Learning to Embrace Change — 'Father Knows Best'

Published by Ryan Paugh on September 11th, 2007 in Work/Life | 4 Comments

At the risk of being mocked by all the critics, I have a confession – I'm a helicopter child. When it comes to my personal and professional life, my parents may have more energy than I do.

And why shouldn't they? If you ask me, they sculpted a pretty excellent individual.

My work on Employee Evolution in no exception. My Father especially, loves to critique me. Mostly, he says to be less audacious with my readers. But as a writer, it ain't easy to give up your preferred style. It's like asking a painter to give up his favorite brush. Still, every once and awhile my Dad brings something really interesting to my attention.

After one of our talks about the generation gap he sent me a chain-letter that got both of us thinking:

One evening, a grandson asked his grandfather what he thought about the modern age – school shootings, terrorism, the computer age and just things in general.

"Let's see," said the grandfather. "I was born before television, penicillin, polio shots and frozen food."

"In my day, 'grass' was mowed, 'coke' was a cold drink and 'pot' was something my mother cooked in. Back then, 'hardware' was found in the hardware store, and 'software'…heck, it wasn't even a word."

"Damn," I thought. "This guy must be ancient."

I couldn't be more wrong.

At 59 years old, this man had seen more changes in the world than my Dad even realized occurred. And go figure, they're the same age.

The moral of my Dad's story was change happens. We either voluntarily embrace it or we're forced to. Those who do so willingly end up doing "okay." Those who have to be forced typically don't do so well.

Perhaps the reason my Dad couldn't recall all of the changes in his lifetime was because he embraced them so well. Consequently, he did "okay" for himself — more than "okay" if you ask me.

Gen-Y is embracing today's remarkable pace of change pretty well, but we're still young. There's plenty of time for us to become old and grumpy, fall into a pit of stubbornness and become what we fear the most.

Twentysomething years from now, when I look at the changes that pesky Gen-Z (or whatever ridiculous name we give to them) is rolling into our world, I'll remind myself of the story "Papa Paugh" told me back in my youth.

And I'll think, "Hey, those guys are alright."

Technology, medicine, the environment; it's a little scary to think what lies ahead. But if we want to do "okay" we have to embrace it.

But see, that's simply if you want to do "okay."

"Greatness," requires a leader. A person that's bold enough to be the first to change – to "grab the bull by the horns" and gear up to get hammered by adversity.

That's when you stop being "okay" and start being "great."