The following is another in a new series of columns that will provide answers to small business questions. The new question and answer column is written by Dr. Leonard Bertain, Ph.D., the president of The Bertain Consulting Group of Oakland, CA a consulting firm specializing in the improvement of business processes and business re-engineering. Dr. Bertain's book, "The New Turnaround", contains a fictionalized character known as "Dr. Elbie". Should you have a question regarding business management issues, write or fax them to Dr. Elbie, Bertain Consulting Group, 3758 Grand Ave., Suite 25, Oakland, CA 94611, phone (510) 653-6355 or lbertain@bertain.com Dear Dr. Elbie: As a follow-up to last month's column, I was intrigued by the Scientific Paradigm. You mentioned that you were going to give some analogies to help us understand some analogies of Science that are appropriate to business. Signed. Help me. Comment: In the last column, I mentioned the term, Scientific Paradigm. A number of readers called and asked if I could define a "paradigm" for them. In fact, they wanted me to define "scientific paradigm" for them as well. I begin by borrowing a definition from A. Smith in Powers of the Mind, page 19, in which he defines a paradigm to be "...a shared set of assumptions." The paradigm is the way we perceive the world; water to the fish. The paradigm explains the world to us, helps us to predict its behavior. Carrying on to another definition from Joel Barker, The Future Edge, page 32, in which he defines a paradigm to be, "...a set of rules and regulations (written or unwritten) that does two things: it establishes or defines the boundaries; and it tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful." A dictionary definition: a set of rules, a model, a pattern. I tend to view the paradigm as a set of lenses that influence the way we look at the world and the way we solve problems, the paradigm influences our perspective of the world. Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, page 10 (1962) defines a Scientific Paradigm to be "...accepted examples of actual scientific practice, examples of which include law, theory, application, and instrumentation together - (that) provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research." As a general statement, we solve problems differently with the rules of different paradigms. The Scientific Paradigm relies on the analogies of science to business to aid the understanding of how organizations work. Consider the following analogies: The Second law of Thermodynamics - In a closed system, entropy increases while energy is reduced, and conversely. The entropy measures the level of disorder in a system. The analogy tells us in closed physical systems, which is what organizations are, then when energy is added to the system, entropy will be reduced. One form of energy is any program that gets the employees excited about their jobs: Quality circles, re-engineering, TQM and VAP. These programs add energy to the organization and therefore reduce entropy. On the flip side, we find that management's lack of attention to an organization will lead to lost energy which equates to increased entropy and therefore increased disorder. We see this all the time. The solution: managers need to keep pouring energy into the company to keep it from falling into the chaos of disorder. The QuantumLeap - This is an interesting analogy because as the name implies, energy is absorbed in quanta. We have found that the first absorption occurs when any change program is introduced. The company absorbs quanta of energy as measured by the employees increased energy and a new corporate energy level is reached. If we do nothing, the organization will decay back to its old energy state prior to the quanta absorption as employees lose enthusiasm for the change program. In quantum mechanics, we call this a return to the ground state. Now here is where the quantum leap occurs. As the CEO drives the organization's change process, he/she pushes for action. This action drives the organization to a new energy level as the employees see that there is a renewed effort to keep the change process going. The company absorbs energy from this renewed vigor and, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, order is restored. When it reaches the new first metastable energy level, the organization is now ready for additional change. But it is in an unstable state. When a new source of energy is supplied to the organization while in this metastable state, a stable organization is possible. If we don't figure out a way to move the organization to the second level of energy, we will end up with a "ground state organization" and have to start over again. Companies do this, again and again. They excite the employees with hopes of change and then dash those hopes with failure to deliver. Our goal is to deliver a High Profit Work Organization. And we do with VAP. This is the business version of the quantum leap phenomenon. More analogies will follow next month. "NO BLAME" is a registered trademark of The Bertain Consulting Group. Dr. Elbie's Corner is copyrighted by Leonard Bertain, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. Dr. Elbie's Corner is a monthly article published by the Bertain Consulting Group, in the CEO University Website @ Bertain.com or CEOU.com. This article is reprinted from September 1996.