The Business of Paradigms

Mar 21
07:41

2010

RJ Sullivan

RJ Sullivan

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Joel Barker has championed the idea that paradigm change and the ability to adapt to it drives business.

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The Business of Paradigms and The New Business of Paradigms are the work of noted futurist Joel Arthur Barker. Mr. Barker's pioneering work on the concept of paradigms has earned him the nickname - "The Paradigm Man" and has made him famous throughout the world. He began his work in 1975 popularizing the concept of paradigm shifts to explain profound change and the importance of vision to drive change within organizations.

Barker outlines how organizations need to innovate and change in order to prosper and in some cases survive. He explains how people and organizations can overcome their fear of change and,The Business of Paradigms Articles in turn, embrace it. The rules we live by can hold back our ability to be innovative and creative. The idea that successful strategies from the past will lead to future success is increasingly becoming false. If we don't create new paradigms our organizations will stagnate and eventually fail. In example after example, Joel demonstrates how thinking differently is necessary for us to grow personally and as organizations.

The Swiss watch industry and the Japanese electronics industry are just a few of the companies and industries detailed in the video. In 1968, the Swiss dominated the watch industry producing 65% of the watches in the world and 80% of the profits, however just ten years later they had only a 10% market share. What happened? Their own researchers invented the electronic (Quartz) watch and the Swiss executives rejected it. The Japanese on the other hand saw a new paradigm with this technology and took over the market that the Swiss dominated with the technology that the Swiss themselves invented. The Swiss were so sure that electronics were not the future of watch making that they didn't even protect their own invention with a copyright.

The electronic watch paradigm wasn't the only paradigm that the Japanese were forward thinking enough to adopt. Mr. Barker describes how at one time the Japanese were widely known for their cheap and unreliable products, but then they actively sought to change this paradigm with the works of Dr. Edwards Deming and Six Sigma. While the rest of the world was widely ignoring this new paradigm of quality, the Japanese were changing their reputation and getting a huge jump-start on the rest of the world. By the time they realized their mistakes, companies around the globe had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to catch up - an expensive mistake.

Joel Barkers unique style and passion will work well in any organization. His examples in The Business of Paradigms will motivate you to explore change and to look for paradigm shifts in your industry. The program has been used in thousands of organizations around the world and will continue to be a valuable tool for people around the world for years to come.