success is coming from the atypical organizations, the ones that can get back to embracing irreplaceable people, the linchpins, the ones that make a difference. Anything else can be replicated cheaper by someone else.

The usual mantra is to 'try harder'. Trying harder is impossible when you're already trying as hard as you can.

But you can always try different.

…

If it's not working, harder might not be the answer.

Jared Diamond's explanation for how societies collapse includes a healthy does of "mindset myopia." Societies vanish because their mindsets preclude them from seeing reality as it is.
Second, because I just got back from Detroit, where I saw mindset myopia first hand, up close and personal.
It's hard to imagine a high-ranking official of what they still call "The Big 3" in Detroit standing up in front of a crowd of intelligent, well-informed business people and telling them with a straight face that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that the worst is behind us, and that the economy--and the auto industry--will all go back to the way things were before the Great Recession. It's hard to imagine such an executive making fun of sustainable energy, mocking it really, as a false direction to pursue. It's hard to image such an executive suggesting that the U.S. auto industry is poised for a great year, a big rebound, a return to the glory days.
But that's what I heard with my own ears.
Now I didn't do a survey of the people in the audience. But if any of them were buying what he was selling, well, I would consider that prima facie evidence of mindset myopia.
You can't make people see what they assiduously want to avoid. You can't make them see what their mindsets rule out as possible.
The story is told that when the first Black Ships approached Japan, the Japanese announced that dragons were off shore. Their mindsets allowed for the existence of dragons, but not of Black Ships.

Those who can solve the problems and find the answers are essential. There is, however, another group who is as valuable - if not more valuable. They are the ones who ask the right questions.

...

I am beginning to understand that we can never find an answer to a question which has not been asked.

If you run a big factory, of course you need control. Control over when your workers come in, what they do, what they make, what happens to your inventory, where it's sold, how it's priced, everything. More control equals more profits, at least if the market is stable.

But if your business deals in ideas, control will stifle them. If your organization deals with the public, control will inevitably alienate your best customers. When United Airlines tries to control the way customers deal with their policies, they end up with United Breaks Guitars, not profits or market share.

Worse still, a rapidly changing competitive environment means that control is a losing strategy. Record companies tried to control technology and they lost. AT&T thought they could control how people used a telephone and they lost as well.

Is there any doubt that the world is going to go faster, not slower? Any doubt that non-state actors are going to have more influence on world affairs than ever before? Any doubt that technology will continue pushing us along a slippery slope where control is not a winning strategy?

GODIN: How do we get people to bring their artist to work?

PINK: Stop treating people like horses and start treating them like human beings. Instead of trying to bribe folks with sweeter carrots or threaten them with sharpen sticks, how about giving them greater freedom at work, allowing them to get better at something they love, and infusing the workplace with a sense of purpose? If we tap that third drive more fully, we can rejuvenate our businesses and remake our world.

The essence of good leadership

This is a time of challenge and a time for experiment. It is a time to put existing pedagogies, practices, and educational philosophies in question and to construct new ones. It is a time for new pedagogical experiments to see what works and what doesn’t work. It is a time to reflect on our goals and to discern what we want to achieve with education and how to achieve it.

Kellner, D.M., ‘Technological Revolution, Multiple Literacies, and the Restructuring of Education’ (in I. Snyder (ed.), Silicon Literacies: communication, innovation and education in the electronic age, London, 2002)

Industries are being built every day (and old ones are fading). The revolution is in full swing, and an entire generation is eager to change everything because of it. Hint: it won't look like the last one with a few bells and whistles added.

Consider this quote from a high-ranking book publisher who should know better, "We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that 'digital' means 'cheap.' ..."

Hello?

You don't have the power. Maybe if every person who has ever published a book or is ever considering publishing a book got together and made a pact, then they'd have enough power to fight the market. But solo? Exhort all you want, it's not going to do anything but make you hoarse.

Movie execs thought they had the power to fight TV. Record execs thought they had the power to fight iTunes. Magazine execs thought they had the power to fight the web. Newspaper execs thought they had the power to fight Craigslist.

Here's a way to think about it, inspired by Merlin Mann: Imagine that next year your company is going to make 10 million dollars instead of a hundred million dollars in profit. What would you do knowing that your profits were going to be far less than they are today? Because that's exactly what the upstart with nothing to lose is going to do. Ten million in profit is a lot to someone starting with zero and trying to gain share. They don't care that you made a hundred million last year from the old model.

Will P-12 public education be immune from these outside forces? I'm guessing no...

The education-reform debate as we have known it for a generation is creaking to a halt. No new way of thinking has emerged to displace those that have preoccupied reformers for a quarter-­century — but the defining ideas of our current wave of reform (­standards, testing, and choice), and the conceptual framework built around them, are clearly outliving their usefulness.

The problem is not that these ideas are misguided. Rather, they are just not powerful enough to force the rusty infrastructure of American primary and secondary education to undergo meaningful change. They have failed at bringing about the reformers' most important goal: dramatically improved student achievement.

The next wave of education policy will therefore need to direct itself toward even more fundamental questions, challenging long-held ­assumptions about how education is managed, funded, designed, and overseen.

Found via http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2009/12/the-end-of-the-education-debate