goals. As a case in point, the Federalist Society has spent the last 30 years selecting conservative judges in fill court openings. The problem with many Republican positions is that their assessments are inaccurate and their aspirations are cruel and immoral.
The Democrats fall short as well. While Democratic assessments tend to be more science and evidence-based, they are still partial to their own belief systems even when their solutions may not be pragmatic. While their goals tend to be more idealistic, (e.g. single-payer, universal health care), Democrats are inclined to fall in love with fringe ideas (e.g. free college education and guaranteed pay for everyone) and then lack the perseverance to follow-through all the way to the ballot box. The problem with many Democratic positions is that their goals may be too far from the center and they lack the discipline to win. Remember, a higher percentage of registered Republicans voted in the last election (46%) than registered Democrats (44%). Even though there are more registered Democrats (44%) than Republicans (43%) and only 25% of eligible voters voted for Trump, the fact that a higher percentage of Republicans voted was enough to give Trump enough electoral votes to win the election. Discipline matters.
But let’s not let politics distract us from the larger issue.
We are facing the biggest changes ever encountered by the human population on this earth.
We don’t have a choice on whether these changes will happen or not. They are simply our new reality. In order to benefit from these changes, we need to anticipate what’s coming, get ahead of the curve, and position ourselves to take advantage of whatever comes our way. To me, the essential covenants for parents, teachers, executives, and government officials are to be rigorously scientific in our assessments of where we are in relation to any change (i.e. impartially objective); we need to set the bar high for our dreams and goals (i.e. passionately aspirational); and we need to make the effort to grow and develop no matter what changes are thrust upon us (i.e. relentlessly disciplined).
It’s no longer enough to manage change; we need to lead it.
Also published on Medium.
Couldn’t agree more Ricky -thank you! RonnyDonny