Education General Concepts Dance of the 7 paradoxes | Dance of the 7 paradoxes |
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| Monday, 05 September 2005 | |
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"When
walls come down, paradoxes seem to multiply.
Living with paradox demands new psychological
skills," Richard Neville told a Futures Foundation.
Exploring the psychology of globalisation
with psychologist Dr Friedemann Wieland, he
invited the audience to name these skills
and to start the process of acquiring them.
"Much of futures work is about research, trends
and gee-whiz information, especially in the
wake of globalisation," he said. "But the
impact of globalisation is not just on the
globe outside. It is on the globe between
our ears. "How do we deal with instability, multi-tasking, contradictions, the lack of external guideposts?" Discussing the human implications of globalisation -- not just the economic globalisation we hear so much about, but also environmental, social and cultural globalisation -- he named seven paradoxes: Time - the quicker everything happens, the faster time disappears Balkanisation - the more the world becomes one, the more it seems to split up, as people assert their own ethnic identity (Indonesia and Fiji) Info-glut - the greater the outpouring of data, the shorter our attention span Values - as the world shrinks, the role of ethics expandsLifestyle - the more we enhance it, the more the planet becomes degraded; and let's not mention the Chinese Prozac - the unprecedented economic
boom in the west is matched by an unprecedented
rate of depression Cyber-shock - as the world becomes more connected, so it becomes more vulnerable. Living with such paradoxes is a skill of the future, he said. "Organisations need to be adaptable and flexible to survive. How can they achieve this if the people who are running them are rigid? "The pressure is on for us to be more psychologically flexible than ever before, and to cultivate the ability to process multiple realities and values. If who you are is largely related to what you do, and what you do keeps changing, then who are you? Where do you find the tools and technologies for perpetual reinvention - honourably, without losing the core of who you are? In fact, enhancing your own propensities?" The death of the
job-for-life means the death of the self-for-life, he said. No longer
can work, customs or early toilet training box you into a fixed
personality. Being techno-savvy is all very well, but how do we
build a psychological bridge to the future? "The information age requires collaboration, which doesn't come easily to old-style executives - just look at SOCOG. "So what does
collaboration require? Group empathy, a capacity for
self-criticism, lifelong learning, humour... Such skills can be
nourished, and I believe it is an emerging role for futurists to bring
them to full bloom. "Failure to
grasp the nuances of the group mind has consequences for business,
which has now discovered 'relationship marketing' without knowing
anything abouit relationships. "The future is about developing higher levels of pyschological competence for everyone" |
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