Comunicação em evento científico
Now its Different
Helena Belchior Rocha (Belchior-Rocha, H.);
Título Evento
7th Internacional Caos, Complexity and Leadership Simpósium 2020
Ano (publicação definitiva)
2020
Língua
Inglês
País
Bósnia-Herzegovina
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Abstract/Resumo
Good morning my name is Helena Belchior Rocha, I begin by thanking the organizing committee of the 7th International Symposium, Chaos Complexity and Leadership for the invitation and congratulating you all on this initiative, compliment the colleagues of this panel and all the participants. I'm from Portugal, from Iscte- University Institute of Lisboa, Iscte is a public university created in 1972, specialized in the areas of business sciences, social sciences, technologies and architecture and it is located on the campus of the university city of Lisbon, where I work at the School of Sociology and Public Policy, in the Department of Political Science and Public Policy as a Professor and researcher and I am also Deputy Director of the Soft Skill Lab. I confess that it was a challenge to think about what I was going to share with you today, because I was not prepared to present any new study and I did not want to present studies done previously. So, I choose to bring a reflection, based on my perception of the recent events and that make us all think about it. That´s why the title of this presentation is “Now it's different ...”. It is true. Now it's really different, the world we grew up in has disappeared and will never return. It disappeared in our sight, while we were at work, we were shopping, we put food on the table of our families, we took care of our older loved ones. The world we know and in which we placed confidence has disappeared. The problem is that nobody told us that this was going to happen. Although we saw signs of this disappearance like poverty, inequalities, global warm, pollution and air pollution, demographic growth, urban expansion, defrost at the poles, natural disasters, refugees but it seemed not properly recognized in current thinking even with the inquestable increase of the scientific progress and advances of medicine, it is a fact that the 20th century did not solve those problems and now we continue to deal with them, plus the pandemic situation. Everything changed suddenly without giving us time to mourn our hopes and future expectations, even though we were already in a vulnerable world of transition and in an era of extremes, we are still waiting for everything to return to normal, we cling to the way everything worked and the way everything fit together. On a micro scale it reminds me of a story about a small town where people had good jobs and earned well, had job security, worked in a mine and the mine closed. Everything changed, everyone depended on that mine. And what did they do? They waited, they hope in the belief that one day the mine will open again and everything will return to normal. We often justify our reluctance to free ourselves from the past with the conviction that the changes we are seeing are temporary. In addition, society has lived in a complete paradox, every aspect of our life is being stretched to the limit and we feel crushed by the dimension of the events around us. Progress and innovation are back turned with development, we stand for a globalized world that was supported in competitiveness, asymmetries, environmental imbalances, the illusion of more interdependence and interconnection, but that gave us “emotional dissonancy”, critical/ reflective thinking deficit, less time, false independence, a feeling of missing interconnection, along with simultaneous crisis and inability to educate and prepare new generations to be resilient. This new paradigm we live in prevails in all spheres of public life and in which there is a subjective change in the way man sees his future. No longer with the security of the past, but with the discouragement that the uncertainty of the unknown and the risk provoke. Now is different, because it is something that is totally open and covers all aspects of human life (Belchior-Rocha, 2015). It is this dimension that gives it a new character, since in the past man lived and cope with risk, finding the confidence that allowed him to overcome the dichotomy between risk and trust, which contributed to the progress of humanity. However, in a world in constant transformation, traditional forms of trust have been dissolved and we are losing “the ontological security founded on the continuity of our personal identity and which is rooted in the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments” well predicted by Giddens (2004: 64). So, we are faced with a different world "marked by endemic uncertainty that dominates the most elementary existence of many people" (Beck, 2000: 12). And I’m not referring to our small world, I’m referring to a wide variety of different risks, personal and global and mutually contradictory. Changes happen in a dizzying speed, forecasts become redundant in the face of such unpredictability and, as such, it is the very present that challenges us. Due to the profound changes that are taking place in the world of work, in the production processes, in the management of the States and policies and by sharpening conflicts arising from ethnic, regional and international relations problems, social issues acquire global dimensions. However, these dimensions, do not diminish the importance of the internal problems of each society, on the contrary they aggravate them. Also we must not forget that this process is incomparably different from all those that humanity has gone through, throughout its historical evolution, it is precisely in this field that the current challenges are configured, which does not imply that we abandon classic methods and theories, nor that we ignore the whole historical tradition, but that we can learn from the mistakes through a “reflexive attitude on the use of the old / new opposition that is, without a doubt, one of the obstacles to the progress of science, especially social sciences” (Bourdieu, 2004: 20). We need to have the courage to recognize that we are really used to think of society as a perennial place, consolidated by the accumulation of