The first word is chronos, from which we get the word chronograph. As most of us will realise, any old clock or watch is a chronograph. It marks the progress of time. Chronos is about the linear progression of time, from today to tomorrow, from this year into next and from this point look back to. Most of us mark out change and development in this chronos time. We look for trends, for peaks and troughs. If you are into statistics or maybe accounting, you might expect to look at trends and be familiar with average growth or decline rates over time, the so-called regression to a mean and so on.  Chronos time is all about linear time. It’s ongoing time, the time that rolls on.  From winter solstice of the shortest day, to summer solstice of the longest day, from festival and season to festival and season.  From Monday to Friday and 9am to 5pm. It’s the time that might merge in the mundane of life and the time that rushes by when you haven’t enough or drags when you have too much. This time, I am calling chronos, with the same root as the chronographer, the watch you wear or the clock on the shelf.  You will know this time of pressure and wasting and linear progression.

You may be less familiar with the other time.  This is kairos time.  Kairos is the time of opportunity, the right time for this or that, the time when something breaks in and changes, the time that shouts, ‘Now!’.  This kairos time is not linear. It breaks in. It can bring or be a sign of disruption. It intervenes.

Kairos time is not so much about trend and progression as about the tremor of disruption that we need to respond to in this present moment, this kairos moment.

I think that in this present moment, where we are here and now at the end of a terrible 2020 and on the threshold of 2021 is a kairos moment. I think the time for change is now.

I want to invite you to join me in wishing one another well for Christmas and as we look for a new start in a new year. But I also want to invite you to look beyond chronos the time that wants a restoration of ‘normal’.

I think many of us know there will be no restored ‘normal’.The need for the new has broken in and disrupted our business as usual.  We are in a kairos moment and we have to respond.

How will you respond?

How will you respond in this moment?

Will you let us help you?

We’d love to.

As a business we’ve been preparing. Back in 2013, we first spoke about the changes that were coming, about increases in remote working and about the need to connect people to performance anywhere.

We have a product for this kairos moment, time of change. We’d love to support you as you cross that threshold from 2020 to 2021.

We’ve created tools to support you, to connect your people to one another and to performance. They are tools to integrate the assessment, development and performance management of people wherever they are. Take a look. They can be yours. And they cost less than you might think.

Have a look here: www.spiceframework.com

Now is the time!

Written by Michael Croft

December 22, 2020