In this reflection blog entry I will be reflecting on six (6) questions which were proposed in order to analyze the RSA Animate – 21st Century Enlightenment video. Throughout this reflection I will synthesize with the text, the video content, and personal experiences.
Why do you think the talk is titled 21st Century Enlightenment?
I found that through watching this video multiple times, it is clear the reason for the title is because to be enlightened about the future we have to be enlightened about the past. They often say we learn from the past and I found that this video captured that message. Each day becomes a part of history and the best way to grow and learn is to take into consideration all the events that took place and how those situations can and have changed the path going forward. In the Brown (2011) text, it talks about systems and how systems move together and interdependently but what we if thought about the past a series of systems and each one affected the other and then the next and so on which equals the term enlightenment?
What does Matthew Taylor mean when he says "to live differently, you have to think differently"?
People often then to say one thing and do another but the only way to be true to oneself is to think differently and live that that way. I have a hard time locating a point in time in which we as a society stopped thinking for ourselves and in turn allowed others to live for us. We do not necessary want to live in the past but if we learn from the past and move towards the future we can only do so successfully if we think and live differently. Some of the best philosophers questioned the world which led to other thinking differently and then ultimately living differently.
At one point in the video (4:10), Taylor argues that we need "to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange". What is he talking about? Can you think of an example within your company or your life that supports this point?
In this part of the video, Taylor is expressing to the audience that just because sometime is familiar to you doesn’t make it true or a fact and that you should question and or test what you know to give more validity to the situation and or you rationale. In addition, what is strange or unknown doesn’t mean it is false and untrue. There are many things I don’t know but that doesn’t make them wrong or less important than what I claim to be fact. An example I can provide is that before I worked for ERAU I worked for a community college in Tampa and I always thought I would work for a public college because private universities were strange to me and therefore I thought would come with more regulations which couldn’t have been farther from the true. In conjunction with that statement, because I had worked for community college and that was what was familiar to me, I always thought that was the right place for students to start their college experience for a multitude of different reasons but it came to fruition that changing organizations I was able to learn the good, bad, and different of two different types of organizations within the same industry.
Taylor argues that our society should eschew elements of pop culture that degrade people and that we should spend more time looking into what develops empathetic citizens. Would this be possible?
Anything is possible as long as you can get people to buy into what you are selling. If people feel as though what they are doing and how they are changing is impacting the world in a positive way then more people will join in and begin to revolutionize society. Nothing is impossible and large changes can be done if you can gather enough people to start a movement. I know that my parents were semi-nontraditional and instead of letting pop culture raise me, they raised me with their flower-power which I have found enables me to be more empathic, kind, and open-minded where as some people I know are closed off from anything that isn’t “right here right now.” I find society and the world is so different now and to me, it’s too cold, what happened to people understanding and relating to others? Why are we less likely to engage with our neighbors or coworkers? When did our culture being dominated by one (ourselves) and not many (as a unified group)?
At the end of the video, Taylor talks about atomizing people from collaborative environments and the destructive effect on their growth. What is the implication of these comments for organizational change efforts?Organizational change cannot only affect one or be led by one, in order to be effective it has to affect many (positively) and have the following of others. If everyone in an organization was solely out for themselves, where would that leave the organization, would it be a system of many “1’s”? I know that when change is taking place in my organization we have discussions and people have to brought into to change the minds and hearts of others so that things can go smoothly, we have to move together as one if not, organizations begin to look like opposing magnets, always trying to go together but never quite connecting.
What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career?
There are many things I can take away from this exercise starting with the idea that I need to think of the past as a point of reference as I move forward and remember it is not always about me but about others.
References
Brown, D.R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Taylor, M. (2010). RSA animate - 21st century enlightenment [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=youtu.be
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