North American companies often pride themselves on their ability to innovate and create exciting new products and services with great benefits for all. However, these same innovations often have an Achilles heel, for example, a design that adds unnecessary costs for providing or maintaining the product or service.
The engineering department that does such a wonderful job of providing...
"No man is an island, entire of itself." --John Donne
This article emphasizes the importance of seeking new allies, adding more resources, and accepting new ideas to adapt to irresistible forces as quickly as possible, rather than staunchly maintaining your independence and thus developing poorer solutions more slowly. Conservative desires to rely on old standbys and take few chances in...
Irresistible forces have a way of arriving at what appear to be inopportune times. This timing can mean that those who normally deal with new issues are already occupied with other pressing matters, and that budgets for new initiatives are already committed.
The result can be that a delay occurs in determining what response is appropriate. Having the same people deal with every important...
An enterprise can learn a lot about irresistible forces by deciding to look at trends, even if they have not yet had an impact on the company. To take this offensive action requires overcoming the defensiveness of feeling that you already know all the answers.
Having a program based on
(1) assuming that you don't know what the irresistible forces are, and
(2) being open to...
Drawing the right lesson from an apparent mistake can produce enormous benefits. The fact that you didn't achieve the result you wanted doesn't mean that what you did achieve isn't worth something, maybe even something more important than you started out after.
Consider the now-famous story of how Scotch Guard was discovered at 3M. Company chemists had been working on new chemical...
Leaders can set a good example for overcoming defensiveness. Tell people they'll be appreciated and rewarded for bringing forth issues that need to be addressed, and behave that way in reality.
If you are consistent in your words and deeds, you'll soon have lots of help in finding irresistible force situations that can be addressed. A CEO promoted one executive very rapidly, putting him in...
Companies can be slow to see the cause and effect relationship between a problem and an irresistible force that is creating the problem. In a budget shortfall, people search out cost cuts rather than the causes of the budget shortfall.
An excellent way to improve in this area is to change the organization's questions about what to do when problems are perceived. Instead of "How can costs...
Spreadsheet software programs often cause more harm than good. Why do I say that? They give people the false sense that they can project a profitable future just by putting a few numbers in place.
You can look at beautiful patterns of growth that rise smoothly into the future. Who wouldn't feel more confident after seeing such projected success?
But what do those few numbers reflect?...
When business conditions turn negative, take a deep breath and relax. Most circumstances are not nearly as threatening as they first appear. When dealing with the defensive postures that arise in an irresistible-force situation, a good first step is to ask how the changed circumstances could be turned into a benefit.
For example, a source of any budget shortfall anxiety is usually concern...
When your house is on fire, you call the fire department. You don't try to use a squirt gun to put out the flames. Similarly, businesses need enough expertise when the heat of adverse conditions threatens to destroy their enterprise.
One of the most interesting circumstances of the Gulf War was the Iraqis' burning of Kuwait's oil fields as they withdrew. These oil fires were expected to burn...
