Before starting off to our individual travels throughout the USA we did some nice group exercises for preparation. One covered travel experiences and change by this given statement: “What I learn during my Fellowship travels can change the world.”
The task was to form in groups of five and ask as many questions as possible and write them down on an easel pad. Each group then has to define the three most important questions.
Lots of questions related to change, of course. Like: “What needs to change?” “Am I ready to change?” “How do we influence others to change?” “How do we measure the success of change?” “What is the focus of change?”
But there were other questions that are intensely related to big change and much more sophisticated: „Is God black?” “What comes after consumer society?” “Does a woman leader make a difference?”
The most philosophical question to the above-mentioned answer I really liked very much was: “Whose world?” That’s presumably just the point: What world do we individually live in? Do other people really want to live in that same world the way we do? Does it make sense to define this specific model of our individual world as applicable to all people all over the place? I think not. Our individual interpretation of our world is the precondition for our individual definition of change. We have to find why, what and how we want to change and if this is acceptable and desirable for others, too. Maybe we should at least ask before imposing our model of interpretation and the derived necessity of change on others?
Change is dialogue. It’s never equivalent to assigning one situation or process from one context to another. In one positive sense change is the synthesis of thesis and antithesis. And then it is not just change, it’s also innovation.
Letzte Kommentare