Time to adapt how we adapt to change
I’m always pleased when I come across references to Alvin and Heidi Toffler’s work. Their analysis of how the world is shifting and changing, and their advice on how to adapt to that, is as relevant now as it was decades ago.
I’m even more pleased when the references zero in on what Alvin and Heidi were actually all about, like this piece by James Plunkett. Even among those who know and admire their classic book Future Shock, many erroneously frame it as a collection of “predictions.” Rather than an observation of how, already in 1970, we were getting (Plunkett’s phrase) “so psychologically and systemically overwhelmed by change that we experience a kind of societal motion sickness.” Even more importantly, it was – still is – a framework of practical ideas for what we can do about that as individuals, organizations, societies.
I should quote the source itself, but it’s nice to see how well Plunkett grasps Alvin and Heidi’s ideas and interprets them in today’s terms. Like how to “change the way we run organizations to make them more capable of continual adaptation.” He points out that they were saying, then, that all organizations should work like today’s agile software developers do: “push decisions as close to the work as possible, consider the autonomous team to be the unit of delivery, and integrate learning and doing into rapid cycles of iteration.”
He’s right that it’s “striking how slow we’ve been to adopt such practices in our institutions," pointing to government but true as well in far too many businesses.
How well are you doing that in your organization?
I like too that he reminds us of how the Tofflers, in all their work, were helping us think through the creation of “institutions that would equip us to approach the future with more intent.” Mechanisms to bring people together periodically "to engage in deliberations about the kind of future we’re building and the kind of future we want.” In the governance of our nations and also in how we run our companies, our non-profits, our communities, even our families.
How well are you doing that in your organization?
Spending sixteen years working with the Tofflers was one of the great privileges of my life, professionally and personally. Implementing ideas like these in organizations is what we do at Foresight Vector and what inspires us.