Rule#1 When the world goes flat—and you are feeling flattened—reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself

EDT 646 Spring 2006

Assignment VII: Seven Rules

2-28-06

In the tenth chapter of The World is Flat Friedman presents seven rules which companies in the flattening world must follow in order to maintain success. He quotes his economics tutor’s saying “Everyone wants economic growth, but nobody wants change.” Essentially meaning, the biggest challenge now faced by a company is determining what and how to change in order to maintain competitiveness in a new flat world.

Rule#1

When the world goes flat — and you are feeling flattened — reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don’t try to build walls.

Using an example of an audiovisual production company from Minnesota Freidman shows that if you put up walls you will fail but, if you dig inside your self and find your unique qualifications you will succeed. This means that you must, as a company, find your core competency and focus on offering it as the unique reason to do business with you. By not doing this and staying in your old, walled, pattern of business you will only be able to serve those who are willing to live inside your walls with you. A prospect that most companies find is only a short road to bankruptcy.

Rule#2

And the small shall act big…..One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big. And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach farther, faster, wider, and deeper.

This rule is pointing out the fact that in a flat world where collaborations are readily available to companies of all sizes one should not be afraid of taking advantage. Whether you business is retail or service there are always ways to collaborate in order to both grow and serve your customers well. Additionally, because of the lack of complex hierarchy in small businesses they are better able to shift collaborations in reactions to market trends and are therefore better able to bring innovative products to market faster.

Rule#3

And the big shall act small….. One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning how to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big.

Learning from the internet model of commerce, big companies stopped trying to control customer options and allow customers to create their own options and opportunities. As the small companies are very in tune with local market trends, now the big companies can offer a similar level of service.

Rule#4

The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaboration within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation—whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing—are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.

This rule came be more simply stated companies will only succeed in the future if they learn to become experts in their particular fields and collaborate with others who are as well. By doing this a company can offer the best of all worlds to customers instead of sacrificing one area just to keep it all under the same roof.

Rule#5

In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients.

This again is pointing out that companies need to identify their strengths and niches in the global market. Further, this can not always be accomplished by just digging inward (rule#1). Sometimes, especially with large companies, a need arises for an outside expert to x-ray for strengths and weaknesses. By listening to these outside sources a company is able to collaborate with others (rule#4) and focus on growing the strong areas of business.

Rule#6

The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists—not to save money by firing people.

Friedman presents this which is yet another form of collaboration. If a company can outsource the areas in which it is not efficient then it can grow the areas which it has a niche. He warns though, that a company should not just outsource these weak areas to save money on them nor should it ever outsource a strength to save money. Strengths should be grown weaknesses given to those who are strong so growth can take place in strong areas.

Rule#7

Outsourcing isn’t just for Benedict Arnolds. It’s also for idealists.

This rule is saying that companies can choose to outsource labor to foreign countries in order to benefit poor people groups who are trying hard to succeed. This can then yield a dual benefit. First, the company can save a people group who are struggling to achieve success and second the company can get a job done well for a fair price.

Rules In Relation to Schools

Rule#1

This rule implies a school system should try to excel at its strengths or even improve its strengths in order to compete. An example of this is happening in Wisconsin. There is a Virtual High school being started in southwest Wisconsin and the local school districts are putting up walls and trying to find problems with the virtual school instead of digging inside and offering better opportunities in non-virtual instruction.

Rule#2

This rule when adapted to schools is saying that small schools should take advantage of advances in technology to increase course offerings. Here again using the WI example if the local school districts worked with the Virtual High school they would have access to a better variety of classes for their students.

Rule#3

This one is hard. I would say this is entails a large school district to give its students choices in both course work and buildings for attendance. Possibly this could as be seen in large schools offering a variety of ways for the same subject to taken, such as online, group study, or lecture.

Rule#4

As seen in rule#2 above if school learns to collaborate they will be able to better serve their students. Further this doesn’t just mean working with other schools, it could mean working with businesses and non-profits as well.

Rule#5

A large school just like a large business needs to have an outside source come in and take an objective look. By allowing this a large school can readily identify its areas of improvement and find methods for fixing them. This could mean outsourcing IT to another school district, borrowing a teacher, or just letting parents become more involved with decision making.

Rule#6

As with companies a school should not just outsource to cut costs. If for instance a school outsources its IT does it really gain anything. It may gain financial assets but did it loss the ability for teachers and students to learn from local IT staff. These factors must be taken into consideration when “cutting costs.”

Rule#7

Like companies, a school can work with both international and local needy people find tasks for them to earn money. For instance, a local school can utilize needed foreign teachers when teaching foreign languages and culture classes.

Rule Rankings

Rule#4
Rule#2
Rule#1
Rule#5
Rule#3
Rule#6
Rule#7

Ranking Reasoning

I ranked these rules this way because I believe that schools primarily need to look outside themselves, collaborate with others, and utilize better ways too reach out to their students. This collaboration is best described in Rules #2 and #4. Additionally, I believe schools need to rid themselves of their walls which while interrelating to Rule #2 and #4 is more directly related to Rule #5. Specifically, Rule#5 states the need of a school to open itself up to outside inspections in order to recognize internal problem(s).

I ranked rules #3, #6, and #7 last because I don’t believe they are eminent problems within school systems. Rule#3 seems to be fairly well adopted already in larger high schools and using Rules #2 and #4 could be implemented in smaller schools. Rule#6 doesn’t seem to have a great effect on tons of schools except in the small trend in outsourcing IT to larger districts. Finally, Rule#7; I just don’t see how this can currently be effectively implemented unless it was a class project.