I'm reading The Age of Heretics by Art Kleiner. It's a pretty long and dense book, so it's taking me a while to get through it. But it is packed with tremendous stories about the theories and the work of some fantastic societal and organizational innovators. Some of them were already well known to me, but of many others, I just discovered their existence and their work.
I'm amazed by how much the theories, frameworks, and models shared in the book resonate with many conversations that are happening today on how organizations function. Yet, those stories are from the sixties or seventies. What is holding us back from applying such innovations? How come we have so many ideas, knowledge, and data about how we should work, yet we seem unable to transform?
I spotted a pattern that may explain why at least some of these innovators failed to make the impact they had the potential for.
At some point in their quest, all of them had a revelation. A moment in which a truth challenging the conventional wisdom of their ecosystem became clear and inevitable to them. However, like all ideas that challenge the status quo, it was hard to even explain it to others. So, the innovators created a framework, model or metaphor to bring their innovations into their ecosystem of organizations, institutions and experts. The model or framework immediately proved to have a high potential and created the first breakthroughs. So, many embraced and adopted the same model of framework. And that is when things began to crumble. Everyone focuses on the model, the configuration through which the new truth manifested into the material world. In doing so, however, they get more and more disconnected from that same truth, depleting the potential of the new configuration until it is discarded.
A configuration is a means to an end. It's how we manifest a new truth. When embracing a configuration becomes the goal, its transformational power is hindered.
When we decide to adopt a new configuration, we should always enquire about our true motives. Who do we want to become by using that configuration? What new reality do we want to manifest? What beliefs are driving our journey?