Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Return of Wisdom and Common Sense

I don't know exactly when wisdom, in academic lingo, and common sense, from my perspective, left our culture. However, I can pinpoint exactly the moment I became aware of it - it was the day someone stood up in a national sales meeting and defined "Total Quality" for all the "dummies" in attendance. Shocked at the time, I had no idea what to make of this concept, which appeared to be common sense to me. Little did I know that things would go downhill from there. The culmination of these ideas was the use of "Six Sigma" for new product development in yet another company.

And now we are legislating for "dummies" as well, instead of encouraging common sense and rewarding wisdom, we are passing a plethora of unnecessary laws - but that is a merely personal musing - outside this blog conversation. It is happening more and more as this recession continues and there is less to take note of concerning the built environment.


Barry Schwartz inspired me with his book, "The Paradox of Choice" and now he is once again in the forefront of bringing wisdom
back to its proper place in our culture with this short lecture. A fiasco like the Wall Street meltdown could have been mitigated or avoided if more people had acted on principles of practical wisdom, Barry Schwartz argues. Here he gives diagnosis and prescription for a society that has, in part, lost touch with wisdom.

There are more small signs that wisdom is returning. 3M, the company that both survives and thrives, on new product innovation is featured in an article in
Forbes,"3M's Innovation Revival" and mentions how the executive brought in from GE had reduced their sales of new product from 30% to 21% overall in the year's that he ran the company with his heavy emphasis on "Six Sigma." Like ex-GE executives in building materials, his fixes were all short term. George Buckley, the new chairman and CEO has returned new products to their rightful place - back up to 30%. A wise man indeed!

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