Future Skills

CHAPTER 19EMBRACING AND CELEBRATING CHANGE

As we saw in Chapter 12, we're facing an acceleration of technology-driven change, to the extent that hundreds of millions of people may need to switch jobs or learn new skills within the next decade. Adaptability gives us the mental resilience to respond to changes—big and small—and learn to roll with the punches (circle back to Chapter 12 for more on the mindset side of change). But what about the practical side of change? How can individuals and businesses learn to embrace, and even celebrate, change? Read on to find out.

What Do We Mean by Embracing and Celebrating Change?

Change has always been a part of life—it's the foundation on which progress and evolution are built (for individuals, organizations, and our species as a whole). Sometimes this change can be scary. We can all identify with this, having lived through a recent pandemic in which (in the early days at least) the situation was rapidly evolving. Change can be a hard thing to move through.

Learning to embrace and celebrate change certainly makes life easier. But what does this entail? Obviously, adaptability plays a huge role in embracing change (again, see Chapter 12), but let's focus on the practical side of things. For me, the practical side of embracing change involves two different processes: learning to manage change successfully (i.e. driving and implementing change) and learning to navigate change from a more personal perspective (i.e. when you're on the receiving ...