Forever Skills

1The Three Spheres of Change

We typically think of change primarily in terms of what’s changing. No great surprise, given our brains have evolved to view change as mostly threatening (often with good reason). So it stands to reason that we have a heightened sensitivity to the changes that occur in our environment, in technology and even in the moods of the people around us. We talk about it, hypothesise about it, evangelise it and complain about it. We try and predict it, manage it and keep up with it — and we often panic about it.

However, change has multiple dimensions and, consequently, multiple impacts. If we are to adequately prepare ourselves for an ‘unpredictable future’ we should take a more complete view of change. Our goal in this book is to broaden our emotional palette from one of fear and panic to one of calm acceptance and even inspiration.

Through our work and research in the worlds of professional training, business strategy leadership development and innovation consulting over the past decade, we have identified three critical areas of change. These three aspects inform how well people and businesses perform in an environment of change and also identify where their focus should be applied in terms of skills, strategy and investment in both time and resources.

We call these the Three Spheres of Change.

These Three Spheres of Change, while related, tend to drive significantly different outcomes, emotional responses and approaches. If used cleverly they give ...