Time to Get Serious: Productivity Thinking for Executive Practice and Management Action

Systems Management Institute Press · May 1, 1993

It is time to get serious about a lot of things. Just look around for a moment. Problems and challenges are everywhere, even where they are not supposed to be. I remember a pleasant evening in Florida back in 1977 while as a young computer engineer having a conversation about the future with Bud Parrish of Systems Engineering Laboratories, we concluded that if the human race could make it through the 1980s without a nuclear nightmare, life would become less risky. We certainly were naive. The world is more risky than ever, and business and government leaders are hard pressed to understand it all. In many cases, experts offer opinions as solutions and fail to remind the public that they simply do not know how to solve many of this world's current crop of problems. After all, being a human being is difficult. We are paradoxical creatures - forward living and backward thinking.

Today, many consultants and experts talk about "the paradigm shift" in business, government and science. They argue that as the 21st century approaches, new forms of business organization and corporate and government leadership are required to offer hope of human progress in the decades ahead. Indeed, some argue that executives are transforming the business corporation into a learning organization via a new organizational model that is evolving from the expanded paradigm implicit in system thinking. Others refer to the organic or biological perspective as the more appropriate model for describing the human condition, be it in government, busines