{"id":4633,"date":"2010-07-26T00:36:29","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T07:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4633"},"modified":"2010-07-26T13:31:39","modified_gmt":"2010-07-26T20:31:39","slug":"conventional-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4633","title":{"rendered":"Conventional Wisdom?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have been lucky enough to witness (and in some cases be a part of) several overturns of conventional wisdom.\u00a0 I remember hearing how quality \u201ccosts money\u201d and \u201cwe can\u2019t afford higher quality.\u201d\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s common to think about quality and value perception strategically.<\/p>\n

I remember working with factory schedulers where they were driven by measures, such as utilization % and unit cost allocations, to build massive amounts of inventory (some of the consequences of which were quality problems!).\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s common to use Just-In-Time and Theory of Constraints concepts in production planning.<\/p>\n

Our US auto industry is emblematic for this movement.\u00a0 In the early and mid \u201880s I was working with several automotive companies.\u00a0 At this point, the domestic industry still had a dominant market share (in the US), but companies such as Toyota, Nissan, and Honda had made significant gains in share.\u00a0 Remarkably, those Japanese firms weren\u2019t all that secretive in what they were doing.\u00a0 Yet, I saw opportunities to apply these techniques (many of which did not have Japanese origins) repeatedly be ignored by US firms.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, many of the “heresies” of the past are integrated into the standard practice.<\/p>\n

What could account for this strategic myopia?\u00a0 Lots of factors — perhaps years of being big and successful.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, these people were NOT stupid (of course, there are always exceptions — on all sides).\u00a0 Many of the talented were among the most adamant against the new ideas.\u00a0\u00a0 I wish I could say that I was very talented AND saw the new \u201clight.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, I was too naive and untrained.\u00a0 For me, the \u201cnew\u201d did not have to displace the \u201cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

“In the beginner’s mind there are endless possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.<\/em>”
\n— Shunryu Suzuki – Zen master<\/p>\n

As a consultant and project manager I’ve come to realize that the value my clients and teams receive is often due less to knowing things (but please don’t tell them), and more to being able to “see” new things — and a need to ask questions.<\/p>\n

Over the next week, let’s explore some of the ways we, as project leaders, are are encountering conventional wisdom that need overturning (or at least some improved interpretation!) and how we do it.<\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been lucky enough to witness (and in some cases be a part of) several overturns of conventional wisdom.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,562,1],"tags":[204,33,37,825],"class_list":["post-4633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-goals","category-procurement","category-miscellaneous","tag-change","tag-common-sense","tag-real-world","tag-reddit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}