Living in the context of change

We find ourselves living in a context of change. In fact, this photo was taken when Jeff Otero first got his new iPhone. (His father-in-law stood in line for hours for the gift.) Now fast forward two years later and many of our team have them with more capability and at half the price. (Sorry, Jeff.)

And that's a zoomed in look at one little change. Think back twelve years. When I first started with Acoustic Dimensions I used dialup to download all of the company's e-mail multiple times a day from a single address. It would be two years later before we would have a domain and a website.

Now, I read multiple RSS feeds daily, e-mail is a primary mode of communication both professionally and personally and all of my home movies are digitized and shared with family via YouTube. Not to mention all of the social connection that occurs on networking sites.

And all of those examples are personal....what about organizations? Industries?

Our industry--the design and construction industry--is changing. It is easy to see the reasons for it. Construction cost escalation, tightening credit markets, the promise of building information modeling (BIM), a push to integrated project delivery, a desire for sustainable buildings... These factors are all both symptomatic of change and fueling change.

When change is the context in which we find ourselves, it can be easy to cling for dear life to existing structure and roles. And though it is easy to look at history and see how things have changed, (Blacksmith anyone?) it seems much harder to ascertain what is needed when we are living through the change.

Carol Childress once told me that it is best to look at change in a framework of actors and improv. Improv can happen in almost any stage (context) and about any subject matter (content). The constant is the actors who are skilled at their craft. And the better the actors, the better the improv. And the best improv happens in a team who knows how to play well with each other.

Maybe the best way to equip ourselves for change is to develop ourselves and develop our teams. Then, we can handle whatever this changing world throws at us.

© Strategic Dimensions 2008