transition world

rethinking assumptions: redundancy

2009-07-26T14:16:00.002+01:00

Being made redundant, as is happening to many these days, can be a huge and disabling shock if your life-style is based on a regular well-paying job with a pension.

It's essential to keep checking the things we're taking for granted, and being aware that the only things you can really be sure of are "death and taxes." Older people in the West, who've been through changes like the Depression or World War 2, are probably more fitted to coping with the current changes because they've "been there before".

Time spent in revisiting our underlying assumptions, and in looking at what they're based on, can give us a better picture of the realities we're up against in our own lives. It may not improve our financial situation, but it will improve our emotional state and ability to cope.

How are people coping?

2009-02-07T16:57:00.002+00:00

Family and friends are already very anxious. Self-employed people are feeling the pinch.
In a way it's a consolation to be a "poor old retired person" - less to lose, I guess, and I always expected to be poor when I was old (from having been a stay-at-home wife and mother for a number of years).

People are saying to me "What will it be like?" Us oldies can just about remember World War 2: now THAT would make you anxious. Sons and daughters going off to war, cities bombed, food rationed. Will this be worse? It may be. It could be as bad or worse as the prewar depression with huge unemployment and terrible inequality. In many ways in the UK we've grown up spoiled, let ourselves be convinced that buying stuff makes you a good person, and making huge amounts of money makes you a better one, and what's more an important person. I cant imagine what kind of transition it will take to undo those assumptions.

how tough will it get?

2009-01-21T08:36:00.001+00:00

Here we are mid-January and things are looking even more difficult. Our attitudes to banks and other financial institutions are probably changed for good. It's interesting seeing how few senior people in those organisations have opened up and admitted what went wrong. I've heard a few lately who just sound furious at being unpopular and even despised.

more about transitions

2008-12-22T13:25:00.001+00:00

Well I guess this is one of the biggest transitions for most people - I'm speaking about the Credit Crunch and the general collapse of the invented money pyramid system. My guess is that the main sufferers will not be the people who caused the catastrophe; that's life, I guess.

But whoever is to blame, and whoever takes the worst hit, it is an opportunity to review what we've been taking for granted, our dearest assumptions, and start over. What can we take to be the case? Where can we start with a new foundation? Is anything safe or firm? It feels like there isn't much, not in careers or income anyway.

Which brings us round to key things in our lives such as relationships and values. In times of worse disasters and deeper depressions, people have survived, and it has often been not only through perseverance and courage, but having a clear sense of values to hang on to. It's worth having a look at our own in times like these. Time spent working through your values is time well-spent. Choose something you really care about, and then ask yourself "Why particularly does that matter to me?" Write down your answer. Then ask yourself again "And what is it about that, that matters to me?" This technique is called laddering and comes from a theory about how we understand our lives and ourselves. It's not an easy process: it's worth exploring, though, because it can take you to a level where you are really clear about your deep-down priorities.

If your current transition is at work, you might enjoy the New Managers site

There is some good practical advice by Doug Picirillo at employaid

catching up

2006-10-21T14:01:00.000+01:00

Nearly a year since I last posted here. Some big transitions (North Korea a nuclear power?): some inevitable ones (situation in Iraq worse and worse): and some personal ones to refelct on. More later

IBM cutting CO2 emissions - a new development?

2005-11-13T09:50:00.000+00:00

from http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=28882.

This item of news really surprised me - something is clearly changing.

"IBM Cuts CO2 Emissions by More Than 1 Million Tons, Saving $115 Million
Source: GreenBiz.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2005 - The World Wildlife Fund and the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions have announced that IBM, a participant in their Climate Savers program, has surpassed its reduction target and avoided more than 1.28 million tons of CO2 emissions since the company joined the program in 1998, saving $115 million in reduced energy costs.

Having already achieved an estimated 20% reduction in global CO2 emissions through energy conservation efforts from 1990 to 1997, IBM further reduced the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the company's annual energy use by the equivalent of an average of 5.7% from 1998 to 2004, exceeding its Climate Savers commitment of a 4% average annual reduction. This achievement is the result of energy conservation efforts and the use of renewable energy sources alone, and does not reflect additional CO2 emissions savings from consolidations and restructuring. Savings from IBM's efforts since 1998 equal taking 51,600 midsize cars that travel 10,000 miles per year off the road. Energy was conserved through simple efforts as well as more complex initiatives.

Examples of the projects implemented ranged from installing motion detectors in bathrooms and copier rooms and changing temperature set points in office areas to rebalancing heating and cooling systems and rebuilding and resizing high purity water pumping systems in semiconductor manufacturing lines......"

"A new era in management" - another formula?

2005-10-25T16:35:00.000+01:00

McKinsey's are saying:
Companies have long used detailed organizational charts, fixed annual budgets, and top-down strategic-planning processes to make their organizations more efficient. For years, many prospered with this model. But now factors such as globalization and technology have fundamentally altered where and how people work. They, along with the rise of services, have led to the increased importance of the knowledge worker. Taken together, these changes mean that the old organizational model doesn't work anymore.

They reference a number of useful articles from the McKinsy Quarterly, including
The 21st-century organization The summary says:
"Professional employees, who create value through intangible assets such as brands and networks, now constitute up to 25 percent or more of the workforce in financial services, health care, high tech, pharmaceuticals, and media and entertainment.
Making professionals productive enables big corporations to be competitive, yet most of them do little to improve the productivity of these employees.
Corporate organizational structures—designed vertically, with matrix and ad hoc overlays—make professional work more complex and inefficient.
Companies must change their organizational structures dramatically to unleash the power of their professionals and to capture the opportunities of today's economy."

