Break It Before It's Beyond Fixing

Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler. If It Ain't Broke...Break It! and Other Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing Business World. New York: Warner Books, 1991. 284 pp. $21.95 hardcover.

If ever there was a book Extension faculty and administrators should read, If It Ain't Broke, Break It! ought to be in the top 10 list. Like A Whack on the Side of the Head and Discovering the Future, authors Kriegel and Patler's newest book offers a wealth of advice that applies to all organizations, including Extension.

"Pardon the grammar," Kriegel writes, "but even if it 'ain't broke' today, it will be tomorrow." What passes for innovation today will quickly be obsolete tomorrow, since the life span of new technology is now about 18 months. Kriegel and Patler offer persuasive arguments why "leaders who stick with conventional formulas will not only miss great opportunities, but [will also] find their organizations struggling in the backwash."

This book compares "break-it" thinking to surfing. A former all-American athlete and pioneer in the field of sports psychology, Kriegel has worked as a "mental coach" for Olympic athletes and corporations. He knows what he's talking about. The authors present several rules for "catching any wave you decide to ride."

0. Passion rules.
1. No dare/no flair.
2. Expect to wipe out.
3. Don't turn your back on the ocean.
4. Keep looking "outside."
5. Move before it moves you.
6. Never surf alone.

Like other self-help manuals, Break It! advocates that passion is more important than intelligence, quality more critical than quantity, because you have to be willing to hear "no" a thousand times and still charge ahead with your unconventional wisdom. More than just appearing competent, passion and commitment make you outstanding. Once you put a "fire in your heart," you have to guard against the "firehosers"-those who try to douse your new-found enthusiasm and new ideas. Because change is disturbing, a host of people are willing to tell you what can't be done. You have to turn these kinds of people, and your own inner voices, aside and persevere.

Some of the authors' "break-it" thinking includes:

• Vision is more important than goal-setting. Rigid goals have rigid results. Goals only limit your potential. Forget goal- setting; get a vision.
• Try working easier, not harder. Get rid of "gottas" (as in, "I gotta read this book!").
• Mess with success. Don't bask in your accomplishments. Fix it all the time. Change when you don't have to. Focus on process, not success.
• Playing it safe is dangerous-for example, call a lot of meetings, send a lot of memos with Iots of c.c.'s, establish a committee, invoke "company policy." Take risks, not chances.
• Competition breeds conformity. Don't compete-change the game.

While most of the authors' examples come from business, the lessons still apply to Extension. They maintain that modern organizations suffer a corporate junk food diet of meetings and memos. The authors argue for cutting meetings down to 45 minutes or conducting meetings standing up. Their suggestions for reports (on postcards) are equally applicable to Extension. The book contains many ideas for streamlining our organization.

The last chapter deals with "breaking out" of the molds of "conventional wisdom." The authors argue our educational system was designed for the industrial age, "when people had predictable jobs, at predictable times, requiring predictable skills." Yet, since the industrial apex of the mid-1950s, our economy has been evolving into something else, but our educational system has remained stagnant. As problems in education mount, the more people want to rely on the old "tried-and-true" ways. The result, Kriegel and Patler say, "is an education system that is literally bound and gagged by tradition." Ring a bell for you?

Written like a workbook so you can practice the ideas they propose, the authors lose their initial sense of focus and tend to ramble. Even some of the chapter titles begin to sound a bit like trite phrases and platitudes, but the diverse examples from the business world provide the substance behind the catch phrases. Despite the lack of any systematic approach to "break- it" thinking, the book contains many practical, experience-based ways organizations can become more effective and pleasant places to work. Several chapters would make good reading for Extension workshops and trainings.