Table of Contents
The Change Phenomenon
Presently change is the only sure thing in the world to day. Things are presently changing rapidly - often much faster than we can cope with - because of the following…
Change is the only certainty that we actually have in life!
- The death of permanency, in all spheres of life… from relationships to the equipment we use, nothing lasts “forever” anymore, cannot be fixed or repaired and often needs to be replaced.
- Standardizations of activities and processes, which often are based on norms rather than principles; which minimally accommodate the context of the situation and subtly restrict individualism in favour of our bureaucratic driven capitalistic social straitjacket.
- Specializations based on differentiation and categorization, always trying to develop and establish a new absolute, final or “ultimate” answer.
- Synchronization based on time schedules determined by created deadlines, which is the unfortunate residue of the industrial economy, and NOT natural cycles (i.e the processes of life).
- Concentration and focus on doing the right thingplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBased on and prescribed by some kind of enforced legal system., rather than doing what is rightplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBased on and sourcing from a personal moral and ethical inner framework of values..
- Maximizing based on a statistical-analytical cause and effect norm and not seen within context or in a holistic manner, while often disregarding the basic principles of a harmonious environmental fit.
- Centralization and specialization efforts to limit “responsible” choices to a “learned few” - experts in their respective fields - while the “ordinary less informed folk” need to follow or execute “expert” decisions unconditionally and without questioning it… ever.
Frequent change, duality's and inner conflicts are the direct result of a disturbance regarding our views on dependency, independency and interdependency and our inability to actually synchronize or calibrate these three aspects of our lives.
Changes is a natural part of creation, all things come into existence, develop and grow because of change; changes can be either natural changes (growth and development) or introduced changes (man made inventions and technological advancements).
1. Natural Changes
Changes in life - which lies at the very foundation of future shock - are mainly focused on climate results and much less focused on process results.
THEREFORE…
What man thinks, is where man goes…
Watch your thoughts… they become words.
Watch your words… they become actions.
Watch your actions… they become habits.
Watch your habits… they become character.
Watch your character… it becomes your destiny.
2. Introduced Changes
The above view on change is essentially based on natural changes taking place and which confronts all people, each and everyday. However, there is another side to the dynamics of change that we should be aware of… and these are changes as a result of innovations, discoveries and technological advancements (i.e. introduced changes). Where natural changes are mostly specific and confined to individual growth and development, introduced changes frequently are non-specific and impacts on communities, societies and civilizations as a whole.
Throughout human history there were plenty of such “introduced changes” that eventually change civilizations. Trying to compile a substantial list of significant “change occurrences” in human history…
- are nearly impossible and would take many years of research and study by countless people to do so accurately.
- the impact and/or influence of “introduce changes” varies substantially from country to country.
Trying to accommodate all these change variables and dynamics, are well beyond the scope of AltanaESP Pty Ltd and, therefore, only certain noteworthy “introduced changes” (i.e. inventions and/or events that resulted in a global/collective consciousness shift) are listed in the following table.
| Estimated Date | Introduced Change | Brief Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2,600,000 BC | Stone Age | First evidence of tools made of stone and used by people to accomplish certain tasks with less difficulty. |
| 7,500 BC | Agricultural Revolution | Clear evidence that people changed their life-style from being hunter-gathers (i.e. nomads) and settle down in communities to cultivate crops and farm with animals. |
| 3,500 BC | The Wheel | Before the invention of the wheel people were severely limited in how much stuff they could transport over land, and how far. Wheeled carts facilitated agriculture and commerce by enabling the transportation of goods to and from markets, as well as easing the burdens of people traveling great distances. |
| 3,000 BC | Bronze Age | Significant evidence that people start using bronze for various articles, especially for decorative purposes. |
| 1,200 BC | Iron Age | People developed the ability to cast and shape metal to make tools and weapons, which is a more durable metal to use than bronze. |
| 900 BC | Nails | Without nails, civilization as we know it would surely crumble. Previously, wood structures had to be built by interlocking adjacent boards geometrically, a much more tedious construction process. |
| 600 BC | Money | The first coins was likely minted by King Alyattes in Sardis (Lydia, Asia Minor - present-day Turkey). |
| 900 AD | Compass | Ancient mariners navigated by the stars, but that method didn't work during the day or on cloudy nights, and so it was unsafe to voyage far from land.The Chinese invented the first compass and soon after, the technology passed to Europeans and Arabs through nautical contact. The compass enabled mariners to navigate safely far from land… increasing sea trade and contributing to the “age of discovery”. |
| 1440 | Printing Press | The German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Printing presses exponentially increased the speed with which book copies could be made of documents and manuscripts, and thus it resulted the rapid and widespread dissemination of knowledge for the first time in human history. |
| 1492 | Discovering “other” worlds | Christopher Columbus discovers south-eastern North America, mistaking it for India. |
| 1850 | Internal Combustion Engine | Combustion engines convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Decades of engineering by many scientists went in to designing the internal combustion engine, which took its (basic) modern form in the latter half of the 19th century. |
| 1876 | Telephone | Several inventors did pioneering work on electronic voice transmission (many of whom later filed intellectual property lawsuits when telephone use exploded). However, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone. |
