Postmodernism, when an attempt is made to adopt it as a functioning body of practical and life-sustaining ideas, leads to a form of cognitive impairment and debilitation.
Postmodernism is a body of ideas loosely packaged together and set forth to purposefully attack and fracture rational and scientific metaphysics and epistemology, leaving mankind damned to a lifetime struggle against absurdity, chaos, submission, and sublimation of the individual into the collective.
Postmodernism as a skeptical philosophy and ideology is all the rage in today’s culture and is becoming increasingly mainstream as people begin to pay attention to the causes of the confusing absurdities and disconcerting destabilizing events playing out in our political institutions, media, universities, communities, workplaces, and perhaps even our own households.
A plan is just a road map or compass to get you from one place to another. It need not be overly complicated, but it needs to be detailed enough to serve its purpose. Anything done long-term requires a plan to guide thinking and outline intentions and boundaries for employees in getting work done and serving the larger business purpose and objectives.
Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) is an easy to read and beautifully written cautionary dystopian tale of how quickly and easily totalitarianism can destroy the freedom we take for granted.
A strategic plan is an essential management process and tool. It significantly contributes to organizing the thinking and actions required to ensure a valued and profitable use of resources sufficient to sustain and enhance the profitability and continued existence of the business or organization.
Strategy is the roadmap for success. It is an articulated expression of what the organization strives to achieve, and how it will go about doing so.
It is a common perspective amongst leaders that an organizational statement of purpose must be short, memorable and motivating like the world’s greatest marketing slogans or brand tag lines. What these executives are never able to validate is why this is better or more important than a more comprehensive statement that explains and communicates the purpose of the business.
The key to benefitting from failure does not reside in failing. Failing is not a virtuous act.
Throughout his roughly forty-five-year career, from Kansas City, Missouri, to California and Florida, Walt Disney marched towards a higher vision of possibility and actuality as seen in contrast to the “failed” solutions of business and urban planning conventions. He was an innovator.
In the right context and when appropriately framed, the identification of failure is one the best way to scout out and identify the possibilities for improvement. To the keen entrepreneurial eye, the failure of others can shine light on potential opportunities.
There is a strange idea that has been floating around the world of management for the past few decades. It is this: failure is good and should be both encouraged and embraced.