Institute for Continuing Professional Development

Matthias Horx
Futurist, Trend-Innovation- Management, Vienna

"The Wisdom of Crisis – The Essence of Transformation"

In order to understand this process, we must also understand what the difference is between change and transformation. Change always happens under external coercion – as a result of turbulences in the economy, environment, and political conditions. Such events force people to respond, to adjust. Transformation really means something different. It means shaping and designing change proactively based on human insight. We want to develop choices as a result of our own perception of various possibilities. In principle, every human being and every society has a choice as far as the future is concerned. And instead of focusing on situations of increasing gravity and fear, we want to emphasize aspects of imagination and cooperation. We want to put the question in a different way – not why will it definitely fail, but rather how should
parents, the government, teachers and students work together to create a school that is able to master the future.