July 21, 2003

The life cycle of a silver bullet
Posted by pegasus@jpbutler.com">Jason Butler at 9:47 AM -

Does your organization fall victim to the silver bullet syndrome?

In the 17th century, Europeans believed that silver bullets could kill werewolves. Today's executives seek silver bullets to protect themselves not from werewolves but from sliding profits, disillusioned stockholders, and lost market share. The silver bullets for our executives are those new management trends that promise to transform the way business is done. Examples over the decades have included Management by Objectives and Total Quality Management, while Six Sigma, Lean Enterprise, the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), and agile software development techniques are more recent methods earning silver-bullet reputations. Process improvement initiatives like these can and do work, but how they are implemented is critical to their success.

Here's a parable about the typical life cycle of the silver bullet.

What HR silver bullets have flamed out for you? Which ones have worked? Let me know, and I'll aggregate and post the results.

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