This website covers knowledge management, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints, amongst other topics. Opinions expressed here are strictly those of the owner, Jack Vinson, and those of the commenters.

Out with the old, in with the new

A friend pointed me at thingamy because he is curious about its potential for his small law practice.  I poked around and thought there is nothing much new here.  But then I headed over to Sigurd Rinde's blog and discovered an interesting voice.

I particularly like his new year's thingamy manifesto.

Actually, manifesto? Well, more like a summary of reasons why we're doing the thingamy...

I don't want to repeat all eleven elements of his manifesto, but the big thread that I read throughout the list was "break the rules" or "stop doing things just because you've always done them."  Taken together with what Rinde appears to be promoting with thingamy, and I can see an interesting perspective on business and change. 

These "way we've done them" rules aren't always on the surface, but they usually come up when the system in which they are embedded starts breaking down -- or it gets changed from the outside (by an intervention, for example).  It looks to me like Rinde is advocating a severe purging process to STOP doing the mechanical things we've done in the past and move to something new.  What is the new?  For Rinde it's all about flow for today and the future. 

The connection that happened for me is that the TOC community encourages thinking about these old rules too.  What are they?  Are they still needed?  And just as important as stopping the old things, what are the new rules that need to be followed to make sure the business can grow and grow and grow?  In some cases, as Rinde is suggesting, the new rules are drastically different from the old.  But there will always be new rules.

I've written about this idea of rules and questions about change before.

Forget the Blackberry, get a Watermelon

Sin, thy name is efficiency