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Title: Paradigms : Business of Discovering the Future, The by Joel A. Barker ISBN: 0-88730-647-0 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 26 May, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.07 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A very important book.
Comment: For years I wondered why it is often very difficult to convince even highly-intelligent of a new fact or idea, no matter how much evidence there may be supporting the new concept. Then I read this book and learned that even intelligent people often find it difficult to even hear or see evidence for anything which lies outside their current mindset -- or "paradigm." Even great scientists and astute business men time and again fail to see or hear compelling evidence for new concepts that lie outside their current paradigm -- and, thus, significant ideas and opportunities are lost to them. However, in the present time of rapid change, we simply cannot continue to be held back by our old paradigms. This book is essential reading for those who wish to be able to cope with the rapidly-changing present and future.
Rating: 5
Summary: When Does the Next Paradigm Leave?
Comment: Since it was first published, this book has become a "must read" for those who are struggling to understand what is happening and, more to the point, what will probably be happening in the global marketplace. Drucker has suggested that one of the greatest challenges for any organization is to manage the consequences and implications of a future which has already occurred. I agree. However, I also agree with Barker that it is possible to recognize what he calls a "paradigm shift": a major change of the rules and regulations that establish or define boundaries, a change which suggests that new behavior will be required within those redefined boundaries.
One of the most important concepts in the book is what Barker calls "paradigm pliancy": "the purposeful seeking out of new ways of doing things. It is an active behavior in which you challenge your paradigms [ie the status quo, assumptions and premises] by asking the Paradigm Shift Question: What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change my business?" Have you asked this question? Do you realize that one or more of your competitors may have already asked that question?
Although the book's subtitle is "The Business of Discovering the Future", the fact remains that (back to Drucker) the challenge is to identity and then measure the degree of probability of various contingencies...many of which may have already occurred or are now in process.
Barker asserts that every organization must anticipate and then innovate to achieve excellence in an age during which change is the only constant. He suggests that there are five components to "strategic exploration": Understanding influences which shape our perceptions, divergent thinking which enables us to consider more than "one right answer", convergent thinking which enables us to integrate data while prioritizing choices, mapping which reveals pathways from the present to the future, and finally, imaging which (with words or drawings or models) documents what is learned during the process of exploration.
This is a business "classic" which will continue to be relevant so long as leaders of organizations remain hostage to assumptions and premises which are either already obsolete now or will soon become so. What about yours?
Rating: 2
Summary: Paradigms, paradigms, paradigms
Comment: Paradigmatically speaking, paradigms are everywhere in Joel Arthur Barker's pageantry to all things paradigm. In the end, I'm not really sure what this book does for you? It seems that Barker keeps the language annoyingly ultra-simplistic while trying to present the paradigm philosophy by repeating the word paradigm as much as can be linguistically saturated in the holdings of 211 pages.
Barker's concept that the most difficult problems in business are waiting for someone to come around and break all the rules and infuse new life into an organization and rewrite the procedural bible. And as soon as that is running smooth, a new paradigm is up for the offing. Along the way Barker even comes up with his own paradigm for the paragraph with these scant gems (mind you they are complete paragraphs)--
"It won't work that way next time around."
and the ever-succinct--
"The answer--Switzerland."
While he is busy rewriting the rules of English composition, Barker takes the time to hail the Japanese TQM revolution economic miracle and the eventual dominance of paradigm breaking e-publishing. The Asian market turned out to be not necessarily infallible and I can't remember the last time I wanted to read an entire book on a computer screen or LED screen. But such is the hazards of a futurist, that your future predictions can be steam-rolled ten years down the line by armchair pundits gazing through 20-20 hindsight binocs. It's not fair, but a warning is out there Barker's book is dated.
The ideas are good and well enough...don't turn a blind eye to innovation, seek out the voice in the wilderness, listen to outsiders, quality, quality, quality. But there are timeless books like Robert Pirsig's, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," that do much the same but cry out with skill and art through the lens of a story. Barker's work is thinnish, wanting for the meat and potatoes and grist of a bright idea worded well.
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Title: A Technique for Producing Ideas (Advertising Age Classics Library) by James Young ISBN: 0071410945 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert R. Updegraff ISBN: 0961320303 Publisher: Updegraff Pr Pub. Date: 01 June, 1953 List Price(USD): $5.00 |
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Title: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos ISBN: 0809058405 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub. Date: 18 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Future Edge: Discovering the New Paradigms of Success by Joel A. Barker ISBN: 0688109365 Publisher: William Morrow & Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Profit Zone: How Strategic Business Design Will Lead You to Tomorrow's Profits by Adrian Slywotzky, David J. Morrison, Bob Andelman ISBN: 0812933044 Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA) Pub. Date: 26 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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