What is Paradigms? When I googled the word “paradigms”, I had over 1,940,000 hits in 0.16 seconds. According to Wikipedia, the word paradigm comes from the Greek word “Paradeigma” which means pattern. Dictionary.com gives a better understanding of this word. It says “Paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline”.
Everyone is stuck in their paradigms. I see paradigms as habits. Humans are behavioral animals. I guess that goes with almost all the creatures. That is why most of the people are scared of change. When a person gets used to doing something it is almost impossible to break this habit. For example when a company start to lose money or wants to change something, they hire outside help such as consultants, because these consultants will look at the problem as an outsider. Almost everyone can point out someone else’s problem except their own. I think half of the world’s problems are because of paradigms. People are used to doing certain things from generations and they don’t want to hear someone else’s view. And if someone wants to change something it becomes a problem and one thing leads to another.
That reminds me of a story that I once heard about a king and his two guards. Young Prince became a king and he noticed every time he went to take a shower there would be two guards posted outside his shower. At first he didn’t think much of it but then he thought it was a nuisance since his palace is already guarded and he doesn’t need two guards outside his washrooms. So he called one of his ministers to ask him about the guards outside his washroom. Minister had no idea why they stand there only when the King is in the shower. Minister said that this has been going on even before his father was the king. So the new king decided to find out the mystery. He looked at the old archives and some days later he read that his grandfather used to get seizures and therefore he ordered guards outside the washroom to keep an eye in case something happened. After that this became a habit and this had been going on every since.
I remember when I first got Internet in 1996 and how it became part of our daily lives. At first it used to look so hard and I used to think that I will never be able to keep up with it. If someone had told me then, that I will get a BBA in Accounting and IT, I would have laughed hard. I also used to avoid doing online banking, despite the fact that I used to work in the same bank. My job was to tell people about Internet banking and I used to answer their questions and teach them how to use it. After taking several classes and especially Internet Applications, it definitely changed my paradigm. Now that I understand what goes on behind the scenes, I definitely feel safer. Now I use it from researching little things like buying a USB drive to look for driving directions to doing on-line banking.
PM1 course has definitely changed my paradigms. For example when I first about career as a project manager, I thought how hard can it be. It is probably delegating the task and staying on top of the tasks. But now I know that I was very wrong. Project manager job is much more then simple staying on top of the things and delegating the tasks. A successful project manager requires lot of experience, education, ability to deal with different problems and of course a good team. A project manager shouldn’t be stuck in his/her paradigms. He should be open to new things and should be able to think outside the box. This is very important while managing a project. Different project require different things and project manager should able to change his thinking hat in a blink of an eye.
Although my major is Accounting, I am glad that I took IT classes too. It will definitely help me in my career. Computers are everywhere. So might as well get used to them. As the old saying goes “If you can’t beat em’, might as well join em”. And that is exactly what I did.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=paradigms&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paradigm
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