Streets of Moscow and Readiness for Change
I”m someone who loves the new and novel. My preferences in the arts tend toward adventurous and experimental. I try to perform jazz, an improvisational art form, and I sometimes use theater improv in my work.
But here I am walking the streets of Moscow (something I love to do when I first visit a city) and feeling a bit uneasy. I walk aimlessly, so far so good, and then I check my map. The map is written in Western type and the street signs use the Cyrillic alphabet. There seems to be no link between the two. I come to a huge center for the arts. This should be catnip for me, but I can’t tell if this is the Moscow Center for the Arts, the Bolshoi, or what. I see pictures of artists, but I can’t read the announcements. Who is performing? What are they performing? When will these events happen? Not a clue. In other cities I find familiar words or even snippits of words that allow me to begin to make sense of what I am seeing.
I continue walking and notice how some excitement builds as I see a McDonald’s sign. (Really, I am not making this up.) Or an ad for Nokia. Or a Starbucks sign. My eyes oepn wide when I see words on a sign in English, “Terrace Open.” I find that I scan the environment for what is familiar and spend less time focusing on what’s novel.
I find this search for the familiar frustrating, funny, and ironic. It’s as if one I figure what’s playing tonight, I’ll know significantly more about this new environment.
Thinking about this focus on the familiar begins to lessen my need to seek out every sign that I recognize. I grow less interested in the Britney Spears poster announcing a show and pay more attention to the posters that are unusual. Whew.
Makes me think about the focus of this blog (change management) and how this might relate to what I yammer on about. Stay tuned.