| 1879 | Light Bulb | When all you have is natural light, productivity is limited to daylight hours. Light bulbs changed the world by allowing us to be active at night. Thomas Edison is credited as the primary inventor because he created a completely functional lighting system, including a generator and wiring as well as a carbon-filament bulb. As well as initiating the introduction of electricity in homes throughout the Western world, this invention also had a rather unexpected consequence of changing people's sleep patterns. Instead of going to bed at nightfall (having nothing else to do) and sleeping in segments throughout the night separated by periods of wakefulness, we now stay up except for the 7 to 8 hours allotted for sleep. |
| 1903 | Aircraft | After years of experimenting by many people, Wilbur and Orville Wright take the first successful flight in a craft heavier than air. |
| 1904 | Cinema | Movies come of age with the first cinematic picture of Edwin Porter’s film “The Great Train Robbery” and forever change the way in which people relax and entertain themselves. |
| 1905 | Theory of Relativity | Albert Einstein juggles the known laws of time and space with his epoch-making theory of Relativity. |
| 1908 | Industrial Revolution | Henry Ford mass produce cars for “the people” and by doing so introduce the world to the concepts of speed and efficiency in the manufacturing of things. |
| 1928 | Penicillin | The Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-filled Petri dish in his laboratory with its lid accidentally ajar. The sample had become contaminated with a mold, and everywhere the mold was, the bacteria was dead. That antibiotic mold turned out to be the fungus Penicillin, and over the next two decades, chemists purified it and developed the drug Penicillin, which fights a huge number of bacterial infections without harming people. |
| 1933 | World War II | Rise of Adolf Hitler to take charge of Germany. Giving a new meaning to - view of.. - fascism, exploitation and manipulation which resulted from the rising and falling of Nazi Germany. |
| 1939 | Television | The first television broadcast from New York City which introduced a complete new angle to the idea of mass communications. |
| 1945 | Atom Bomb | First Atomic bombs were used over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These cities had not previously been bombed, and thus the bombs' damage could be accurately assessed. The realization dawned on the human race that their inventions and technology might - perhaps - one day result in the extinction of the human race. |
| 1946 | Computer | The computer revolution start with the launch of ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator - by John P Eckert and John W Mauchly. |
| 1960 | Birth Control Pill | Not only have birth control pills, condoms and other forms of contraception sparked a sexual revolution in the 60's, but allow men and women to have sex for leisure rather than procreation. Families also drastically reduced the average number of offspring per woman in countries where they are used. With fewer mouths to feed, modern families have achieved higher standards of living and can provide better for each child. |
| 1962 | Double Helix | The double helix and the highly complex genetic code contained in the DNA molecule - pieced together by James Watson and Francis Crick - gradually change the way in which science view and deal with organisms. |
| 1969 | Micro-processing | The first microprocessor from INTEL act as a basis for the first desktop PC and the subsequent computer “revolution” that followed. |
| 1970 | Internet | The Internet really needs no introduction… the global system of interconnected computer networks known as the Internet is used by billions of people worldwide. Countless people helped to develop it and presently busy to expand its used an capabilities. |
| 2001 | 911 | The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/11) were a alleged series of four coordinated suicide attacks that were committed in the United States on September 11, 2001, striking the areas of New York City and Washington, D.C. This was the first time in human history that the unfolding of events, in one country, was followed by people across the globe… in real time! |
3. Essentials of Change
Apart from the fact that the above nutshell list of “Introduced Changes” give rise to some fascinating questions and views, it also indicate the following essentials of change…
- Introduced Changes did and still does take place today… and; when set in motion, waits for no one, and have an impact on everybody!
- Significant change take place, when information is shared, accessible for many and no longer confined to an exclusive and “elite” group of people.
- Taking the date time line of “Introduced Change” into account, is fairly obvious that change is drastically speeding-up and people are increasingly confronted with uncertainty and the unpredictable when going about their everyday lives.
Taking into account the significant contributing factor of the Internet, what changes are still ahead of us …?
4. Concluding Thoughts
Finally… changes - whether natural or introduced - always have the following dynamics as part of any change and when we ain't aware of, or willing to accommodate both “sides of the coin”. Any effort to efficiently deal with change will most likely result in plenty of uncertainty, frustrations, confusions and helplessness. This change dynamics can be indicated as follows…
- Processes of Change: The process of change determine the effectiveness of change activities. Process deal with aspects such as identifying a problem, understanding problem dynamics, exploring possibilities, select a strategy, take action, and so on. These processes are vital to maintain a rising level of skillfulness, progress and - through frequent assessment - we could monitorplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMonitor
To or monitoring imply observing and checking the progress standard and quality of ...something over a period of time and keeping it under systematic review through observations, checking and keeping a continuous record by deploying the monitoring cycle.
Therefore, to assess, evaluate and monitor how effective PEOPLE do things, cope with or deal with change. - Climate of Change: The climate of change are less easy to assess, measure or evaluate and have more to do with the efficiency of dealing or coping with change. The climate of change is dictated by aspects such as feelings, emotions, mindsets and perceptions of individuals. The climate include facets like commitment, motivation, determination, guts, team or group co-operation, interdependency, job satisfaction, loyalty and many more nourishing factors, AND - unfortunately - toxic factors as well which including aspects such as conflicts, apathy, avoidance, rebelliousness, lack of discipline, absenteeism, ignorance, unwillingness, isolation, rage, frustration, resentment, dependency, …etc. The climate of change (culture) provide any group (i.e. organization, institution, company, team or family) with a favourable setting in which change processes can be efficiently attained or complete derail any change effort. The climate of change touch the lives of everybody - minute by minute, day in & day out - and have a huge impact on our everyday existence.