Trying New Things

Caught a few seconds of the movie National Lampoons European Vacation and then looked at some Facebook pictures of a friend’s travel overseas. Interesting to see how we act when we are in a foreign location. Some of us become more conservative when in uncharted territory. We stay with the known and use the guide books and local knowledge as reference points. Others go adventure wild, perhaps feeling less inhibited around individuals that they are less likely to know or see in the future.

Where do we as organizations go to try new things? Do we have a way of testing new ideas while maintaining some form of control? How do we take time to review the way we have been doing business? How do we consider alternative views or different ways of looking at our assumptions?

In the April issue of Spirit (Southwest in-flight magazine) there is a one page interview with Stephen Covey. One quote he reflects on is from the president of Toyota who says the Detroit automakers “overemphasize marketing, design, and technology, but don’t focus enough on building a culture that makes people accountable to each other as a team, and not just a single figure.” This seems like a paradigm shift in corporate culture. How would you go about implementing this change, especially when the US automakers continue to try to design and market their way out of their failing business models?

How do we make sure we are looking at our organizations from multiple viewpoints?

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