Redeeming the “Paradigm Shift”

Shifting your paradigm for the first time

Do you remember that day, the day you first read the phrase “Paradigm Shift”? I do. Once you’ve got past the awkward stage of “How do I pronounce this without sounding ignorant?”, you might have wondered at its meaning, or its source. Is this something from a physics text book or an episode of Star Trek?

I heard this phrase in the mid 90s, when Post-Modern was becoming mainstream, and the very cool management consultants that I was hanging out with were beginning to talk of post-post-modernism. I remember printing training manuals with a big arrow in the middle of the page pointing left to right, a list of “modern” traits on the left, “post-modern” on the right and a pithy explanation of the paradigm shift it takes to get from one side to the other.

This was no transition, no mere improvement, no change, this was something major, a shift in your paradigm, a re-framing, a re-thinking, a new experience.

What happened?

Then, as with so many great words in our language, it caught on. Excessive indulgence meant that the power of that incredible phrase became insipid through over-use. By 2007, the Independent classed it as “irritating workplace jargon” and by 2014, Business Insider listed it as “One of 26 Annoying Phrases You Should Stop Using at Work“.

Redemption

Now is the time to bring our friendly paradigm shift back from dark parody and redeem its true power. “Power Redemption of the Paradigm Shift”. Now that makes The Age of Ultron look like child’s play doesn’t it? As a managed service provider (MSP), your challenge with your clients is to shift a few paradigms.

Here are three:

1. Paradigm Shift: Break-Fix to Managed Services
   Even when you’ve been in the MSP world for a while, be honest, look at your clients and ask yourself how many of them still treat you as a Break-Fix outfit? Is value perceived by the amount of hours you are fixing broken things, or the proactivity and root cause analysis that prevents them even having to call you?
   
2. Paradigm Shift: Ticket Closing to Customer Experience
   Your support team do amazing work each day, but potentially your metrics are driving ‘efficiency’ at the cost of a contract or two, as the client is not so happy.
   
3. Paradigm Shift: Necessary Evil to Strategic Asset
   How frustrating it can be that your clients’ IT is often managed by the CFO, who continues to see IT as nothing but an evil expense threatening the bottom line, when you know that when technology is done right, it can grow a business? Driving improved outcomes (experiences) will help your clients see you as as an enabler of success rather than as an impediment to their daily work flow.

At IT Glue™ we have a paradigm shift of our own that we challenge you with. We understand that no IT professional ever took up their career to “write documentation”, in the same way that no NYPD officer joined the police force to “do paperwork”. Our challenge to you and your team is to join us and shift your paradigm from “we don’t have the time” to We ♥ Documentation™.