The Death of the Old Business Model and The Rise of Soft Skills--A New Revolution?

by Ray B Williams

I came across a great article by Carol Kinsey Goman in the American Management Association publication, Moving Ahead (October 2008), in which she talked about a fundamental shift in the business world that is occurring today. Is it coincidental with the recession, or a cause or effect of it? One day the experts will look back and tell us.

Goman argues that we are witnessing a fundamental paradigm shift in business today because business dynamics have evolved beyond the model that gave rise to them 200 years ago, similar to when Copernicus discovered the earth revolved around the sun in the 16th century.

The forces behind this change--a global economy, the impact of new technologies, the power of the consumer, a focus on knowledge not industrial production and the changing demands of a new workforce--have threatened if not destroyed our past "truths" about leadership, organizational structures, and business strategies.

The model or paradigm on which all businesses have been structured since the industrial revolution comes from Newtonian physics, with its defining characteristic of a "machine like" metaphor, with our ability to analyze and manipulate the parts. Up to about 30 years ago, this worked well. But then economic and business predictions started going awry, and all kinds of practical problems couldn't be solved using the old model.

This paralleled new discoveries in quantum physics that showed the universe as being chaotic and not so orderly, which necessitated radical changes in our ideas about time, space, matter and cause and effect. This produced lots of shock in the scientific world.Today's business leaders are experiencing the same kind of shock as the old business model breaks down. Many business leaders, like many scientists remain emotionally attached to theories that have long since been disproved.

In both business and government, we are only just beginning to understand what it means to move from a purely analytical "objective" perspective to one that includes subjective, intangible and emotional aspects of business. For example, "quality" in the old business model is seen as an objective, statistical concept, focusing on allowing for numerical flaws. Today, that thinking has been challenged by people like Charles Hampton Turner, a professor at London School of Business, who contends that there is no product or service can be better than the people who produced them. He says quality derives from emotional issues and the relationships between employees and customers based on integrity and respect. As a result, productivity, innovation and quality depend more on the strength of the relationships and the emotional attachment of its people.Because the scientific and business world on which it is based, was thought to be a material world, it has ignored the existence of consciousness--of subjective experience and values, and non-measurable dimensions of emotions, relationships and creativity.

So the result was that under the old business model, mind and heart were separated from matter. This meant organizations lost their ability to engage in and profit from powerful, invisible forces their employees had to offer---attitudes, intuition, ideas, energy, heart, love--which are necessary for long term survival.

What does this mean for today's modern executive? The so-called soft side of business--often seen as "being nice", is a fundamental part of management strategy for organizational success. Now there's a paradigm shift!.

About Ray B Williams
Ray B Williams is Co-Founder of Success IQ University a company based in Phoenix, Arizona providing the most innovative products and services to help professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners be more successful in life and work.
Ray is also President of Ray B Williams Associates, a company based in Vancouver B.C., providing executive coaching services.
Ray has been an executive, management consultant and coach for over thirty years, working with leaders throughout the world. He is also a Certified Hypnotherapist and Master NLP Coach. Ray has written a number of books on leadership and writes a regular column for the National Post, Canada's leading newspaper.
Ray is in demand as a speaker, coach, consultant and author throughout North America.
www.successiqu.comwww.raybwilliamsassociates.com;
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