Steven Unwin - C. Eng, BSc. (Hons). MCQI, MIET, MRAeS.Access to Excellence Co Ltd, United Kingdom

We live in a rapidly changing world yet our approach to change seems strangely static. We seek certainty and answers and appear to deny the uncertainty which must accompany change. At the heart of our approaches to change is the plodding mechanical application of tools based on PDCA which, far from creating future opportunities, are used to extract best practice from past performance. This is despite the fact that inevitably this best practice was achieved in worlds that no longer exist. Rather than a static view of the characteristics of good performance, we need to recognise that change not only redefines what is good but also rewrites the rules by which we identify what is good. In this paper I hope to illuminate some areas in which new thinking may help energise current quality and improvement approaches. The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. J.K. Galbraith .

Paradox, Paradigm, Thinking, Challenge, Change