Changeling

Here we are, doing our work, going about our business, making ends meet. And still our lives are guided firmly and patronisingly by the people in the smoke-filled back room. I know this, having seen many such rooms.

Transparency is anathema to those who are addicted to power and control. It is perfectly all right for a leader to take the reins which have been bestowed upon him and to use them well and openly. It is not so when you cannot see who else is guiding the reins, or when their uses are kept secret and undocumented.

There are a few tests in any corporate environment. Is work appraisal based on pre-agreed terms? Is every part of it transparent and open to critique and resolution thereof? Are salaries and compensations, bonuses and perquisites all part of an open plan, bestowed based on documented criteria? Is information open to the use of anyone who needs it? Is fair comment allowed? Is there, conversely, a preference that commentary be kept in smoke-filled rooms and not released for general discussion?

We see change to the north of us and to the south of us, change to the east and west. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. But even the tenets of the moldering and corrupt past agree that, in principle, people should be empowered by information and by the wherewithal to work out its best use – and the tools to implement such.

We stand on the cusp of worldwide change. Whether we elect to remain shadowy figures in the wasteland, or come into the light, will determine whether we become changelings or change-agents. While it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, it is also true that when one has been kept in the dark for a long time, the light makes a welcome change.

Feel the wind. Is it freedom that you smell? Or is it the blast of armageddon?