I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that my wife Jenny and I own an art gallery. This has given us the opportunity to meet some interesting people who come into our gallery, and some become good friends. Recently we had two of those friends come back to visit. Ravi and Dominique are two senior professors at a United States University. We knew Dominique was a world renowned zoologist and their regular visits to Australia were for her to study the red tailed black cockatoo. Ravi we thought was some sort of physicist but in Australia he was on his wife’s professional trips and the focus was always on her so we weren’t sure what he did. They asked if they could take up our previous year’s invitation to come to dinner at our house.
The ladies were in the kitchen and I was out the back cooking dinner over the fire so that gave me a good chance to find out more about Ravi. When I asked what his profession was he said he was a theoretical physicist. I said, “what do you actually do?” and he said “I study atoms?” Well this was an opportunity you do not get everyday on your back deck so I found the conversation fascinating and enlightening. During the conversation Ravi said that the theoretical physicists had recently found out that after 300 years, they had, in his words, “got it all wrong.’ (I think Isaac Newton was the first theoretical physicist and some other notables were Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking!). He said that, “they always thought that particles and waves were separated but they recently found out they were intertwined – not separated. We went on to discuss that this had more to do with the historical philosophical framework driving the science rather than letting science drive the science. Science eventually triumphed (after 300 years!). What a paradigm shift at the foundational level!!
So after pondering that we should not be surprised that if their are paradigm shifts at the atomic building blocks of life level then we can only expect paradigm shifts to confront us in daily life. Rather than be fearful of them we need to be progressively broad minded and open, accept change and see it as an opportunity rather than a threat.
I certainly believe that the MYSKILLSmanager paradigm shift is a great opportunity and is in good company with Ravi and his illustrious mates. Just maybe all the changes we are going through at the present time are not change for change sake but needed paradigm shifts to get in touch with reality. Gives you a healthy respect for MYSKILLSmanager’s claim to be the worlds most advanced customised workplace learning and performance framework because there is a need for it!
Steve Greentree
High Calibre Consultancy Managing Director