Boxology by Buchen Irving H.;

Author:Buchen, Irving H.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Adapter—The Cutting Edge of Constant Currency

Let’s call this one Sheila. Like Mike, Sheila values constancy except in her case it is that of constant change. If Mike leans too heavily on the past, Sheila is embedded completely in the present. In fact, she regards the new as the now of the future.

No one can match her busy and often dizzying gathering and cataloging of cutting-edge best practices. Totally on top of her game, she is a tireless researcher of industry patterns and those of her professional counterparts. A voracious reader of the latest books and articles and a tireless attendee at conferences, she endlessly drops off Xerox copies of handouts in mail boxes with the intimidating note,” Here’s what’s coming down the pike.” Or particularly after an intensely stimulating conference she will send e-mails identifying lists of dozens of sources and links that require immediate follow-up.

Sheila epitomizes the Internet and blogging. She outgoogles Google. Her drive is to find the best that is, adapt it to fit, scale it so that it is absorbable, and present it on a platter as a customized deliverable. No small or mean feat because that involves a savvy knowledge of organizational structure and company implementation routes.

What she offers is a kind of package deal not accompanied by any internal depth analysis or diagnostics except that justified by what others have found, what they are doing with success, and what therefore can accrue to us. The problems and problem-solving processes identified and endorsed are whatever are the current preoccupations of the industry and the latest business analysts. And when new solutions appear on the horizon, she is quick to offer the more current replacement backup. As savvy survivors, evolution is our mantra and adaptation our salvation.

Clearly the Sheilas are preferable to the Mikes. At least we are not driving forward while looking in the rearview mirror. To be sure, her total championing of the new is often oppressive and undifferentiated. She herself is not a researcher; nor does she call for such originality or require it of herself.

Her exclusive strategy is to run the company’s s nightly news program and to be consoled by its regular presentation of reality. But such truth telling may embody a number of major shortcomings or trade-offs.

The external becomes not only a substitute for the internal, but also the inside is systematically emptied to the point where all that remains is an operating top of Sheilas and an adjunct force of order takers. Outsourcing becomes the ultimate model of total adaptation.

But imitation is not innovation. Although dizzying in number, choice is still determining; and choices driven by currency are typically short term, which may preclude later positioning. Above all, the quick and multiple fixes to insure immediate survival fall short of the unique survival power of discovery. Every genuine breakthrough also is always a new business, potentially a new lease on life for your company, or if ignored, taken up by others and put you out of business. Finally,

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