By Michael Timmermann, published on 13 June 2024
🎄 Inspired by Dickens' ghosts in "A Christmas Carol," I was prompted to ask three questions about change:
🔙 Past: What did I learn in my client work in 2023?
I experienced intensely how crucial the personal development of top executives and their teams is. For example, a CEO struggled to deal with his feelings of fear, anger, self-doubt, lostness, and anxiety. He oscillated between attack, silence, fleeing, denial, and inauthentic friendliness. His topteam colleagues found this disorienting and felt it did not do justice to them or the situation.
It was only when he managed, through the coaching process, to recognize, accept, and express this to his executive team during a topteam workshop, that they found a way to connect. 🤲🏻
🧐 Present: How do I see the current situation?
People have the habit of focusing intensely on a topic, such as, currently, AI. This presents an opportunity, because humanity can make progress on an important issue. However, one of the dangers is that such topics can be overhyped and misrepresented. Human impatience to find answers to important questions often stifles curiosity prematurely. When certainty is lacking, we tend to create our own. We should allow ourselves to engage with topics of long-term significance over the long term. To arrive at coherent insights and solutions and to seize opportunities, we should tolerate ambiguity and embrace a confident joy in our own not-knowing. Without not-knowing, there is nothing to learn. And that would be boring. 🥱
🔮 Future: What does my crystal ball say about 2024?
I believe that in 2024, humanity will become more focused after much excitement about AI. We will collectively roll up our sleeves. People need this effort to feel their sense of self-efficacy.
👊🏻 2024 will be challenging, and there will be more good than bad. And that’s just fine.
I'm looking forward to experiencing how my own development process continues. I have a few things in the pipeline, and I can sense, "Oh, this will be good for me." For example, I believe that in 2024, I will experience even more confident connections with myself and others.
🚀 And every day, we will enjoy shaping the future with our AI Coach and myriad change processes for our clients. With such a wonderful team, as you can see in the photo, it will be a blast.
