A Point to Ponder:

"A common error is trying to change results by changing behavior.

When this happens, the change is generally temporary.

Although behavior causes results, it is a secondary cause.

The primary cause is the paradigm."

~ Thinking into Results, a progam taught by Bob Proctor and Sandy Gallagher;

It's a valid observation, for the paradigm is still in control of your perception and all that jazz.

Frankly, it's actually the paradigm you hold steadfastly within the vast and powerful real estate lobed between your two ears, for it controls your perception, use of time, logic, creativity, productivity, effectiveness, innovation and even your ability to make money. It has almost exclusive control of all your habitual behaviour.

Undoubtedly and unfortunately, it's embedded within the subconscious part of your mind. It either works for you or against you. The choice is yours.

The head honcho of the Proctor Gallagher Institute Sandy Gallagher sums up best:

"There's a very real enemy you're dealing with - we're all dealing with - one that's strategising against you, holding you tightly bound to the comfort of your current results - your paradigm!"

Change your paradigm, change your life.

It's likely that most of the readers here already know that the late Bob Proctor had also been a great fan of Dr Maxwell Maltz and the Psycho-Cybernetics classic.

As a matter of fact, one of Bob Proctor's signature seminar products, often designated as Paradigms and/or Paradigm Shifts, are essentially intellectual parallels to Dr Maxwekk Maltz's Power of Self-Image Psychology.

For the fun of it, and as a part of my usual creative juxtaposition games in the headspace, I have now lined up Bob Proctor's core ideas, as expressed in his three selected elegant quotes shown below, against Dr Maxwell Maltz's core ideas, as expressed in these astute observations of his:

Do you see the uncanny resemblance in key essence and delivery scope among them?

[Just remember, imagination or imaging also entails seeing in the mind's eye, and feeling is always fueled by belief!]

"A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment…

For imagination sets the goal ‘picture’ which our automatic mechanism works on.

We act, or fail to act, not because of ‘will,’ as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination."

" You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like.

You have certain mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent."

"Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a ‘real’ experience.

In either case, it reacts automatically to information which you give to it from your forebrain.

Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you THINK or IMAGINE to be ‘true.’... "!

What a synchroneity! Bravissimo!

A Point to Ponder:

"A common error is trying to change results by changing behavior.

When this happens, the change is generally temporary. Although behavior causes results, it is a secondary cause.

The primary cause is the paradigm."

~ Thinking into Results, a progam taught by the late Bob Proctor and Sandy Gallagher, CEO of Proctor Gallagher Institute;

It's a valid observation, for the paradigm is still in control of your perception and all that jazz.

DEVELOPING PARADIGM PLIANCY

What Dilip Mukerjea has talked about in an earlier post, entitled 'Paradigm Paradise vs Paradigm Paralysis', is basically the critical importance of developing paradigm pliancy as we navigate the 21st century.

In a nut shell, paradigm pliancy is just the purposeful search for new ways to stretch the mind & break out of the box, or rather, 'paradigm paralysis'.

According to change strategist/futurist Joel Arthur Barker, who first alerted the corporate world to the business of paradigms during the 80s, it's an active behaviour in which we constantly question & challenge our prevailing paradigms by asking the 'paradigm shift' question:

"What do I believe is impossible to do in my field of activity today, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change my way of doing it for the better?"

To me, as a model for change, it is analogous to 'Developing Mindfulness' as advocated by Dr Ellen Langer of Harvard University in her classic book, 'Mindfulness'.

Also, my sentiment is best captured in the apt quote by French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922), as follows:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

So, how does one develops paradigm pliancy?

First things first. For a quick start:

1) Seeing the old world in new ways:

- that's seeing the commonplace with new eyes, transforming the familiar to strange & the strange to familiar;

2) Challenging your daily status quo, assumptions & premises:

- that's daring to question your sacred cows & traditional taboos;

3) Making novel connections;

- that's bringing together seemingly unrelated objects, events or ideas, in a way that leads to new revelations;

4) Recognising new patterns;

- that's perceiving significant similarities & contrasts of objects, events or ideas in the world out there;

In the end analysis, considering the many similarities in outcomes, I like to equate 'developing paradigm pliancy' with 'creative opportunity finding'.

