A Crash Course in Paradigm Thinking Can you cross all nine dots in the above drawing with only four straight line, without lifting your pencil from the paper?  Give yourself a few minutes to try to solve this puzzle before going on to read the answer.   The puzzle is impossible to solve if you assume, like most people do the first time they see it, that there is an imaginary frame (as depicted below) around the nine dots. This assumed border serves as a boundary, or a limit to thinking. But this imagined constraint is in the mind of the problem-solver, not in the definition of the problem. Solving the puzzle requires us to change the paradigm, the frame of reference with which we view the problem. When we change our paradigm–our assumptions about, or the way we look at the problem–options that were unthinkable in the old paradigm suddenly emerge. The drawing below illustrates one of many solutions that become possible when we break through the assumed boundary. The puzzle points to an important concept for success in the 1990s: We need to break out of our paradigms of thinking if we are going to solve the problems facing its. The ability to master paradigms is a critically important skill for dealing effectively with an accelerating pace of change. A recognition of their existence is the first step toward mastering them. Paradigm Thinking 101: Water to a Fish The word paradigm comes from the Greek root, “paradeigma,” which means “model or pattern.” Adam Smith, in his book, Powers of Mind, defines a paradigm as “a shared set of assumptions.”  Smith writes, “The paradigm is the way we perceive the world; water to the fish. The paradigm explains the world to us and helps us to predict its behavior.” Paradigms are found in all areas of life. Futurist Joel Barker, in his book, Discovering the Future: The Business of Paradigms, defines a paradigm as “any set of rules or regulations that describes boundaries and tells us what to do to be successful within those boundaries.” According to this broad definition, zero defects, rock and roll music and Einstein’s theory of relativity all qualify as paradigms. A new paradigm gives rise to new possibilities. Technological advances–for example, fire, the wheel, the telescope, the steam engine, the airplane and the atomic bomb–often open the way to new paradigms. Social paradigms dictate our behavior and collective values. In the environmental paradigm of the 1950s, the rule was “throw it anywhere, it will go away,” and smokestacks billowing black smoke were a proud symbol of productivity Medical paradigms determine how we think about our bodies. Over the years, Western medicine has identified evil spirits, humors, germs and viruses as causes of disease, and has designed treatments accordingly. While we are in a paradigm, we take its rules and boundaries for granted. It is what we call “reality.” Like eyeglasses with colored lenses, our paradigm colors whatever we perceive. “Most of our notions about the world come from a set of assumptions which we take for granted, and which, for the most part, we don’t examine or question,” says Werner Erhard, a consultant who has been dealing with the effects of paradigms since 1971. “We bring these assumptions to the table with us as a given. They are so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from them enough to be able to talk about them. We do not think these assumptions, we think front them.” Expressions such as -that’s impossible,” or “that’s not the … Continue reading Breaking Out of The Box – Werner Erhard on Performance Management