If there is anything that this turn of the economy combined with the social unrest in our world has made us realize is that business as usual is no longer the case. Some would prefer to be cliché by referring to it as “change” or possibly even “innovation”. I can assure you that thoughtless change or innovation will only further compound issues that we were attempting to overcome. This doesn’t mean no modification of behavior, rather it really forces us to ask some very hard questions. In today’s environment the questions themselves are more controversial than possibly some of the conclusions that may reached. When I first started composing this blog entry I was quite tempted to entitle it as “Really Hard Controversial Questions”. Maybe I will save that title and use it later…. just to give you the opportunity to think about these possible questions.
Alot of the reason why these questions are restrained is because of financial and social impact. Heaven forbid we be honest enough to raise up something that either requires admission or correction. Like many I am concerned about the world today. For far too many years we have been plodding along with our heads held high and blindly accepted what is, and not what should be. It might be the acceptance of inferior government services to accepting cookie cutter traditional educational approaches. If there is anything that we should realize is that the time is NOW to challenge some of these hard topics. It is especially important when these areas of concern are essential to our businesses, economy and our society. So in order to get everyone thinking I’m going to throw a question out that needs to be considered… “Why does the topic of outsourcing have a negative connotation?”. Is it because of the word or a misunderstanding the difference between outsourcing and commodity purchasing?
The question should stir interest, curiosity, emotion, ideas, and even dialog. It should never be viewed as something as having a right or a wrong answer. Life seldom has this level of purity. The exercise of questioning, drawing knowledge from the question, studying the issues and formulating new avenues is real education.
Until next time feel free to contribute your thoughts or send an email to me at jdurant@Int-IOM.org
