REPLY SD Impact on National Government Policies (SD6131)

[Kim Warren Kim strategydynamics.com]

Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>
Seems likely there may be much more going on in public policy than
reaches the attention of the wider SD community - I find surprises pop
out of unexpected corners when people get talking. 

A number of problems about widening SD's influence seem to arise in the
Business SIG:
- maintaining client confidentiality, or protecting the advantage they
paid for
- not wanting others to steal our ideas, and then clients
- perhaps people are too modest about the work they do
- and then everyone is so busy too!
Could some of these factors be at work here too? 

There doesn't seem much alternative but to 'publish, publish, publish' -
and not to each other but to the wider world, emphasising the SD
content. .. but it is pretty tough to keep that treadmill turning.  

On one point, I feel a rethink is needed. Yes, the field has been
ticking over for half a century, and yes, the time-constants have been
pretty long. But the urgency of some things that need fixing means that
waiting decades for something to happen is just not acceptable. We may
have reinforcing feedback with current practitioners and activity
bringing in new blood - but if the outflow of people losing interest
exceeds this breeding rate I fear we sometimes go backwards [pretty sure
that happened in business applications around 2001-02 when all the big
consulting firms cut back].

So what puzzles me is why other great ideas do not have to wait so long
for widespread uptake?  In the business arena six-sigma, value-based
management, balanced score-card and other ideas took off within a few
years. So what did they and other successful concepts do that we have
missed?

Kim Warren
Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>
posting date  Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:43:56 -0000