Otherwise won't assorted spivs attempt to visit the organization, unintentionally or intentionally derailing the work ?
%26quot;Only the Paranoid Survive: Book Preface (Andy Grove - Intel)
Sooner or later, something fundamental in your business world will change.
I'm often credited with the motto, %26quot;Only the paranoid survive.%26quot; I have no idea when I first said this, but the fact remains that, when it comes to business, I believe in the value of paranoia. Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left. I believe that the prime responsibility of a manager is to guard constantly against other people's attacks and to inculcate this guardian attitude in the people under his or her management.
The things I tend to be paranoid about vary. I worry about products getting screwed up, and I worry about products getting introduced prematurely. I worry about factories not performing well, and I worry about having too many factories. I worry about hiring the right people, and I worry about morale slacking off.
And, of course, I worry about competitors. I worry about other people figuring out how to do what we do better or cheaper, and displacing us with our customers.
But these worries pale in comparison to how I feel about what I call strategic inflection points.
I'll describe what a strategic inflection point is a bit later in this book. For now, let me just say that a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.
Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.
But strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.
You can be the subject of a strategic inflection point but you can also be the cause of one. Intel, where I work, has been both. In the mid-eighties, the Japanese memory producers brought upon us an inflection point so overwhelming that it forced us out of memory chips and into the relatively new field of microprocessors. The microprocessor business that we have dedicated ourselves to has since gone on to cause the mother of all inflection points for other companies, bringing very difficult times to the classical mainframe computer industry. Having both been affected by strategic inflection points and having caused them, I can safely say that the former is tougher. I've grown up in a technological industry. Most of my experiences are rooted there. I think in terms of technological concepts and metaphors, and a lot of my examples in this book come from what I know. But strategic inflection points, while often brought about by the workings of technology, are not restricted to technological industries.
The fact that an automated teller machine could be built has changed banking. If interconnected inexpensive computers can be used in medical diagnosis and consulting, it may change medical care. The possibility that all entertainment content can be created, stored, transmitted and displayed in digital form may change the entire media industry. In short, strategic inflection points are about fundamental change in any business, technological or not.
We live in an age in which the pace of technological change is pulsating ever faster, causing waves that spread outward toward all industries. This increased rate of change will have an impact on you, no matter what you do for a living. It will bring new competition from new ways of doing things, from corners that you don't expect.
It doesn't matter where you live. Long distances used to be a moat that both insulated and isolated people from workers on the other side of the world. But every day, technology narrows that moat inch by inch. Every person in the world is on the verge of becoming both a coworker and a competitor to every one of us, much the same as our colleagues down the hall of the same office bui
Would the existence of an organization need to be kept secret while it is doing valuable work ?
well you can have testers who are in fraternities, sororities, or secret societies, however, most studies are divulged to the overseeing educational institution or mental health institution or psychology institution, etc.
Would the existence of an organization need to be kept secret while it is doing valuable work ?
Actually, that is not as silly as it sounds ~ but there are always leaks and how you can stop that I have no clue, sometimes nothing or no one can buy silence :)
All things need to be in balanee.
Some places are so secretive they won't even tell their customers what they are doing. I know some writers who are scared to send their work to publication, because the publisher might steal their work. You can't sell your work unless you publish it.
I once had someone apply for a job, but they refused to send me their resume. The said they would bring it in when they come in for an interview...my problem was I could interview them if they sent in their resume.
Mostly secrets are kept because people over value the product they are protecting. This is useful and good. But you don't want to torture people like Apple's contractor did in China.
In business there is no perfect answer. Often success is not related to everything we do. So when someone is successful we examine everything and try and copy everything.
I know people who want to copy Richard Branson, only problem is that he spent many years being unsuccessful and only succeeded by luck (thanks to the success of Tubular Bells). What he did after that made him successful, but well it took years before he got there.
