Vol2 No9 - March 12, 2007
Change!
“Everywhere we look today, powerful new forces are reshaping the world that we thought we knew…”
Thus reflects International Marketing Strategist Rowan Gibson.[1]
Exclaims the renowned management infotainer Tom Peters: “Revolution? The word is not too strong. And it’s not the same thing as change. Change? Change! Yes, we’ve almost all, finally, embraced the notion that ‘change is the only constant.’ Well, sorry. Forget change! The word is feeble. Keep saying ‘revolution.’ If it doesn’t roll easily off your tongue, then I suggest you have a perception problem – and, more to the point, a business or a career problem. What we do. What we make. How we work. Each is the subject of nothing less than revolution.”[2]
Management guru Peter Drucker may have gone even further: “Every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.” Note “abandon”, not “change”!
In his essay, Rethinking Business, Gibson is fearless: “The organisation of the 21st century cannot be changed through continuous improvement. It can only be created through radical change.”[3]
Distinguished Business Administration academic and presidential and governmental advisor Warren Bennis speaks regularly of successful leaders being “leaders of leaders” – individuals creating opportunity out of discontinuity. Professor of Strategic and International Management Gary Hamel speaks of a “hierarchy of imagination” – people who have “the future in their bones” according to Bennis.
Tomorrow, in deference to Gibson, will always be a moving target. And that means that, when we’ve finished rethinking the future, we have to start all over again.
The virus that is religion feeds on tradition. What is called for is a paradigm shift, not re-interpretation!
Dead Sea Scrolls expert James Charlesworth reflects: “Dogmatics has been important in Christian history to clarify and defend the faith. That should be acknowledged, but it does not mean that what was defined as Christian faith for St. Augustine must be operative and constricting for us today. I am convinced that Augustine would have been opposed to such a move. It is now clear that we have insights into Jesus’ time which Augustine did not know about, and that this new information, as well as the cultural climate at the end of the second millennium, necessitates finding new ways of expressing our understanding of Christian faith. Augustine struggled to shape faith – rather, the art of believing – for his time. Do we not have the same responsibility?”
“Fixing” won’t do. What is required of 21st century religious leaders is a new start… perhaps the analogy of the risen Christ may be the object of reflection for church leaders and theologians and Bible scientists with a view to kill in order to re-create?
I am inspired by the history of the electronics giant Nokia – the mobile telephone manufacturer, among others:
From 1865-1917 Nokia was in the paper and power business. From 1918-1966 it was a cable company. In 1967 it entered the rubber industry – until 1991… and in 1992 it became the electronics, IT and telecommunications leader it is today.
Change? No way! Revolution!
“Forget change! The word is feeble. Keep saying ‘revolution.’ If it doesn’t roll easily off your tongue, then I suggest you have a perception problem – and, more to the point, a business or a career problem. What we do. What we make. How we work. Each is the subject of nothing less than revolution.”
Can theology rise to the challenge?
Or… do we not hear the Bible such at this time?
posted by TART Remarks: Comments | 8:39 AM
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