P R E FA C E
Navigating From the Future is a self-help book that is not trying to help, but rather, to tell the truth about what it takes to make transformation happen and sustain it. It is written with great optimism and pessimism at the same time. The optimism comes from long experience that says transformation is always possible. The pessimism comes from the fact that most people and organizations are always living in a condition of No Exit.
In Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, three people are escorted into a room, where they create their own hell. When one finally demands for the door to be opened (it was never locked, only closed), the door opens, yet none of them leave.
No Exit is common in most corporate, government,
and community hierarchies.
No Exit exists in most religions and tribes.
No Exit prevails in just about anything that involves people.
No Exit eventually undermines every business, political,
economic, and spiritual system.
No Exit is the impossibility of transformation.
Transformation is a change in composition or structure, a change in character or condition. Transformation is a new possibility, a “wow” that promises more. Transformation is what makes people jump out of bed in the morning and move into their day with enthusiasm and energy. It is the opportunity to start anew or re-vitalize what already exists.
Sustainability normally means keeping a prior innovation alive. The power of transformation, however, comes with returning to a zero state – the place of creativity and invention. It involves a new and free choice to breathe life into what you already have, or to choose a new direction. Trying to keep an old choice going does not work. Recent research from an inventive, global computer chip corporation showed that ninety percent of innovation projects do not sustain. The reasons lie in all of the cultural, technical, and personal mental baggage that has accumulated. To achieve SustainableTransformation, you have to repeatedly access that empty place in the mind where free choice lives -- the Moment of Change.
Many people will say they want transformation at work, in government, at home, and in the world, but few demonstrate the courage, talent, and concern for others necessary to become transformational leaders. This is not a criticism. It’s just the way it is. Most of us are ordinary human beings, doing what we do.
My hope is that telling my own truth will set more people free to navigate from the future. Telling our own truth is the code breaker in all human affairs — business, public, and private. It is the transformational element.
It’s simple, not easy.
Charles E. Smith, PhD
July 2009
July 2009