Do the Changes You Need to Make to WFH Happen Overnight?
There is nothing new about change. As humans, we have been changing forever. It is what we do and we call it life, evolution, the great progression or unfolding. When there is change, there is always some confusion. Physicists tell us that nothing changes without going through an altered state first. Teachers will tell us that if we are not a little confused, a little anxious and a little challenged, we probably aren’t learning anything new. So the idea of change, confusion and evolution is not new. What is new is the speed of change and its continued acceleration rate.
Our digital connectivity has accelerated the speed and rate of change. We talk about “speed of connectivity” and mean 3G, 4G, 5G and someday maybe 25G? Who knows what the future holds? In 2002, our world was 3G and we made the move to 4G in 2011. The speed at which we connect and exchange information has increased by 25 percent in barely a decade.
The speed of information and news, both good and bad, traveling around the globe is faster. Things can go viral much faster now. The speed of trust has increased and so has the speed of distrust. Time has accelerated because we no longer take time off. A 24/7 clock runs online all the time, continuously. It is all happening now and it is NOW…somewhere and everywhere.
This openness has led to a polarity about whom and what we are: we are both more isolated and more connected. We have more privacy but far less privacy in a way the world has never seen. Not only can the digital “Big Brother” track a conversation you had on Facebook, it can tell the last website you searched on Google and where you ate last night at 6:15 p.m.
Although we are more detached, we are also more defenseless in many ways. Polarity rules our world. We take things for granted. We trust in the banks, the automatic doors and the pipeline valves that open and shut automatically. We trust when we pull up to the pump that the gas will be there. And when we sign on to the Internet, we expect to connect and make it to our destination. We trust that the GPS is telling us the truth. We can work in our pajamas. We can be everywhere but nowhere. We are more connected but less associated. All of this polarity is leaving us quite psychologically unprotected. #WFH #NSFW #VirtualWork #PJEffect #RemoteWork #ThePajamaEffect #BobbeGB
