Jeffrey Baxter

Do you experience frustration with rigid structures in your organization? Has it impacted your company's profits? Has it prevented the type of agile business practices and innovative thinking that defines the great companies from the good? In a world that is faster, smarter, and globally connected, can the "tried and true" practices of the past sustain the competitive world of today?

Much like why we do not race 1960s-era cars in today's NASCAR, Jeff Baxter not only strips down the 19th-century business model to show the outdated flaws (such as the rigid, hierarchal, and policy-driven roles for workers and management, where creativity outside the strict job definition is discouraged and conditions for advancement skew more toward seniority than creativity), he also shows how new practices and new ways of thinking are reaping huge benefits for organizations. These new models allow for more agile and creative action/reaction in a competitive environment that management gurus of yesteryear would never have anticipated, nor understood.

Asymmetrical thinking is a template already used by many of the best and brightest leaders of business and nonprofits. Yet most leaders will stay in the safety of the well-rooted practices of the past because they lack the clear understanding of the immediate benefits to the bottom line. The question for you is, will your organization continue trying to win with that old race car?

Many of the problem-solving models we are familiar with are based on 20th- or 19th-century problems that either don't exist now or have morphed into something very different. A world that is real-time connected, is truly global in nature, and has threats or competition that flash up from unexpected sources is a world that demands new approaches to problem solving.

Provide great decision makers with even better skills and tools, and the sky is the limit. Yet, until people and organizations are willing to reevaluate the way they solve problems, and exploit these and other emerging tools and practices, they will find themselves falling behind in a world where learning and experience progress at an exponential rate.