Recommended Readings, based on my personal favourites:

i) 'Future Edge: Discovering the New Paradigms of Success', by Joel Arthur Barker;

ii) 'Wide Angle Vision: Beat Your Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, & Rogue Employees', by Wayne Burkan;

iii) 'The Whack-A-Mole Theory; Creating Breakthrough & Transformation in Organizations', by Lindsay Collier;

iv) 'Breakthrough! The Problem-solving Advantage: Everything You Need to Start a Solution Revolution', by Debbe Kennedy;

vi) 'Business Blindspots: Replacing Your Company's Entrenched & Outdated Myths, Beliefs & Assumptions With the Realities of Today's Markets', by Benjamin Gilad;

vi) 'Thoughtware: Change the Thinking & the Organization Will Change Itself ', by Philip Kirby;

[Note: Wayne Burkan, Lindsay Collier & Debbe Kennedy have collaborated with Joel Arthur Barker in the past. From my point of view, their subsequent writings essentially help to expand our understanding of the paradigm phenomenon from different angles.

The remaining two works are great for helping to make the future a function of your renewed thinking.]

PARADIGM PARADISE vs PARADIGM PARALYSIS

Problems are birthplaces for solutions. The more difficult a problem, the greater the possibility for a creative solution. In being able to solve problems with fluidity and flexibility, we free ourselves from intellectual bondage.

An article in the New York Times (reprinted in the Detroit Free Press, P B1, January 3, 1993) reveals a typical example of ‘mind set’ versus ‘mind flux.’ The article tells us that a major reason customers defected from buying GM cars was that they compared the key entry system and the key ignition of the GM car unfavourably with that of a Toyota car.

Two keys are required for the GM car. One can be used only for the car door and the trunk while the other, only for the ignition. This is so that you can permit someone to drive your car, if required, and yet, keep the contents of the trunk safely locked away.

Furthermore, the keys work only if inserted the right way up. Such a system becomes exasperating, especially when fumbling for the right key and aligning it correctly when rushed, or overloaded with packages, or in the dark.

In the mid-1970s, Toyota introduced a single key that unlocks the door, trunk, and glove compartment, and also starts the ignition. An added bonus, the key could be inserted either way up. This innovation was copied by other Japanese auto makers.

More than 15 years later, however, GM had yet to adopt this idea. Apparently, they were not even considering the alternatives. This paradigm paralysis remained entrenched despite research demonstrating the overwhelming preference of customers for a single key.

This example is simply one of many where GM has been caught in paradigm paralysis resisting the forces of innovation. Other examples include seat belts, air bags, advanced engines, and transmissions.

But that was before. Today, GM has an OnStar system. With octopus-like tentacles, it is able to connect a car to the Web, provide directions to motorists, unlock a car with the keys trapped inside, and summon an ambulance after an airbag has been activated.

Further innovative moves include products that will track a car when it is stolen, and for sake of good order, eavesdrop on the burgler. Paradigm paradise at last!

Watch the Paradigm Shift

In 1968, the Swiss claimed 80 percent of the world market in watch sales. Today, this dominance has been eroded; they hold less than 10 percent of the market. This is because of the emergence of the quartz digital watch, a Swiss invention that was initially ignored by Swiss watchmakers!

A paradigm shift in wristwatch technology had occurred, but the Swiss failed to adopt this new technology because they were caught in a paradigm paralysis. Seiko and Texas Instruments happily grabbed the Swiss idea and made a fortune out of it.

Unsweetened Success

Up until the mid 1880s, champagnes were sweet and drunk at the end of a meal like ports and sherries.

Charles Perrier was a successful champagne producer in France. In 1837 he began marketing and selling Perrier-Jouët™ Champagne in the US, and between 1840 and 1870 exported over a million bottles. His success and fortune continued to grow to the extent that he constructed a $120,000 chateau (a lot in those days) in Epernay, France. The chateau featured six miles of underground cellars containing 8 million bottles of champagne.

In the mid-1880s, a family friend encouraged Perrier to produce a dry (i.e. less sweet) champagne, one that would not compete with the after-dinner sherries and ports. Perrier considered the idea and thought it was interesting. But why should they change? Who would buy it?

Though not the leading champagne company in France, they were extremely successful and were concerned that such a change would bring ruination. Nevertheless, they did take a risk and began producing a dry champagne. Although it sold slowly to start with, by the early 1890s it was out-selling sweet champagne.

By the turn of the century, over 1 million bottles per year of their dry champagne were being exported worldwide. Nowadays, virtually all champagnes are dry.

~ NWA World Traveller, 25, No.8, p.28, 1993

"Most people use a very small portion of their possible consciousness, much like a man who out of his whole body organism should get into the habit of using and moving only his little finger."

~ William James;

[Excerpted from the book, 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Please read my personal comments in a subsequent post.