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Making the
Leap into the 21st century
Personal growth
requires time for reflection courage to face what we
discover and ongoing personal support.
by Margot Cairnes
On a recent trip to the US I visited
several colleagues working in the field of business and
social research to shoot the breeze on how business can
successfully make the leap into the 21st century. The
message was strong and consistent and best summed up by
John Naisbitt (author of the Megatrends series) who
advises: "Think globally act locally". The experts
agreed, as the world is becoming smaller and innovation
and information even more accessible, the places to
achieve radical competitive advantage are close to home.
Competitive advantage comes through developing our own
potential and our strategic and personal relationships.
It is the very rapidity of change that
will make relationship and personal transformation the
keys to strategic success. Information technology makes
data instantaneously available to anyone who wants it.
The pace of step-gain is determined by how quickly and
effectively organisations make use of that data and
incorporate it into their ways of thinking and
operating. At the same time that we scan the world for
information we need to be adapting our own ways of
thinking, operating and relating so that we can make
speedy and optimum use of what we find.
The trick here is that we are much
better at scanning the environment than we are changing
our thinking, learning new ways of behaving and making
our relationships work. Furthermore while gaining
information operates from the outside in, changing
ourselves works the other way. We are conscious of less
than 10% of our own thoughts, feelings, psychological
responses and body memories. It is almost as if we are
running our lives on remote control, which is fine when
we can program the course ahead and the destination. In
changing times this is obviously impossible. What will
the banking industry look like in ten years, the experts
say its beyond current imagination. What about
telecommunications or manufacturing?
It is estimated that by the end of
this century less than half the workforce in the
industrialised world will be working in what is
currently considered a "proper" full time job. Those who
are will be expected to operate at a level of
performance that we would currently find daunting.
Predictions like these cause many people to deny that
they will be effected, others get angry and still others
depressed. I find it all very exciting.
If we need a step-change in our performance and if
relationship and personal growth are the key to ongoing
success, then the fact that we are using less than 10%
of our potential presents us with a wonderful
opportunity. While organisations around the world are
tinkering with incremental changes we possess an
untapped treasure trove of possibility which is almost
limitless.
There are, however, a few catches.
Tapping our inner resources requires different skills
and ways of looking at things than scanning the world
for emerging trends and data. Personal growth requires
time for reflection, courage to face what we discover
and ongoing personal support - preferably from a trained
professional. Moreover there is no real personal change
without emotional involvement. The unchartered waters of
our mind, body and spirit are found through a journey
that is both cognitive and emotional. Most leaders have
been trained to keep emotion out of business and in many
cases have shut down emotionally in most areas of their
lives. In doing this they cut out the very source of
learning that is going to help them achieve the peaks of
success of which they are capable. The link between
thought, action and change in humans is emotion and
spirit. Quantum leaps in performance will be easy when
leaders become as good at facing themselves, processing
their emotions and running their relationships as they
currently are at dealing with the more tangible aspects
of their world.
Copyright
ã Margot
Cairnes
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