Managerial Obsolesence

I was just reading a book on design and the author discussed obsolescence In most cases something becomes obsolete when it no longer has greater utility than a competing thing. For examples, hammers are not yet obsolete. We have changed design of hammers to make them more durable and to relieve stress on the user. I mentioned in a post yesterday Henry Dreyfuss's approaches to design:

Safety, Utility, Maintenance, Cost, Quality, & Appearance.

These apply to physical things and processes. See his work at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dreyfuss

In managerial obsolescence it is no different. As we move through our careers we need to stay abreast of where our industry and profession are moving. We need to be at the leading edge. That requires a constant feeding of knowledge gained through books, magazines, networking and feedback from our customers (both internal and external). A good manager will constantly question themselves on these six approaches to design.

You can take your top services you or your team provides, listing them in rows with the six approaches in columns. in each "cell" write in the potential for improvement. When I have done something similar to this I have rated the services one things like: potential for improvement, benefit to our users, benefit to our team, and then is it a good fit for our team. You may see services that are no longer a good fit for your team that you will want to shed. Others may require you to "morph" yourself or our team to be at the leading edge.

Most of all remind yourself and your team that it is how we produce within these approaches that is important and what we did yesterday is unimportant. Everything is temporary - we are born believing in permanence but we live in a world of constant impermanence. Everything around us is constantly changing like waves in the ocean - the trick is to keep surfing and stay in front of those waves.