The truth of the matter-- Part I

There are some things that could be considered indisputable but there are quite a lot of others that we rely on that are entirely disputable. We accept them as facts because they have always been accepted as facts. My point, and it is a point of others make who make scads and scads of money for saying it, is that we take entirely too many things as fact that are not. This is true a lot in business. Someone--a trendsetter usually-- says that using teams in business is the way to profitability, so everyone moves to using teams in their business. It becomes the new truth and everyone acts as if it is the once-and-for all truth. But there are a lot of studies out that say a reliance on teams is misplaced and can consume assets of a company that might better be spent elsewhere. But no one listens because the truth has already been established.

Or someone says that Six Sigma is the way to increase the profitability of a company and that GE had a turnaround in profitability because of it. So now everyone moves to Six Sigma as the new once-and-for-all truth and apply it to their business. But again, there are some problems with that that have been raised which suggests a wholesale adoption of Six Sigma might not be the best thing for a company. Six Sigma however is the new truth so any criticism will not be heard.

And there are many other programs and positions taken in business, government, the military and other organizations that are the same. They represent the once-and-for-all truth. And this is even true for science, a discipline that is supposed to give us the once-and-for-all truth.

Part II