|
|
VisionWorks' Breakthrough Solutions
Harnessing the Forces of Change
Breakthroughs and Breakthrough Solutions for the 21st Century Economy - March 2005
"We can't get to where we need to go
by incremental change. We must envision the future we want, define
the barriers, and create breakthroughs to make big steps forward."
Dr. John Ahlen, President,
Arkansas Science and Technology Authority,
and Co-Author, "The Keys to Growth in the New Economy"
In this quote, Dr.
Ahlen describes one of the key factors to success in the
knowledge-based, global economy - that incremental improvements are
insufficient in this new era of rapid change. Incremental and
continuous improvements are absolutely necessary, but they are not
sufficient:
-
You could have the most efficient buggy whip factory
in the world and still lose your shirt.
-
The Wright Brothers didn’t invent the airplane while
serving on an improvement committee of a railroad.
Over and over, we
see how successful communities, regions, and businesses understand
the forces of change in the world and create breakthroughs that will
move them forward in dramatic ways. As a useful exercise, think
about your own community, organization, business, or your own life.
Can you identify breakthroughs that took place that led to
tremendous progress? What brought about these breakthroughs?
- Futurist Joel
Barker portrayed breakthroughs in his work on paradigm shifts.
- Business guru
Tom Peters describes these as WOW experiences that can shape
expectations in an entire industry.
- Dr. Vaughn
Grisham, Director of the McLean Center for Community Development
at Ole Miss, documents breakthroughs in his great case studies
of ordinary people doing extraordinary things:
"I sometimes tell the story of this African-American school in
Dallas …
(located in) the poorest neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, [with] the
least-educated, highest unemployment, lowest economic level. They
began to look at their assets, and the principal asked the teachers
- what do you need to get better? And the teachers said "We need
better training. We need better education." The
principal set up a network for training with the very best private
schools in Dallas, Texas. We received the 91st percentile on
achievement scores, with no dropouts, no kid ever in trouble.
This is the kind of wow factor I am looking for."
- London
Business School Professor Gary Hamel makes a powerful case for
companies reinventing themselves to stay current:
"A recent Gallup survey of 500 CEOs asked them "Who took best
advantage of change in your industry over the past ten years -
newcomers, traditional competitors, or your own company?" The
number one answer was newcomers. They were then asked whether
those newcomers had won by ‘executing better’ or ‘changing the rules
of the game.’ Fully 62 percent of the CEOs said the newcomers
had won by changing the rules."
The cultivation of
rice in Arkansas is another example of a breakthrough - a
high value crop well suited to Grand Prairie soils. William
H. Fuller settled in Lonoke County, AR, and began experimenting with
his first rice crop in 1897. It failed, so he moved to Louisiana,
where he learned to grow rice. He returned to Arkansas, and with
his brother-in-law John Morris and assistance from the Arkansas
Agricultural Experiment Station, planted more acres in 1903. The
next year the Experiment Station planted 160 acres, and the rice
industry was launched in Arkansas. Last year, Arkansas farmers
planted 1½ million acres with a total value of $768 million.
This is the basic
premise of our new Breakthrough Solutions Program - that
communities, regions, businesses, and organizations can be most
successful if they seek breakthroughs when they address the critical
issues confronting them. Furthermore, community leaders can
learn how to effectively create breakthroughs, and this process is
greatly aided by the ten principles and strategic tools that we
include in our Breakthrough Solutions curriculum.
One of the keys to
creating breakthroughs is to ask the right questions. We have been
so focused on getting the answers that we have not always asked the
right questions. Usually, breakthroughs begin in our mind as we
begin to think the unthinkable and consider the impossible.
| Old
Questions |
New
Questions |
|
1) How can we keep
things the same? OR How can we improve our community? |
1) What do we need to preserve and what
do we
need to change? |
| 2) How can we solve this problem? |
2) What assets do we have to
build on? |
| 3) How can we do things better? |
3) How can we do better things? |
|
4) Who is our competition? |
4) With whom can we
collaborate? |
|
5) How can we
achieve our goal? |
5) What would a breakthrough look like for this
issue? |
| |
6) Who else in the country has achieved a
breakthrough for this issue - an extraordinary result? |
| |
7) Why can’t we do that here? |
Back to
Harnessing the Forces of Change
|
