#globality
More than 30 years ago, a Visionary and Prophet of the 20th Century published the following observation about the tsunami of change about to consume us:
"A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it. This new civilization brings with it new family styles; changed ways of working, loving, and living; a new economy; new political conflicts; and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well...The dawn of this new civilization is the single most explosive fact of our lifetimes."
--Alvin Toffler, from The Third Wave (1980)
Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash
Most of us who are old enough to have lived through the 80's can honestly say that we were blinded or in denial about the changes that threatened us. Some of us just gave up and went the way of the dinosaur. Others did their best to stay current but never embraced change as a necessary element of daily life. They prepared for careers in the emerging tech industry only to find that demand for the skills they paid good money to learn were obsolete by the time they landed their first job.
The career advice we were given by our parents and/or school counselors assumed that advanced education provided the best path to success. That was true for their generation. But relentless change was not a factor in their world.
The lifestyle encouraged by our Churches and Social Institutions had the same defect--the assumption that the continued repetition of traditional beliefs and practices assured the status quo. But technological change did not originate with the Churches or Social Institutions. They had no regard for new knowledge nor did they care to envision any reality beyond the status quo.
But just as Toffler predicted, this wave of change would be fast and furious. Those who failed to prepare for and accept it sealed their own fate. Change is the hallmark of life in the Global Village.
UPDATE FOR 2020:
“Change will be happening so quickly that 50 percent of the occupations that exist today will not exist 10 years from now. So we’re going to be living in an environment that is extremely adaptable and changing all the time,” says Liz Bentley, the founder of Liz Bentley Associates, a leadership development consulting firm.
