While some of us are still trying to figure out the difference between Bitcoin and Blockchain and others are still ‘taking people on the change journey’, I thought I’d kick of the yearly review tradition a bit early. Even though I somehow lost my passion for Change Management mid-2018, there were so many good things happening! Here’s what 2018 looked like for me:
1. Empathy is finally winning and so is psychological safety, but it’s 2 steps forward 1 step back still. I long for the day where diversity, gender equality and bullying are things of the past.
2. We’ve started to calm down on the whole Agile vs agile thing. It’s now possible to have a civilised conversation that doesn’t confuse our colleagues or insults the intelligence of our clients too much. It's so much better if we all get along and play nice, we might just learn something new and exciting for a change!
3. Thought leaders and Evangelists are a thing of the past (and good riddance I say!), we’re now less interested in what you say, more into what you’ve done for me (or them) in the real world. Fair is fair, a number of thought leaders had the label very reluctantly pushed on them. Fine, they're exempt from the good riddance bucket :).
4. Community is Queen, the exclusive membership model is rapidly losing its value as we self-elect the groups we want to belong to, work and learn with. It's great to see those daring individuals crafting a new profile and micro-niche for their masterful selves along the way. It also helps that conferences and seminars are really getting better every year, connecting dots and people across continents and cultures.
5. The Change rebellion that some have been fighting (solo) for years is out in the open for real now and the anarchist in me can’t stop cackling with joy while the status quo fan club (not the band!) cowers in its dark cave of ignorance. What?! Too much?
6. Neuroscience was, is and will be everywhere for a while longer, fascinated as we are with our brains and potential shortcuts to ‘win’. It does open up new conversations on what can be realistically expected, how our minds take time to adjust to the new and that resistance is really in the mind of the communicator. It also makes for a nice distraction and I just love the on-stage brain scans! Every business should have one and then HR will do a one-day training course and every manager will start analysing their team’s brain patterns for further optimisation. Good times.
7. Integrity and values have been front and centre and will hopefully continue to be on everyone’s mind. Thanks to movements like #metoo, the shocking revelations in the Royal Commissions and so much political turmoil it stopped being funny a while ago, we’re now asking ourselves the hard questions of how did we get here and how do we get somewhere better than here. I hope this will lead to taking back the responsibility for our own futures once we realise it was a bad idea to leave it in the hands of people with agendas so different from our own to begin with.
8. Social Entrepreneurship is becoming mainstream and a force for good to be reckoned with. We think more and more about what we buy, why we need it and how we spend our money as global citizens, consumers and professionals. Everybody wins in that scenario, even if it’s just in good feels.
9. And let’s not forget about the AI of all things. I strongly recommend that everyone who truly believes the robots are taking our jobs reads a book (not a LinkedIn post) on the topic to find that, a) it’s a good thing and b) we’re decades away from a true Artificial Intelligence, but hey, I agree, it’s much cooler to think that Skynet is a few weeks away from going live…
Really?! Nothing to gripe about?! Of course there is! Job ads, position descriptions and unethical hiring practices based on trivial matters and CVs are still the very low standard. Also, we’re failing almost completely to focus on helping the next generation of change professionals getting started, instead hiring who and what we know. They’re bright enough to find their own way in, but I recommend helping them all the same, after all, they’re the ones paying for our retirement a few years from now. And finally, most of us (even me) are still buying into the warped alternate success reality of ‘everything is awesome’ called LinkedIn. Seriously, my life is nearly perfect and still I can’t be excited, thrilled, honoured, humbled, inspired, moved, grateful and fired up every day.
Just stop. Please.
Well, that might just be on the agenda for 2019.
Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year!