The paradox of Icar

Do you know the success that Ford manufacturer had at the beginning of last century with their innovations of production lines for the revolutionary T model? That car was recognized through it's superiority in stability and durability .Those innovations regarding the introduction of production lines of this car, increased the assembly process of this car, it doubled employees wages (compared with level of wages in auto industry at that times). Ford reached a speed of assembling a car at each 15 seconds! In a period of 20 years time there were assembled 15 millions T type cars, and the engine work reached a 60 million (million) dollars profit in 1916! Even so after a quarter of a century Ford began its declining process. Thinking that they did found the key of success, that being the T model, the decisional) board of the company rejected any attempt of improvement and any changes for the T model. It is famous the affirmation of Henry Ford: “Any colour is good for T model as long as it is black “. The declining process was diminished by the introduction of a new production line, the change of the decisional board, and the acquisition of Lincoln Motor CO.

Often, the power that some companies have, can attract some excesses that lead them into a declining process Icar -mythological character, flew so close to the Sun but his waxen wings melted and he fall into the Sea. The paradox is that his strongest advantage caused his collapse for corporations; many times the success leads them to a professional level, to exaggeration and to a exaggerated belief in their power. Factors that determine their success such as, specific strategies, the organizational culture, the work and operation systems regarding information’s, distribution lines, etc, if those are pushed to the limit they will urge the declining process.

The powerful trust at an individual level in the application of a recipe that worked in the past and which generated success and tenacity in its application can lead to losing interest in forward challenges. It cold generate cases in which managers "don’t know anything" or can not accept that things could work out great and in another way “and then they must be changed or re-qualified. The problem is not in their level of understanding but in their attitude level, and in a changing process this thing improves last.

In which way, like a manager, can I reword my working and my strategy, how much am I controlled by traditions and rituals? Why do I receive and offer always the same answers? Many times, at an individually level, appear the auto-sufficiency (which is popular even in sport) and the decrease of the ability to make comparisons and objective evaluations, and the decrease of the appetite for new and unknown things.

Often, at organizational level, the ICAR paradox works by frequent use of a strategy that was efficient and brought advantages in the past. This leads to the appearance of new competencies but of a certain kind, and especially it appears at people with a certain organizational behaviour usually obedient) which forms a monoculture that is not opened to new. Questions that appear at organizational level such as: what does the organization to assure receptivity of new things, questioning or the restatement of a question, the evaluation of the causes of success, the assurance of flexibility in acquiring new solutions, the creation of new strategies and permanent self improve?

At the beginning of this century because of the globalization process, of the new technology and of new the speed of information transfer process, ICAR paradox no longer appears like in the Ford manufacturers old period (only after 20 years of success), but only after that first success appears.

What kind of solutions companies have found against this paradox? Some of them did build themselves new departments of research -development, but this solution succeeded rarely. For example, any change proposition is suppressed from the beginning if it is not formulated by the specific department, but this department it is under the same organizational culture subordination, with a certain level of tolerance at new things. Even more, have you ever seen them to have certain targets for those kinds of departments? If this targets are not created, whatever those department are doing, "it’s ok ". If otherwise those targets are harshly formulated it’s like you would ask someone to be inspired at your command. There are companies that hire people that don’t have anything else to do than to come with new ideas. The solution could turn out to be good, but only if those persons have a special personality baggage: ingenious, annalist, perseverant and at the same time flexible, “capable to fight with the wind-mills” and tolerant to incertitude and with technical but also socio -human abilities, but similar “attitude profile ", is very hard to find, and some of those human characteristics are one against each other. So, most of the time those persons which “don’t find their place” will leave soon enough the company.

One of the most efficient solutions could be the creation of a new culture, that would impose permanent challenge for new things and self improvement such as the cultures ”JUST in TIME “ or “Total Quality Management “. These methods of cultural changing are very demanding instead, and many employees take those changes dramatically. The success of such cultures it is obviously met in Japanese companies where semantic difference between work and passion is very weak. For Romanian culture is very hard to accommodate with a philosophy of permanent improvement....but this is valid until a manager or a true leader will say "It is Possible… let’s do!".

Translated and adapted from Romanian language by Roxana Huzum.