Change can come with breathtaking speed, leaving a company on the defensive and in financial trouble when it’s forced to catch up.
Gary Goldstick, Business person
Paradigm (pronounced pair-a-dime) has become a cliché. Joel Barker in Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future defines a paradigm as:
…a set of rules and regulations (written or unwritten) that does two things: 1. it establishes or defines boundaries; and 2. it tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful.[i]
The word ‘paradigm’ comes from the Greek and means a pattern or model. A paradigm is the way we perceive our world. It can mean a world of difference. Fish perceive their world through water. We perceive our world through air. As Brand U’s, we perceive success, worth, confidence, and who we are by what we do and how we work. We perceive work through a set of paradigms, people, principles, practices, products, processes, and projects. Sound familiar!
Often, paradigms are defined in terms of a game. A game has a set of rules, which players must follow. The game often has boundaries such as a racquetball court, baseball park, or tennis court. The game also requires specific skills to compete. A professional baseball player runs bases; hits a curveball, fastball, slider, and fields a ball. Players keep score. The game score defines winners and losers. In Working It, we define the rules and boundaries of the Brand U game.
[i] Barker, Joel, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, Harper Business, 1992, pp. 32.