It seems to me good that they're saying this, and yet it's not entirely new. Managing creative professionals has been thought about for many years, and good processes developed.

starting the new term

2005-09-08T20:11:00.000+01:00

We're all starting new studies in our own way this month.
My eldest grandson starts Uni in a week's time, studying law, away from home. The transition will be hardest on my daughter, his Mum. They're very close, so she'll miss him. She'll also certainly worry about him - these days there are such awful things happening to young people, maybe rarely but enough to keep a parent worried. Hard to let go without the certainty that he'll be alright.

The younger grandchildren start a new term, but at the same school. Their mother, my daughter-in-law, is in the middle of a University course which she loves but which is hard to combine with kids at school. It's been a huge change in her life, having not ever really having studied before. It's great remembering that one has a brain: like waking up from a trance of domesticity.

I remember doing my teacher training when my kids were young. What a joy it was just to be me at college, not someone's mother or someone's wife.

and as for me, I've started an MA in Creative Writing. It's going to be a real challenge and a lot of hard work. I'm not in need of an MA, but I am in need of learning to be a better writer of fiction. It's interesting being in a mixed group, of whom I'm more or less the oldest, with the youngest young enough to be my grandchildren.

And I'm thankful for the stable factors in our family, my son and son-in-law, who hold things together by their steadiness and love.

recognising myself

2005-07-31T20:50:00.000+01:00

There are times in my life when I am brought up short, and stop to reflect. I can plot these moments right back to early childhood years. In those moments there is a recognisable person - myself- looking at the world. In between the moments, the business of life carries me on and I feel as if I'm walking through my life with a busy, friendly stranger. I have often wondered whether other people have the same experience.

london bombs

2005-07-09T12:28:00.000+01:00

The contrast between the day when we heard that London had the Olympics and the day of the bombs has often been mentioned. In both cases, Ken Livingston described London as a place where people were "free to be themselves". It's certainly a place where you meet people whose origins are all over the world, yet consider themselves to be Londoners.

I see myself as a Londoner - it's more like a different country than the Capital of England/Britain, and so even though I don't live there now, I identify myself like that. It's more than 'my hometown', but a way of describing myself for those that understand.
I feel uncomfortable with the "we're all Londoners now" idea, even though it's meant in very good faith. The thing about London is that it's NOT full of stoic Brits. It's full of a lot of people, some good, some not. We have plenty of 'our own' murderers and rapists, and it can be a dangerous place to live as every Londoner knows. Because of that, many of us lock our car doors and don't walk home alone late at night. Where I used to live was studded with yellow police notices saying "witnesses wanted for armed robbery/ assault, murder". My feeling was that the main risk for peace-loving citizens like me , apart from mugging, was getting caught in the crossfire between a quite different set of people out to kill each other.

None of this has stopped me from greatly loving London and enjoying myself when I go back. And feeling touchy when other people describe the place in unrealistic ways. The hype about the Games was as superficial as much of the talk about the bombs and the bombers. Will either of those change London? almost certainly because in its nature it's a changing kind of place.

noticing the change from disability

2005-07-08T14:27:00.000+01:00

I've just been away for three days, with a friend who is more mobile than me. The visit forced me out of my comfortable world into one where I had to be more noticeably disabled. At home, I have my world arranged the way I like and everything is easy to do. With other people, in their houses, I feel disadvantaged. A lot to learn from this.

online cooperation - a possibility

2005-06-25T11:15:00.000+01:00

I've just been looking at Simpol-UK, through following a link from a comment on Bill Bruck's blog. I love this kind of treasure hunt.

Simpol may be another way of pushing for change. It's hard to know where to put one's energy to make a difference. This looks like a good possibility

molly's blog

2005-06-14T17:28:00.000+01:00

I've just followed a series of links to the page of "author, instructor, and Web designer, Molly E. Holzschlag"".
It reminds me of the huge world I'm not in, just standing on the edge and dreaming. Not a world I'll move in to, probably, but one I'm impressed with because of the tools and the passion I can see there. It shows what a blog can really be like, and also reminds me that being on the edge gives a good view and can be inspiring. What would I need to be doing to build something like that for the world I am in and have passion about? Food for thought.

critical psychology in South Africa

2005-06-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

Here's the introduction to an interesting conference. I like the description, the look at boundaries and including the excluded.
Beyond the pale -"outside the boundaries of the acceptable" - this is a defining feature of Critical Psychology. A psychology of the excluded and marginalised, both those who are socially displaced and those whose work and thought remain unacceptable to mainstream psychology.

Of course the phrase hints at another mischievous meaning: beyond the white world - the overdeveloped West with its intellectual imperialism and monopoly on academic resources. Even Critical Psychology has been guilty of lapsing into elite conversations between those who from a global perspective are in fact highly privileged, narrow in their domestic concerns.......
Read more at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/critpsy/

world change?

2005-06-03T12:53:00.000+01:00

I've just read this blog -Worldchanging- with a fascinating comment (letter from Bangkok, quite far down the page). It describes a moment when at a set time everyone in Thailand was invited to turn off just one light. The TV show which it was connected to showed graphics and film of the effect. Worth a read, for that article and others.

so many people I know.....

2005-05-29T15:30:00.000+01:00

So many people I know are going through major changes - 40th birthday, new career, serious illness and many more. Is this a time of change, or am I just noticing it because I'm going through something major myself, becoming much less mobile.

so this is how it begins

2005-05-27T21:25:00.000+01:00

Another new step - I've started a blog. Catching up with some of my friends and colleagues, and moving into an unknown techno-world away from other friends and colleagues. As usual on the boundary between two states, two groups, two ways of being. This is where transitions start