Introduction to the new edition of Mastering Change

We are all living in a major global health crisis: Covid 19 .

The pandemic crisis is not new . Before Covid 19  there was SARS, and before that MED . and before that the EBOLA scare. And before that THE SPANISH FLU, and before that THE MEDIEVAL CHOLERA.   But there IS something new. The interval between one pandemic  crisis  and the next is getting shorter. From the cholera to the Spanish flu it took an interval of three hundred years. From the flu to Sars only sixty years. And from SARS to Covid 19 much less. May I predict that after Covid 19 we will have another pandemic crisis and soon.

What is going on? The universe is one huge system composed of subsystems.  And every subsystem is composed of its own sub sub systems  and they in return again have their subsystems.  

Systems do not change at the same speed. And that applies to subsystems too, which are systems in their own right while pertaining to a bigger system.  

That creates disintegration.  Disintegration is manifested in what we call problems. The solution can not be to stop change. Change happens with  time and time can not be stopped. So the solution must be integration. When integration does not happen, since change continues,  disintegration continues and the problem eventually becomes a crisis.  

If change accelerates, the disintegration accelerates, the problems multiply faster, and if not treated, crises haunt us faster.  

Humanity is a subsystem of the Planet Earth. We populate this planet with other subsystems, the animal world, the vegetation world, with water and with air. How is humanity behaving vis a vis other subsystems? We exploit them for our own benefit  improving our standard of living and in the process disintegrating the planet by destroying the environment.  And the pandemic crises are a  message: stop disintegrating. And as we do not get the message and use only band aids called vaccines that serve one pandemic crisis at a time, they keep haunting us, killing millions of us without discrimination for religion, sex, ethic affiliation or political convictions, telling us “Wake up: you are one. The differences are only on the surface. Proof? You are equally vulnerable.”  

And the pandemic crises will continue to come and much stronger each time, killing more and more and more till we finally get the message: we must work in unison: recognize each other’s differences and  honor them because at the foundation we are the same. And share the bounty we create together so we have a common interest. Otherwise the pandemic will continue.  And will continue to do so until we wake up and recognize we are all ONE.

One humanity. One world.  

We ARE  falling apart as a civilization.  This book is,  in comparison to the challenge, is a small  contribution, small as it may be, on how to manage change. How to effectively integrate, in this case on the organizational level. For family level see my book : The Power of Opposites.  For how to integrate on a global scale , that needs to be written by someone else. I am running out of time.

With love and I  Hope you enjoy this book,

Ichak Kalderon Adizes