There was an article in the Huffington Post today by Fast Company Editor Robert Safian. It’s a brilliant post on many levels. It captures much of my feeling about the future of work, it quotes heavily DJ Patil (who I have written about on other occasions) – and in “Generation Flux” (twitter hashtag #genflux) it concisely captures the challenge of our time.
I encourage you to read the full article. Please do forward to your friends.
I liked the quote from Charles Darwin at the end of Robert’s article:-
It is not the strongest of the species that survives; nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Our generation (and particularly our children’s generation) face an uncertain, unpredictable future. We’d all love to have a road map for this – but lack of visibility mixed with economic uncertainty means no pattern emerges. It will undoubtedly, as Darwin says, be our ability to adapt to change that will be our most important skill.
One of my favourite quotes is from Einstein:-
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
I like the quote most because it identifies how everyone needs to find their genius – and we should not judge others on our own abilities. However, the quote also has an ambiguity, which hints towards how we should always be prepared to adapt. Take a minute to watch this video of “Climbing Fish” from the BBC’s Life series.
Look at that! Surely we can embrace and adapt to Generation Flux if a fish can make the effort to climb!