knowledge produced historically and that we have the duty to change, and transmit it to the new generations (Belchior-Rocha, 2015). It is not a new thought, Jacob in the early seventies said that for an object to become accessible to an analysis, it is not enough to perceive it, it is necessary that “a theory is able to accept it and in the exchange between theory and experience it is always the first that starts the dialogue”, (Jacob, 1970:24 in Belchior-Rocha, 2015). which determines the form of the question, and therefore the limits of the answer,” This is what provides us with the set of theories and conceptions about the world. If we don't know, we can't ask, if we don't ask, we can't know anything new” (Almeida et al., 1994:194). How can we deal with problems if we are not honest about them? How can we be successful in the new world if we are focused on waiting for the old world to return? We want to think about the future, but our education, political and cultural system are focused on the immediate present, which means that our relationship with the collective future is not of hope but of fear and improvisation. Contingencies arise when we least expect it. The changes that are taking place now are different from those of the past, when a comfortable pattern of continuity prevailed. The current changes are, on the contrary, discontinuous (Belchior-Rocha, 2015). So, they demand a different mental posture (mindset). It is necessary to consider that complexity and contingency produce an immense need for decision making and that has fundamentally to do with how decisions are to be made. Luhmann (1995) said that society lives its future "in the form of the risk of its decisions". Making uncertainty reflective will not translate it into a safe expectation, but it can become a confidence that reduces insecurity (Innerarity, 2012). It requires a radical change to understand reality and the fact of recognizing the contingency is not the lack of conviction but the articulation of knowledge and non-knowledge, the relativization of available knowledge in order to open space for new ways of looking at things (Innerarity, 2012). Transform the latent blindness of contingency into a transparent awareness of contingency (Innerarity, 2012). I recognize that is difficulty to manage organizations in highly unstable and turbulent environments, all in constant pressure, and we know that the reasons for this pressure are increasing. The intensification of requests, lack of resources (human, material ...), new requirements, management of expectations, fear (excess of information, contradictory information, uncertain future ...) pressure and aggressiveness of the managers related with the expected results. Stephen Grozs, (2013) reminds us that “Life itself is change, we are always giving up something for something else”. We can no longer rely only on predetermined models but on reflective structures capable of formulating alternatives and avoiding redundancies. The future is something with which we must maintain a good relation, it is an unknown complex open space that threatens or promises too much, which worries and attracts us, also it is a fragile time that needs care, attention, almost like a child, we must protect it with love, care and also be careful. Part of the challenge we face results from the way we think about it, both individually and collectively. In many aspects, decision-making is based in structures that assume the existence of an archetypal “reasonable person”, who would receive all the information available about the decisions to be made, would select the most relevant evidence for this decision, discuss with other reasonable people and make a rational decision to go on. But it is not like that. This implies massive changes in human behavior, thinking and relationships. It requires a turning point, stop seeing things the old way of thinking and living where the question was: What can I get from this world? In the new way of thinking the question must be: What can I give, share and contribute to the world? It is our choice whether we want to cooperate or be competitive, whether this is an opportunity, a chance to be our choice or it will be imposed. I am not a specialist of chaos theory, or complexity theory and much less leadership models. About leadership issues I can only speak of what I have learned with my daily experience with the team I work with and one thing is certain, to lead, whether it's a team, an organization or even a nation we must rely on Respect, good Communication, Coherence, Stability, Trust, Care and Justice that generate Co-participation, Loyalty, Mutual Respect, Interdependence and Confidence. If we make our team feel insecure and disrespected, if we lead based in fear and control, it is the first step to failure, it is an illusion to think we can achieve success dealing with others that way and it promotes a sick environment. As I said I’m not an expert on this area, I’m not a leader, that’s why I simply work with those who stand with me, we work together, we trust each other’s and once again it is nothing new, this is something we learned from the school of Human Relations, the Mayo Theory (Elton Mayo 1880-1949) that gain force after the great depression of 1929. My perception is that we can really make it different by strengthening the recognition of the importance of human relationships. Thank you References Almeida, João Ferreira de et al. (1994), Exclusão Social: factores e tipos de pobreza em Portugal. Oeiras. Celta Editora. (2nd edition). Belchior-Rocha, Helena (2015). Serviço Social e Ambiente: sustentabilidade ecológica de comunidades socialmente vulneráveis. PhD Thesis, Lisboa Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. Bourdieu, Pierre. (2006). As estruturas sociais da economia. Porto. PT: Campo das Letras. Luhmann, N. (1995). Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Innerarity, Daniel. (2012). The Future and its Enemies. Redwood City. Stanford University Press. Stephen, Grosz. (2013). The Examined Life, How We Lose and Find Ourselves. London. Chatto & Windus.
Agradecimentos/Acknowledgements
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Palavras-chave
Change,Leadership,Covid 19
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