In the business world, buzzwords come and buzzwords go, and most of them are about as forgettable as the latest slang used by the current crop of teenagers. A favorite from the 1990s, one that wasn't just overused but consistently misused, was paradigm shift. At that time, any small change in a procedure or a pro cess was labeled as a paradigm shift, but a paradigm is a model, and changing an entire model is always a monumen tal undertaking. A new model usually is difficult to understand and normally faces substantial resistance. When a new model is finally accepted, it lays waste to whatever came before it. Changing auto mobile production from build-in-place to the assembly line was a paradigm shift.
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